Atomic Bombshells

In Atomic Bombshells, Isabelle Held examines the effects of military-industrial science and the emergence of synthetic materials such as nylon, silicone, and foams on the female body. Focusing on the period between nylon's emergence in the 1930s to the regulation of implantable plastics in the 1970s, Held challenges the typical narratives of how war technologies enter domestic use and the ways material science is entangled in notions of American femininity, gender, sexuality, and race.