Joan Hinton
Encyclopedia
Joan Hinton was a nuclear physicist and one of the few women who worked for the Manhattan Project
in Los Alamos
. She lived in the People's Republic of China
after 1949, where she and her husband Erwin Engst
participated in China’s efforts at developing a socialist economy, working extensively in agriculture. She lived on a dairy farm north of Beijing
before her death on June 8, 2010.
); her mother, Carmelita Hinton
, was an educator and the founder of The Putney School
, an independent progressive school in Vermont
. Her sister, Jean Hinton Rosner (1917–2002), was a civil rights and peace activist. Joan Hinton's great-grandfather was the mathematician George Boole
; Ethel Lilian Voynich
, a great-aunt, was the author of The Gadfly
, a novel later read by millions of Soviet and Chinese readers.
at Bennington College
and the University of Wisconsin. She observed the Trinity test
at Alamogordo
and wrote about it:
Joan Hinton was shocked when the US government, three weeks later, dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. She left the Manhattan Project and lobbied the government in Washington
to internationalise nuclear power
.
(1919–2004), a sociologist, had travelled to China
for the first time in 1937 and observed the land reform
in the communist-occupied areas. (He would thirty years later publish Fanshen about his findings, a book that became very successful in the US.)
In March 1948, Joan Hinton travelled to Shanghai
, worked for Song Qingling, the widow of President Sun Yat-sen
, and tried to establish contacts with the Chinese communists. She witnessed the communists gaining control of Beijing in 1949 and moved to Yan'an
, where she married Erwin Engst, who had been working in China since 1946. They worked at a farm near Xi'an
and moved to Beijing to work as translators and editors at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution
in 1966.
During the Cold War
, some Americans considered her to have betrayed the United States, as a nuclear physicist who went to China and took part in its revolution. However, what most Americans did not realize, according to Hinton, is that she and her husband were working in agriculture on a tiny commune in a remote part of China, without electricity or even radios.
On August 29 (or in June, according to another source), 1966, Joan Hinton, Erwin Engst and two other Americans living in China—Bertha Sneck (Shǐ Kè 史克, who had previously been married to Joan’s brother William) and Ann Tomkins (Tāngpǔjīnsēn 汤普金森)—signed a poster put up at the Foreign Experts Bureau in Beijing with the following text:
A copy of the poster was shown to Mao Zedong
, who issued a directive that “revolutionary foreign experts and their children should be treated the same as the Chinese.”
In 1972, Joan Hinton and Erwin Engst started working in agriculture again at the Beijing Red Star Commune.
In June 1987, William Hinton went to the town of Dazhai in Shanxi
province to observe the changes brought about by the reform policies, and in August 1987, Joan Hinton stayed at Dazhai as well.
In a 1996 interview with CNN
, after nearly 50 years in China, she stated “[we] never intended to stay in China so long, but were too caught up to leave.” Hinton described the changes she and her husband had witnessed in China since the beginning of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. They stated they “have watched their socialist dream fall apart” as much of China embraced capitalism. A 2004 MSNBC
interviews noted her critical assessment of economic change as “betrayals of the socialist cause.” She noted what she describes as a rise of exploitation in Chinese society.
Hinton lived alone following the death of her husband in 2003. Her three children moved to the United States, with Hinton noting that “They probably would have stayed if China were still socialist.” Hinton retained her American citizenship
, which she considered “convenient for travel.” Her son, Yang Heping (Fred Ernst) moved back to Beijing in 2007 as a professor at the University of International Business and Economics.
In her 2005 essay “The Second Superpower”,, Hinton stated, “There are two opposing superpowers in the world today: the U.S. on one side, and world public opinion on the other. The first thrives on war. The second demands peace and social justice.”
She remained active in the small community of expats in Beijing, protesting against the war in Iraq
.
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
in Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
. She lived in the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
after 1949, where she and her husband Erwin Engst
Erwin Engst
Erwin Engst was an American advisor to the People's Republic to China. He moved to China in 1946 to assist in developments in agriculture and later to participate in the construction of that country's socialist economy. He married Joan Hinton in 1949 in Yan'an...
participated in China’s efforts at developing a socialist economy, working extensively in agriculture. She lived on a dairy farm north of Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
before her death on June 8, 2010.
Family background
Her father, Sebastian Hinton, was a lawyer (who also was the inventor of the jungle gymJungle gym
The jungle gym, monkey bars, or climbing frame, is a piece of playground equipment made of many pieces of material, such as metal pipe or rope, on which children can climb, hang, or sit. The monkey bar designation refers to the rambunctious, climbing play of monkeys.-History:The first jungle gym...
); her mother, Carmelita Hinton
Carmelita Hinton
Carmelita Hinton was an American progressive educator. She is best known as the founder in 1935 of The Putney School, a progressive boarding school in Vermont.-Early life:...
, was an educator and the founder of The Putney School
The Putney School
The Putney School is an independent high school in Putney, Vermont. It was founded in 1935 by Carmelita Hinton. It is a co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school, with a day-student component, located outside of Brattleboro, Vermont. Emily Jones is the director...
, an independent progressive school in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. Her sister, Jean Hinton Rosner (1917–2002), was a civil rights and peace activist. Joan Hinton's great-grandfather was the mathematician George Boole
George Boole
George Boole was an English mathematician and philosopher.As the inventor of Boolean logic—the basis of modern digital computer logic—Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. Boole said,...
; Ethel Lilian Voynich
Ethel Lilian Voynich
Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole was a British novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. She was born in Cork. Her father was the mathematician George Boole. Her mother was feminist philosopher Mary Everest, niece of George Everest and an author for the...
, a great-aunt, was the author of The Gadfly
The Gadfly
The Gadfly is a novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich, published in 1897 , set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, a time of tumultuous revolt and uprisings. The story centers on the life of the protagonist, Arthur Burton, as a member of the Youth movement, and his antagonist, Padre Montanelli...
, a novel later read by millions of Soviet and Chinese readers.
Nuclear scientist
Joan Hinton studied physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
at Bennington College
Bennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
and the University of Wisconsin. She observed the Trinity test
Trinity test
Trinity was the code name of the first test of a nuclear weapon. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the new White Sands Proving Ground, which incorporated the Alamogordo Bombing...
at Alamogordo
Alamogordo, New Mexico
Alamogordo is the county seat of Otero County and a city in south-central New Mexico, United States. A desert community lying in the Tularosa Basin, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains. It is the nearest city to Holloman Air Force Base. The population was 35,582 as of the 2000...
and wrote about it:
- “It was like being at the bottom of an ocean of light. We were bathed in it from all directions. The light withdrew into the bomb as if the bomb sucked it up. Then it turned purple and blue and went up and up and up. We were still talking in whispers when the cloud reached the level where it was struck by the rising sunlight so it cleared out the natural clouds. We saw a cloud that was dark and red at the bottom and daylight at the top. Then suddenly the sound reached us. It was very sharp and rumbled and all the mountains were rumbling with it. We suddenly started talking out loud and felt exposed to the whole world.”
Joan Hinton was shocked when the US government, three weeks later, dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
and Nagasaki. She left the Manhattan Project and lobbied the government in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
to internationalise nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
.
Moving to China
Her brother William H. HintonWilliam H. Hinton
William Howard Hinton was an American farmer and prolific writer. A Marxist, he is best known for his book Fanshen, published in 1966, a "documentary of revolution" which chronicled the land reform conducted by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s in Zhangzhuangcun , sometimes translated as...
(1919–2004), a sociologist, had travelled to China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
for the first time in 1937 and observed the land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
in the communist-occupied areas. (He would thirty years later publish Fanshen about his findings, a book that became very successful in the US.)
In March 1948, Joan Hinton travelled to Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, worked for Song Qingling, the widow of President Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
, and tried to establish contacts with the Chinese communists. She witnessed the communists gaining control of Beijing in 1949 and moved to Yan'an
Yan'an
Yan'an , is a prefecture-level city in the Shanbei region of Shaanxi province in China, administering several counties, including Zhidan County , which served as the Chinese communist capital before the city of Yan'an proper took that role....
, where she married Erwin Engst, who had been working in China since 1946. They worked at a farm near Xi'an
Xi'an
Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province, and a sub-provincial city in the People's Republic of China. One of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history, the city was known as Chang'an before the Ming Dynasty...
and moved to Beijing to work as translators and editors at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
in 1966.
During the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, some Americans considered her to have betrayed the United States, as a nuclear physicist who went to China and took part in its revolution. However, what most Americans did not realize, according to Hinton, is that she and her husband were working in agriculture on a tiny commune in a remote part of China, without electricity or even radios.
On August 29 (or in June, according to another source), 1966, Joan Hinton, Erwin Engst and two other Americans living in China—Bertha Sneck (Shǐ Kè 史克, who had previously been married to Joan’s brother William) and Ann Tomkins (Tāngpǔjīnsēn 汤普金森)—signed a poster put up at the Foreign Experts Bureau in Beijing with the following text:
- Which monsters and freaks are pulling the strings so foreigners get this kind of treatment? Foreigners working in China, no matter what class background they have, no matter what their attitude is toward the revolution, they all get the “five nots and two haves”: the five nots—first: no physical labour, second: no thought reform, third: no chances of contacts with workers and peasants, fourth: no participation in class struggle, fifth: no participation in production struggle; the two haves—first: they have an exceptionally high living standard, second: they have all kinds of specialisation. What kind of concept is that? This is KhrushchevNikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
ism, this is revisionist thinking, this is class exploitation! [...] We demand: [...] Seventh: the same living standard and the same level of Chinese staff; eighth: no specialisation any more. Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!
A copy of the poster was shown to Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
, who issued a directive that “revolutionary foreign experts and their children should be treated the same as the Chinese.”
In 1972, Joan Hinton and Erwin Engst started working in agriculture again at the Beijing Red Star Commune.
In June 1987, William Hinton went to the town of Dazhai in Shanxi
Shanxi
' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....
province to observe the changes brought about by the reform policies, and in August 1987, Joan Hinton stayed at Dazhai as well.
In a 1996 interview with CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, after nearly 50 years in China, she stated “[we] never intended to stay in China so long, but were too caught up to leave.” Hinton described the changes she and her husband had witnessed in China since the beginning of the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. They stated they “have watched their socialist dream fall apart” as much of China embraced capitalism. A 2004 MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
interviews noted her critical assessment of economic change as “betrayals of the socialist cause.” She noted what she describes as a rise of exploitation in Chinese society.
Hinton lived alone following the death of her husband in 2003. Her three children moved to the United States, with Hinton noting that “They probably would have stayed if China were still socialist.” Hinton retained her American citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, which she considered “convenient for travel.” Her son, Yang Heping (Fred Ernst) moved back to Beijing in 2007 as a professor at the University of International Business and Economics.
In her 2005 essay “The Second Superpower”,, Hinton stated, “There are two opposing superpowers in the world today: the U.S. on one side, and world public opinion on the other. The first thrives on war. The second demands peace and social justice.”
She remained active in the small community of expats in Beijing, protesting against the war in Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
.
in English
- Joan Hinton: From a Farm in Sian: Letter to Anna Louise Strong (January 12th, 1963)
- Joan Hinton: The Second Superpower (Beijing International Peace Vigil)
- Rafal T. Prinke: The Booles and Related Families
- Li Jing: Beijing issues ‘green cards’ to foreigners (China Daily, August 23rd, 2004)
- Hu Hang: Chinese "Green Card" (CCTV-9, Rediscovering China, June 24th, 2005)—with photo of Joan Hinton
- Rob Gifford: Portraits of a Changing China—American Maoist Joan Hinton (National Public Radio, September 3rd, 2002)
- Caroline L. Herzenberg: Hyde Park Women in the Manhattan Project (Hyde Park Historical Society 2004)
- Charles W. Hayford, "Joan Hinton (1921-2010)," The China Beat (July 15, 2010)http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=2354
- Staunch Proletarian Internationalists and Anti-imperialist Fighters (International Network for Philippine Studies, August 1st, 2002)
- Robert F. Tinker: Science Standards: Promises and Dangers. In: Hands On!, (Cambridge: MA, TERC), v. 16, no.1 (Spring 1993) pp. 2, 17–19.
- Seth Faison: History's Fellow Travelers Cling to Mao's Road (New York Times, August 28, 1996)
- Andrea Koppel: Leftist Americans in China grieve shift to capitalism (CNN, October 1st, 1996)—with photo of Sid Engst and Hinton
- Catherine Rampell: The atom spy that got away American defector to Maoist China not happy with 56 years of progress (NBC, August 13th, 2004)
- Brauchli, Marcus. ‘To foreigners who sought a new life, China’s market reforms are a betrayal.’ Wall Street Journal. 11 Sept. 1999.
- Rare blood donated to save American friend (China Daily, October 23rd, 2003)
- The Blonde Atomic Traitress Gerry Kennedy tells the story of Joan and William Hinton. Broadcast on BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, May 14, 2007
in Chinese
- Zhōngguó nóngjīyuàn nóngjī shìyànzhàn jiǎnjiè 中国农机院农机试验站简介 (an introduction to Joan Hinton’s farm; Chinese Academy of Agricultural Mechanization Sciences)
- Měi nǚ hédàn zhuānjiā Zhōngguó yǎng niú 57 nián cháng gěi zǒnglǐ dì zhǐtiáo 美女核弹专家中国养牛57年 常给总理递纸条 (An American woman nuclear bomb expert has been raising cattle in China for 57 years; she often writes to the prime minister; China Radio International, October 3rd, 2005)
- Nà shì wǒ de gēgē Hán Dīng 那是我的哥哥韩丁 (That’s my brother Bill Hinton; Haidian dang’anguan)
- Yáng Zhènníng 杨振宁: Yáng Zhènníng yǎn zhōng de tóngchuāng hǎoyǒu Dèng Jiàxiān 杨振宁眼中的同窗好友邓稼先 (Deng Jiaxian in the eyes of his good friend Yang Zhenning; October 13th, 2004)
- Yáng Zǎo Hán Chūn duì Zhōngguó rǔyè zhī gòngxiàn 阳早寒春对中国乳业之贡献 (Erwin Engst and Joan Hinton’s contributions to the Chinese dairy industry; Beijing Youth Daily, January 2004)
- Lǐ Yán 李言: Yī shēng gān wéi Zhōngguó niú 一生甘为中国牛 (Guangming Daily, May 26th, 2004)
- Cānjiā "wéngé" de wàiguórén 参加“文革”的外国人 (Foreigners who participated in the "Cultural Revolution"; Hanwang, March 14th, 2002)
Literature
- Juliet de Lima-Sison (ed.), Dao-yuan Chou: Silage Choppers & Snake Spirits. The Lives & Struggles of Two Americans in Modern China. Ibon Books, Quezon 2009, ISBN 971-0483-37-4.
- Samuel A. Goudsmit Papers, 1921–1979, Box 41 Folder 13, on Joan Hinton, 1949–1978 (American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics; College Park, MD 20740).http://www.aip.org/history/ead/aip_goudsmit/20000092_content.html
- Ellis M. Zacharias: The Atom Spy Who Got Away (Real, 7/1953)