The pile achieved criticality in the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR), the world's first nuclear reactor dedicated to the peaceful applications of atomic energy. It was patterned after a successful reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The improved reactor design of the BGRR added facilities to accommodate research in medicine, biology, chemistry, physics and nuclear engineering. The reactor pile consisted of a 700-ton, 25-foot cube of graphite fueled by uranium, enclosed in a steel-lined, high-density, five-foot-thick concrete shield. A total of 1,369 fuel channels were available with roughly half in use at any given time. Reactor power was controlled by insertion and removal of boron steel control rods.

The Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey, began to manufacture the Victrola record player. The hand cranked unit, with horn cabinet, sold for $200. Unlike previous phonographs, which were toy-like turntables with a large speaker horn to amplify the sound, this was housed in an elegant wood cabinet in several contemporary (for the time) furniture styles. The speaker horn and turntable mechanism were totally concealed, and there were convenient storage compartments for records thus transforming the phonograph into a popular household item, and setting the pattern of wood cabinetry enclosures later imitated by radios and television sets well into the 1950s.