Posted on 10/23/2015 6:49:35 AM PDT by NYer
FULL TITLE: SURVIVING A NUCLEAR ATTACK WITH SPAM, AND OTHER IMAGES FROM COLD WAR FALLOUT SHELTERS
A display of essential survival supplies for a well-stocked fallout shelter, c.1961. (Photo: NARA)
During the Cold War, as the arms race between Soviet Russia and the United States escalated, the perceived threat of nuclear attack became increasingly heightened. In response, the U.S. developed procedures to protect its citizens should the worst happen. In 1956, the National Emergency Alarm Repeater—NEAR—warning siren device was implemented to alert citizens to a nuclear attack. Students were drilled in "duck and cover" practices at schools. Books with titles such as Nuclear War Survival Skills were issued. And the only means of protection against radiation in the event of such a catastrophe was a fallout shelter.
Designs for fallout shelters appeared in pamphlets, subway advertisements and displays at civil defense fairs. President Kennedy even got involved. In September 1961, the same month that the Soviets resumed testing nuclear weapons, Life magazine published a letter from the President advocating the use of fallout shelters. Rather terrifyingly, it was printed over an image of a mushroom cloud.
But that was just one of the many interesting graphical representations of the threat of annihilation. Below, check out our collection of fallout shelter designs and photographs that show just how people in the 1950s and 1960s tried to prepare for the unthinkable.
A 1958 drawing of a family fallout shelter designed to accommodate four to six people. (Photo: NARA)
A Civil Defense bus/subway poster from 1959. (Photo: Public Domain/Courtesy Civil Defense Museum)
A fallout shelter in Michigan, c. 1960, for a family of four. It had a 10-inch reinforced concrete ceiling and concrete walls. (Photo: NARA)
"See the Family Fallout Shelter": the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization exhibit at a local civil defense fair. ca. 1960. (Photo: NARA)
Directions to a fallout shelter at a high school in Boston, 1962. (Photo: NARA)
A display for different types of family shelters from the 1960s. (Photo: Public Domain/Courtesy Civil Defense Museum)
Fallout shelter supplies being distributed to nuns in Goffstown, New Hampshire, 1963. (Photo: NARA)
A woman takes an inventory of supplies for her household's fallout shelter, c. 1950s. A tub of potato chips sits under the table. (Photo: NARA)
An artist's rendition of a temporary basement fallout shelter, ca.1957. (Photo: NARA)
A basement family fallout shelter, including a 14-day non-perishable food supply, a battery-operated radio, auxiliary light sources, a two-week supply of water, and first aid, sanitary, and other miscellaneous supplies and equipment, ca.1957. (Photo: NARA)
We’ve got provisions and lots of beer.
The key word is Survival on the New Frontier.
In the days before expiration dates were put on food. Also today you’d be accused of hoarding if you prepare for emergencies. I wonder how many people are prepared to survive for a week or two?
Buy lots of seltzer water soda cans. I can't find pure water in cans except online these days. Also Jello is a good survival food. You can mix with water and drink it that way.
SPAM? Well...that’s more than we have now. Our gov’t demi-gods all have shelters they can run to...the rest of us? SOL.
I’d rather fry in the initial blast...like that old poster says “then kiss your ass goodbye”. Works for me.
I used to have a copy of that book, THE FAMILY FALLOUT SHELTER.
Me too. 
With the Iran “nuclear deal” it is probably time to dust off duck and cover. And with Hillary!’s New New Frontier on the horizon we can bring back fallout shelters as well!
I had occasion to work for a week at a Swiss affiliate a few years back.
Small factory in an obscure valley.
They had a fully stocked BLAST shelter, not merely a fallout shelter, in their basement.
It could survive a Hiroshima sized event 300 m from ground zero.
Obscure valley, scarcely a prime target.
Unless they allow themselves to be overrun by “refugees” the Swiss will survive us all.
How times change. Anyone with a bunker now days is considered a kook.
Spam is an acronym for “Spoiled and Putrefied Animal Meat.
At home I call baloney “floor sweeps”, because I read a few years back that’s exactly what a meat packer used. Whatever fell on the floor. Other reject such as eyeballs, tongue, and other unmentionables too good to throw away were used by others.
A related short story by Philip K. Dick.
I don’t know what color of acid he was dropping, but this tab hit the spot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster,_You%27re_Dead!
Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle Civil Defense Film
Didn't do any of that in school because it was a little late for it (1970s) and if you stood on the roof of my school you could see the B-52s sitting on alert about a mile away. Not much chance a desk could stop that fireball.
I remember ads on TV for fall out shelters during the Cuban missile crisis. Interesting times.
I don’t see any guns.
I grew up about ten miles from Westover AFB, which at the time was a SAC Base with B52s.
When I got to fifth grade I finally had a teacher who explained the truth about our chances of surviving a nuclear attack. Her husband was a BUFF pilot.
She told us that there were probably at least three or four bombs targeted on our city, which also housed the Springfield Armory.
We did not do many duck and cover drills after that.
No guns or ammo in those pictures.
Beer is a diuretic though. If water is short, it is a very bad idea. The net gain in calories and carbs will do you no good if you are dying of dehydration.
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