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)
Until the SHTF, as The Twilight Zone clearly demonstrated....
If you survived them before you must be immune.
Ping.
Such memories! LOL!
Along about 1960 I bicycled to a friend’s house in my neighborhood and a backhoe was busy digging up their back yard. I asked my friend if they were getting a pool and he said no, they were getting a fallout shelter.
Later I asked my dad (a WWII vet) if he was going to put in a shelter too.
He said, “What house are you talking about exactly?” When I told him, he said, “We don’t need a shelter, because I have a gun and if we ever need a shelter, I know where to get one.”
Had to laugh at those pictures of kids under their desks like that was going to protect them from a blast.
I actually have a copy of “Nuclear War Survival Skills,” signed by the author, Cresson Kearney. I interviewed him while working for a newspaper in Colorado and he gave me the book as a keepsake.
I was always of the opinion that Little Debbie’s snack foods were the perfect bomb shelter survival food because of the amount of preservatives and other chemicals they contain.
i love those old pictures.
We are going to find out a lot of “old timers” were right about many many things.
“Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle Civil Defense Film”
Yeah, but Bert always left out that critical part about kissing your ass goodbye after you ducked and covered.
I remember in the 60’s the gubermint sent out a questionnaire, which you sent back and in return, they sent you a recommended fallout shelter plan for your home. I wonder if anyone still ha theirs.
dehydrated? Drink more beer! :P
Never forgot that bit of honesty.
Grew up on a farm, but not far from a SAC base and one of the old ICBM missle silos. My father tasked me to use my summer vacation to dig a shelter hole next to our house, exposing the basement wall which we eventually put an entrance into it. About 6 weeks into the dig, I found a set of buried stone steps going to the foundation basement (and a few other artifacts). My father then brought in a family member with a backhoe and did 6 weeks of work in a day (Yes, I was PO'd). I then hauled stones from old stone fences and mixed cement while my father built the walls of the shelter. It became our root cellar (primarily), but would have worked fine as a fallout shelter.
visited the farm a couple years back. The farm house was torn down and a new house built, but the top entrance was still there and the shelter still existed. Pretty cool to see...
I remember we were living in Gary Indiana, must have been 1959 and a local radio DJ was doing a stunt were he was living in a Fallout Shelter they built out on a street somewhere and I remember we drove by it.
My apartment building had a fallout shelter in it, with the CD sign and fallout sign proudly presented. I remember asking the super of the building if this should be underground as well as a bunch of other questions.
My parents told me later that day to stop bothering the super.
In reading history pictures were shown of NYC being hit with a nuclear device. I don’t doubt that those desks would have saved the kids from flying glass (my thoughts exactly) but a bomb going off in NYC would have obliterated the school. Of course there’s the psychological effect of at least we’re doing something. Thanks for that insight. Janey
No guns or ammo in those pictures.
There was no need to show guns. Most people had common sense in those days and it wasn’t necessary. They were tucked in somewhere.
PUTIN CONSTRUCTING MASSIVE ARCTIC MILITARY BASES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM0yxf3vInM
GLOBAL WAR “LIKELY” PUTIN WARNS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9BRjdUde8
PUTIN: READY FOR “ANY THREAT”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TzJFvmzOfw
ESCALATION: RUSSIAN DRONE SHOT DOWN BY NATO?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-QA6_XFFrk
ESCALATION: RUSSIA CONFRONTS ISRAELI JETS OVER LEBANON
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0obH9kc_Yk
RUSSIA FORCES PENTAGON TO REWRITE PLAYBOOK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcv16x-0Hc8
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