1. Atomic Nightmares Create Survival Fantasies
Cold War Bomb Shelters
Atomic Nightmares
Create
Survival Fantasies

2. Japan: Atomic Effects
With the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world became aware of the destructive power and effects of nuclear war
By the early 1950’s most Americans had a growing, and graphic, understanding of atomic weapons and the dangers of radiation

3. Hiroshima Before and After

7. Atomic Babies: Birth Defects

8. Nagasaki

10. More Unsettling Images
The U.S. continued atomic tests and developed the even more destructive hydrogen bomb (H-bomb)
Americans were exposed to images of these tests and statistics such as blast radius damage and wind patterns that would spread radioactive fallout

13. Effects of nuclear explosion
Go to
to view video.

14. Nuclear World Destruction
By the 1950’s both superpowers (USSR and USA) had nuclear weapons and, by the 1960’s, delivery systems to send them across continents and oceans
For the first time, complete world annihilation became a real possibility

17. Elaborate systems were developed to give warning before a nuclear attack
Some hoped to survive by protecting themselves, and their families, by creating protective shelters to survive the explosion and effects of radiation
A Feeling of Safety

19. Civil Defense Propaganda Spreads Fear and Paranoia
U.S. Civil Defense used ads to try to prepare the public for possible attack and use of shelters
School children routinely practiced “duck and cover” drills where desks would supposedly help provide protection

20. Bunker Mentality
Governments, and individuals, searched for a feeling of safety and control
Bomb shelters seemed to offer the possibility of surviving a nuclear war
Public and private bomb shelters were built throughout the Cold War

22. Public Shelters
U.S. Civil Defense began assigning basements of public buildings as bomb shelters
Some of these shelters were stockpiled with food, water, medicine, etc.
There was never enough shelter space, or supplies, for all citizens

24. Shelter in the basement of the courthouse in Ottawa, IL
Shelter in the basement of the Roxy Theatre in Ottawa, IL