Sources for America’s History: Printed Page 647

25-6  |Finding Security in an Age of Anxiety
MICHIGAN OFFICE OF CIVIL DEFENSE, The Family Fallout Shelter: Your One Defense Against Fallout (1959)

Cold War anxiety was fueled by the threat of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, each of which had a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at the other. The government’s Office of Civil Defense (OCD), and similar state-level offices, both stoked this anxiety and helped to alleviate it by promoting readiness and preparedness campaigns to protect Americans. Do-it-yourself fallout shelters became a popular civil defense measure.

image
Source: Image provided by the Michigan Civil Defense Museum, www.michigancivildefense.com.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Question

    What argument about Cold War culture can you make based on this public service announcement? Do you think promotional materials such as this heightened or allayed anxiety about nuclear war with the Soviet Union?

  2. Question

    Using this poster as evidence, what argument about gender during the Cold War can you make? How are the roles of men and women depicted here? What is assumed about men’s “do-it-yourself” abilities?