1. Civil Defense and Nuclear Hysteria in the 1950’s
Duck and Cover
Civil Defense and Nuclear Hysteria in the 1950’s

2. The Nuclear Age Begins
The United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons was broken in 1949 when the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device, and many in the government and public perceived that the United States was more vulnerable than it ever had been before. Duck-and-cover exercises quickly became a part of Civil Defense drills that every American citizen, from children to the elderly, practiced so as to be ready in the event of nuclear war.

3. Civil Defense Duck and Cover
In 1950, during the first big Civil Defense push of the Cold War the movie Duck and Cover was produced (by the Federal Civil Defense Administration) for school showings in Surviving Under Atomic Attack was created for adult audiences.
Surviving Under Atomic Attack

4. Why “Duck and Cover”?
At the time, it was believed the main dangers of a Hiroshima-type nuclear blast were from heat and blast damage: radioactive fallout itself was not clearly identified until 1954, after the Castle Bravo nuclear-weapon test in the Marshall Islands caused sickness and death in Japanese fishermen on the Lucky Dragon fishing vessel.

5. The “Fallout” from Nuclear Hysteria
Througout the 1950’s and early 1960’s, it was popular to build a “fallout shelter” for your home to protect you from the dangers of radiation after an atomic attack. Shelters ranged from simple corners of the basement stocked with a few cans of food and water, to elaborate underground survival shelters.

6. Signs of the Times- Know your shelter
To meet the new threat of an atomic age, the nuclear hazard symbol was modified to create a “radioactive fallout” symbol. This symbol was used to denote fallout shelters, and once was as common as the international symbol used for “handicapped accessible” is today.

7. Our Civil Defense Legacy

8. Civil Defense Around The World
Civil Defense wasn’t just an American phenomenon- other countries readied for the dreaded bomb drop, too.
Britain
Soviet Union