Back to the '50's: Rogers museum recalls days of A-bombs and fallout shelters
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
The world isn't an easy place in which to live.
Sept. 11, 2001, served as a reminder when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York.
But the threat of what mankind can do to one another, especially through plans masterminded from abroad, is not new.
"Young people today live with terroristic threats and dirty bombs -- an earlier generation lived with a more serious threat,"said Gaye Bland, director of the Rogers Historical Museum.
The atomic bomb.
During the 1950s and 1960s, schools practiced "duck and cover"drills where students dropped down to the floor and shielded themselves as best as they could from the bomb's blast. Many public buildings with basements, such as the old downtown Rogers post office, were designated as fallout shelters. Families who were most fearful may have had shelters built in or near their homes to protect themselves not only from the blast, but from the radiation that was sure to linger.
"The Life Atomic: Growing Up in the Shadow of the A-Bomb,"which opens Saturday at the museum, recalls the days of the Cold War, a time of conflict between the former Soviet Union and the United States that caused both countries to fear the possibility of a nuclear bombing. The exhibit continues through Oct. 25.
One of the more dramatic aspects of the exhibit is a replica of a fallout shelter, which features cinder block-styled walls and very sparse accommodations -- a single bed, a card table with folding chairs, canned goods, a bedpan on a crate and an aluminum garbage can with rolls of toilet paper. Underneath the bed is the game Aggravation, which takes on a double meaning. Recordings of sirens and instructions on what to do during a nuclear attack are played inside the shelter.
John Burroughs, the museum's assistant director, said his research material included information from experts advising how to handle being penned up in small quarters with others for a very long time.
"They talk about stress,"Burroughs said. "They said to have books, games and a two-weeks' supply of tranquilizers."
The exhibit also has memorabilia, such as newspaper accounts, instruction manuals, a Civil Defense hat and even a metal container resembling a gasoline can containing "survival biscuits."
But with the doom and despair emanating from the museum's fallout shelter, Bland is quick to point out that the exhibit isn't all serious. With the 1950s came kitsch. The museum has displays of atomic bomb-inspired toys like a plastic Geiger counter so children could pretend to prospect for uranium, which is used in making nuclear weapons, and a poster touting "Them!,"a 1954 science fiction movie about atomic tests causing ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters.
To keep the mood light, the museum is holding a "Fifties Family Day"at its location from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Events will include both Hula-Hoop and costume contests, a salute to the 1950s by Arkansas Kids and an Elvis Presley singalong.
While the 1950s offered a lot of kitsch, the real terror of the Cold War reached its peak in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis when American U-2 spy planes revealed missile bases being built in Cuba, an ally of the Soviet Union, Bland said.
But as people became more educated about nuclear war and fallout, their desires for shelters diminished.
"Over time, people began to realize that long-term survival was impossible,"Bland said.
Then, she said, the Vietnam War during the remainder of the 1960s caused peoples' attention to shift away completely from the nuclear threat. The Cold War ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved.
The exhibit, which was two years in the making, is already gaining national attention. It will be loaned to other museums in the country after the exhibit ends this fall, Bland said.
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