The Life Atomic: Opening April 1

Duck and Cover Drill
In the schools, “duck and cover” drills trained students to react to an atomic attack by crawling under their desks and covering their heads with their arms.
Credit: Courtesy of The Detroit News.

The Life Atomic: Growing Up in the Shadow of the A-Bomb will run from April 1 – May 15, 2010. Join your favorite 1950s celebrities for refreshments and music at the opening reception on Thursday, April 1 from 5:30-7:30pm.

Today American citizens find themselves threatened by foreign terrorists. But fifty years ago, during the height of the Cold War, Americans lived under another kind of threat – global thermo-nuclear war. Anxious citizens built fallout shelters in their homes. “Duck and cover” drills trained school children to react to an atomic attack by crawling under their desks and covering their heads with their arms. But the new technology of “radiation bombs” inspired more than fear. The bomb also influenced virtually every aspect of American popular culture from movies and literature to toys and home fashion.

The Life Atomic: Growing Up in the Shadow of the A-Bomb explores the history of the Atomic Age in postwar America. The exhibit features text and image panels, authentic artifacts, displays about Coloma-Watervliet in the 1950s, Civil Defense videos, and a life-size family fallout shelter replica.