Shelters in the Schoolhouse

For the forty-five years that followed World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a standoff known as the Cold War, set apart by different ideologies yet possessing the same resolve. The difference between this and the other world conflicts that preceded it was the blurry lines between the battlefront and the home front – a product of the nuclear age.

At the height of the stalemate, a war using nuclear bombs would have doubled the death toll of all wars in the 20^th century combined – and in a matter of minutes. It was estimated that civilian casualties would number in the hundreds of millions. For this reason, various resources were mustered on both sides of the conflict to account for civilians during the crisis – a series of policies, programs and procedures known as Civil Defense.

Shelters in the Schoolhouse focuses on civil defense efforts in the U.S. from the national to the local levels using primary resources from the Fulton County Schools Archive in Atlanta, Georgia.

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