Elmhurst exhibit depicts American life, propaganda under the atomic threat

As the assistant emergency management coordinator in Elmhurst, Lt. Bill Reynolds made sure the supplies in the city's underground shelters were up-to-date, the high-protein crackers fresh, the water containers filled, the radiological monitors working.

This was the Cold War era and Elmhurst, along with the rest of the country, was taking the threat of nuclear war seriously.

"The early '60s was when they were doing all this fallout shelter stuff," said Reynolds, who started with the Elmhurst Fire Department in 1961. "Each one would hold a couple hundred people."

The city had seven fallout shelters, not to mention a fully equipped, 200-bed emergency hospital underneath York High School. Reynolds isn't sure whether the general population had a high degree of concern about nuclear war, but most definitely the federal government was telling citizens to be prepared.

Anyone who wants a look back at that era when schoolkids were taught to dive under their desks during aid raid drills has only to visit "Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow: Living with the Atomic Bomb, 1945-1965," a national traveling exhibit at the Elmhurst Historical Museum through March 18.

The brainchild of Cold War historian and collector Michael Scheibach of Kansas City, the new ExhibitsUSA display is making is debut in the Elmhurst museum. It is supplemented with materials depicting how Elmhurst was coping with the threat, said Lance Tawzer, the curator of exhibits at the museum.

"We are adding a local aspect to supplement the main exhibit because we found a number of interesting, pertinent stories," Tawzer said in a news release about the exhibit. "At the time, residents were encouraged to build bomb shelters in homes, and we were able to get video footage of an Elmhurst home where the shelter is still intact as it was in the 1950s. In addition, a few locals shared their memories on camera and these anecdotes are featured in an interactive display."

Scheibach, who visited the exhibit shortly after it opened, said he started collecting Cold War artifacts after doing doctoral research on the effect the post-World War II decade had on children and teens.

"I began to realize the atomic bomb was everywhere in their lives," said Scheibach, who has wrote two books on the atomic era.

With the encouragement of a friend, he made a presentation on his collection to the Mid-America Arts Alliance in Kansas City, which spent the next two years turning the artifacts into an exhibit.

The display will tour for five years, Scheibach said. He hopes it will bring back memories to baby boomers and intrigue younger people.

"Whether you're young or old, you're going to walk out of the exhibit and say, 'My goodness, I had no idea,'" he said. "I think this is a fascinating part of our history."

<h3 class="breakHead">Living under a cloud</h3>

The exhibit covers three periods: "The Blast, 1945-1950," the years immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when Americans came to realize that the atomic weapon that helped end World War II ultimately could destroy the earth; "Under the Mushroom Cloud, 1951-1956," after the Soviets acquired nuclear capabilities; and "Nuclear Fallout, 1957-1965," on how the nation coped with realities of the nuclear age by doing everything from creating a national highway system to allow speedier escape from threatened cities to teaching schoolchildren to "duck and cover."

Families were encouraged to have survival kits. Signs for fallout shelters went up. Some radios carried Civil Defense stations. Literature published at the time even included instructions on how to deliver a baby during a nuclear attack.

"The messages that we were getting as American citizens coming from the government and from Civil Defense were about the reality of this threat," Tawzer said. "You either feared the atomic bomb or you were anti-American."

Popular culture carried the message in less serious form in movies, comic books and toys. Families could play the air-raid board game instead of Monopoly. Kids could shoot enemies with a Buck Rogers atomic pistol or find an atomic "bomb" ring in a box of Kix cereal.

Civil defense films were shown in the theaters. The upstairs Fallout Shelter Theatre features clips from four of those films. "Duck and Cover," shown in schools, featured Bert the Turtle and taught kids that they should dive under a desk, table or anything nearby if they saw a flash of light.

Another film called "House in the Middle," a product of the Civil Defense Administration and the National Clean Up-Paint Up-Fix Up Bureau, purported that a painted, well-maintained home would sustain a nuclear attack better than the two unpainted, unkept properties on either side.

"It's propaganda in its purest form," Tawzer said. "It's hard to believe people really believed it."

<h3 class="breakHead">Cold War Elmhurst</h3>

The proactive city government of Elmhurst wasn't taking any chances.

"Chicago was a potential first strike target," Tawzer said. "That meant the suburbs were going to get the fallout."

The city maintained its seven fallout shelters - under schools, the post office and two retail locations - until the late 1970s, Reynolds said.

By a decision of the federal government, the emergency hospital under York High School was moved to a fire station at O'Hare Airport in the mid-1970s, he said.

Harvey Zarbock, a general contractor in Elmhurst who built a fallout shelter for his own family as well as a few for customers, had a shopping list to refresh supplies every month and led his family on regular drills.

Zarbock is one of four Elmhurst residents who talked about their memories of the era in videotaped interviews. John DeVries, whose family lived through World War II in the Netherlands, helped his father build a shelter. Homemaker Donna Larson took Civil Defense training. City electrician Arnold Schweitzer helped equip the shelters.

At one time, the city was going to build a Civil Defense headquarters in an old reservoir in Ben Allison Park on Elmhurst's west side. The plans were dropped, but the mound and access door were fuel for speculation among local conspiracy theorists about who the city was intending to save, Tawzer said.

When a fire started in the would-be headquarters, Reynolds was injured when he fell 18 feet down into the dark, smoky interior.

"I fell from the platform to the floor without using the stairs. I just got bruised," he said.

When Elmhurst and other cities across the state decided the shelters were no longer worth maintaining, they packed up the high-protein crackers to give to farmers to feed their pigs.

To get kids more involved in the history, the museum has put together an interactive Cold War Spy Mission that requires them to decode messages as they tour the exhibit. Tawzer said the display was stirring interest before it opened Jan. 24.

"We've had a really good response already," he said.

'Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow' exhibit

“Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow: Living with the Atomic Bomb, 1945-1965” is up through March 18 at the Elmhurst Historical Museum, 120 E. Park Ave., Elmhurst. Regular hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free. Info: (630) 833-1457 or

elmhursthistory.org. Several special events also are associated with the exhibit.Ÿ The Cold War noir movie, “The Woman on Pier 13,” is shown at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15, at the Elmhurst Public Library, 209 N. York St., Elmhurst. Columbia College professor Ron Falzone discusses the film. Free, but reservations required. Info: (630) 279-8696.Ÿ Author and historian Michael Scheibach, whose collection of Cold War artifacts were turned into the traveling exhibit, discusses the impact of the atomic bomb on the psyche of American children and adults, at 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, at the Elmhurst Historical Museum Education Center, 120 E. Park Ave. Free.Ÿ Chris Sturdevant, director of the Cold War Museum, Midwest Chapter, discusses Midwesterners' attitudes toward Civil Defense efforts, the presence of munitions plants and long-term effect of the Cold War environment at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 15, in the Elmhurst Historical Museum Education Center. The museum is open from 5 to 9 p.m. Free.