Alert America!

The Civil Defense "Alert America" campaign attempted to revolutionize public thinking about citizen's responsibilities and dangers of modern war. Built off the concept of the Freedom Train tour in 1947-1948, the Alert America Convoy paraded through Boston on February 21, 1953. At the head of the parade was a battery of troops from the 745th AAA Gun Battalion, Fort Banks. Here the parade is shown passing in front of the Boston Public Library, Copley Square. Three separate convoys, each with ten 30-foot trailers cover a route across urban and rural America.

Alert America Exhibit started in New York City on March 13th, 1952 at the 7th Regiment Armory, 66th Street and Park Avenue. According to the New York Times, "Mayor Impellitteri had proclaimed Alert America Week, preliminary to the public opening of the defense exhibition at 10 AM." (2). These men are moving the exhibits from the Alert America Convoy into the 7th Regiment Armory (now the Park Avenue Armory).

On the opening week, school children and adults line up to enter the exhibit. All Alert America Exhibits were free admission! 46,724 people attended the Alert America Exhibit in New York (1).

Alert America educated American citizens to be prepared against enemy attacks. These three panels shows Civil Defense workers in action to control the traffic, assist in fighting against incendiary and chemical warfare. Traffic control is helpful in allowing ambulance and fire trucks to arrive to their destination faster. While the American people has less impact in fighting against incendiary and chemical warfare, these panels illustrates the dangers that it poses, including the measures Civil Defense will take.

Mr. Civil Defense, the Al Capp creation that symbolized the efforts of thousands of volunteers to support the nation's defense, gets a cheery greeting from a young child.

Alert America includes these series of posters across the nation. This display on psychological warfare depicts how you should be wary of foreign propaganda. This includes sample newspapers from Communist governments, such as "Nowa Kulture" which means New Culture in Polish, and "Kultura i Zhizn" which means Culture and Life in Russian.

Sabotage, which is a result from either foreign espionage or propaganda, could lead to the disruption of a city's infrastructure. Visitors and American citizens were told of "City X", an average city that "could be your city". "City X" represented the crux of how the average city can change due to an enemy attack, via sabotage or a nuclear strike.

With the growing fears of an atomic bomb attack on "City X", the Civil Defense is responsible for informing American citizens what they should do and where they should go. The District Report Center mapped and coordinated with civilians to guide them to the appropriate shelters in case of bombing raids.

In addition to Civil Defense procedures, the fire departments in various cities also worked along with the FCDA to put out fires after bombing raids, sabotage, or an atomic bomb explosion.

From another perspective of "City X", this poster illustrates the initial explosion of an atomic bomb, while the mushroom cloud is about to form. "City X" was a reminder of how an atom bomb can occur to a city.

This poster depicts the destruction of "City X" by the atom bomb. Cars, subway trolley, and telephone lines are scattered across the city. The Civil Defense attempted to show both the destructive capabilities of the Bomb and small chance of surviving above ground during the attack.

Survivors emerged from bomb shelters to see their city destroyed by a single atomic bomb. This image portrays a mother with a child as they wander through their ravaged city. The father is nowhere to be seen in this image, but one can assume he is fighting behalf of the Civil Defense for his home and city.

One of the many duties of a Civil Defense worker is to recover what can be salvaged after an attack. These two Civil Defense workers are giving children metal tags, similar to military dog tags in order to identify missing civilians in the mist of the confusion.