Milwaukee Civil Defense Magazine

Today's blog will be exploring a civil defense artifact. Since I am an expert on civilian civil defense I chose this artifact because it is something I know a lot about. (And it is also from my own personal collection.) It is something that a good majority of the population may still recognize from the 50's until the late 70's and beyond. The artifact I have chosen is a copy of a civil defense magazine from Milwaukee.

"Your Civil Defense Manual: A Handbook on Personal Survival" was issued by the Milwaukee Civil Defense Administration around 1954 or 1955. This was an informational manual containing essentially everything a bigger manual would contain, but in a more condensed form. (One of the more interesting parts of this magazine for me was the fact that the phone numbers began with "UPTOWN" which is pretty neat if you were born in the early 80's and have been using area codes your entire life.)

Milwaukee Civil Defense Page

The magazine is unique because it is specific to one city. It is usually harder to find city specific manuals, but when you find them it is a rare treat! The above picture is showing the Milwaukee CD in action, and when I show these pictures to older family and friends they recognize the places immediately. The topics of the magazine range from background information on the civil defense, what to do if the bomb drops, how to recognize the different warning signals, which CONELRAD stations to tune into (640 and 1240 kHz), how to keep calm, how to treat injuries, how to evacuate (with a Milwaukee specific map) and how to stock your fallout shelter.

Evacuation Map of Milwaukee

Typical of the time, the magazine gives a very optimistic outlook on the survivability of a nuclear disaster. As we know now, if a nuclear bomb was dropped on your city there would be no chance to get to a shelter, and you would most likely perish in the shelters due to the forces exerted by a nuclear explosion. Manuals like this were published to inform the public; you were less likely to panic if thought you knew what you were doing, and if you could keep from panicking you could take away a needless obstacle to survival.

This magazine wasn't created to scare people, it was created to ultimately help people. Thankfully the information in these manuals were never tested, but we can assume that they would have worked to some degree. The manuals are in danger of disappearing from the record because, according to many people who have seen my collection, nothing happened so why should we care? A lot of people view the Cold War only from a militaristic point of view, but there was a whole other side that is beginning to fade into memory.

Do you have any civilian civil defense memories or interesting artifacts from the Cold War? Post about them below!