Transcript The Cold War in America

The Cold War in America
Cold War Fears at Home
Images as History
SURVIVING AN ATOMIC BOMB BLAST
“Duck
and
Cover”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
IKqXu-5jw60
What conflicting messages did these images send about
surviving a nuclear blast?
3 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Images as History
SURVIVING AN ATOMIC BOMB BLAST
The dynamite stick
symbolized a nuclear
attack.
The intact turtle shell
implied one could safely
survive a nuclear attack
by hiding.
4 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Images as History
SURVIVING AN ATOMIC BOMB BLAST
The “before”
images portrayed
a normal home
and yard.
5 Visions of America, A History of the United States
The “after”
images show
the home
engulfed in
flames.
This image
directly
contradicts
the “duck
and cover”
message.
6 Visions of America, A History of the United States
Nuclear Fallout and Fear
• Science fiction and comics
tapped into Americans’ fears
of nuclear fallout
• Government used
propaganda to teach
Americans how to deal with
the threat
• Encouraged people to build
their own shelters
• Interstate highway system
doubled as defense system
8 Visions of America, A History of the United States
9 Visions of America, A History of the United States
SPUTNIK
• Sputnik alarmed
Americans, leading
to creation of
NASA for space
and missile
research and
greater federal aid
to science and
language
education.
10 Visions of America, A History of the United States
This full-color comic book appeared
The Hollywood Film Invasion, U.S.A
Cold War Fears at Home
How to spot a communist
https://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=K
QVXHlMvOoU
Cold War Fears at Home
The Best Years pt 3, start at 4;45
https://www.you
tube.com/watch?
v=pDnxgRzCB_M
The Cold War at Home
• “Communists. . .are everywhere—in
factories, offices, butcher shops, on street
corners, in private businesses, . . . plotting
to destroy the liberties of every citizen,”
Attorney General J. Howard McGrath warned in 1949.
• FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warned against “the
diabolic machinations of sinister figures
engaged in un-American activities.”
16 Visions of America, A History of the United States
House Un-America Activities
Committee
• Alger Hiss and
Rosenbergs’ spy cases
• Targeted Hollywood for
“subversive plotlines”
• Arthur Miller- “The
Crucible” – used Salem
Witch Trials as metaphor
for HUAC investigations
Spy Cases
• Public anxieties were heightened when former State
Department advisor Alger Hiss was accused of being a
communist spy.
• Hiss went to jail for perjury, damaging Truman and the
Democrats.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed as Soviet
spies in the atomic bomb program despite worldwide
protests.
McCarthyism
McCarthyism – The government’s anticommunist crusade named for Senator Joseph
McCarthy from Wisconsin, who, along with the
House Committee on Un-American Activities
(HUAC), spearheaded numerous governmental
investigations into communist activities, many of
them spurious
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Senator Joseph McCarthy
McCarthyism
• Senator Joe McCarthy from
Wisconsin
• Claimed to have names of
over 200 communists in the
state department
• Eventually discredited after
going after Army officials
• Declassified documents
suggest U.S. communist
party was connected to
Moscow