Home Fallout Shelter, 1960

Home Fallout Shelter 1960

Home-based nuclear fallout shelters combined everything that magazines needed in the 1960s to attract readers:  fear, home remodeling, and the opportunity for producing great cutaways. Just going into your basement during nuclear attack would decrease your chance of radioactive exposure to 10% of the exposure if you had stayed outside. By undertaking some pretty major… Continue reading Home Fallout Shelter, 1960

Basement Bomb Shelter, 1961

In 1961, LIFE extolled the benefits of building a basement bomb shelter out of pre-cast concrete blocks. This cutaway drawing shows how the homeowner would have situated the shelter in a corner of the basement where it had no windows. The article estimated materials cost not to exceed $200.  It was estimated that radiation within… Continue reading Basement Bomb Shelter, 1961