Chicago Alert!: The City Plans For Atomic AttackMain MenuThe City Plans for Atomic AttackOrigins of Civil DefenseChicagoans prepared for enemy bombers during wartime.This is Only a TestThe city imagined and rehearsed for atomic destruction.Gimme ShelterThe symbol of American civil defense was the private family fallout shelter.Civil Defense in the CityPlans to survive in the city changed with global contexts.UIC PreparesThe university community shaped city plans.The Only Shelter is PeaceChicagoans questioned civil defense plans.From Civil Defense to Emergency ManagementChicagoans prepared for other disasters.About this ExhibitPamela Hackbart-Dean93dc91bf2da36176f33af7660faa866bf7a25e09Megan Keller Young2e72a529e58eee72bb9ae4f1e37365aa654232caDan Harpereff3db32ed95b3efe91d381826e2c10c145cd452
OK BLOOD TYPE TATTOO AS AID IN ATOM ATTACK
1media/OK BLOOD TYPE TATTOO AS AID IN ATOM ATTACK Chicago Tribune 1 Aug 1950_thumb.jpg2021-04-16T14:47:43-05:00Anonymous141Chicago Tribune (1 Aug 1950)plain2021-04-16T14:47:43-05:00Anonymous
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1media/uic thumb.jpgmedia/UA_90_999_0158.jpgmedia/uic thumb.jpg2020-11-13T15:21:09-06:00UIC Prepares17The university community shaped city plans.image_header2021-04-28T09:17:33-05:00University officials, faculty, and students participated in citywide efforts to prepare for atomic war. The Chicago Undergraduate Division, the Medical Center, and later the Chicago Circle campus, each took part in drills like Operation Alert. Professors considered how to apply their teaching and research to the problem of defense against a nuclear attack. They proposed revisions to the curriculum, especially to train more students to assist in caring for casualties. One Medical Center doctor proposed a program to tattoo the blood-types of all Chicagoans on their torsos in case their limbs were blown off in an atomic blast.
In 1967, the Circle Campus collaborated with defense contractors to study confinement in a fallout shelter. 400 faculty, students, and neighborhood recruits – including an eight-month old baby – were confined in a converted campus building along with psychology department observers. The test of the habitability of shelter life was judged a success even though several dozen people left early because of “mental or physical exhaustion.”
The university community also planned for the use of campus buildings as shelters by stockpiling emergency supplies like sanitary kits and biscuits. Civil Defense supplies that were produced months before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 were still waiting to be utilized in the library basement in the summer of 2018.
