How to stay safe in the atomic age: Charming posters from 1947 which show the health risks from radiation
It was the dawn of a chilling new age when whole cities could be wiped out with one terrifyingly advanced bomb.
But America’s attempt to educate its citizens on the health risks arising from the nuclear threat were a little less sophisticated.
Dating back to 1947, these charming posters feature a hapless cartoon character and his somewhat baffling travails with atomic radiation.
The man, who with his quiff and chubby cheeks is a little reminiscent of a dark-haired Tintin, battles contamination, a nuclear generator and a rogue radiation meter which has sprouted arms and legs.
In one image he suffers the indignity of being stripped to his vest and boxers as a boiler-suited colleague deals with his radioactive clothing.
Threat: The posters were produced by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to advise its staff on how to deal with the risks from working with nuclear radiation. These included meters which had been 'forgotten' (left) and not wearing appropriate clothing (right)
Atomic age: Staff were also expected to use appropriate measuring equipment (left) and to react in accordance with guidelines if they thought a wound had been contaminated by radiation
The posters were produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, and were aimed at staff working in close proximity to radiation.
They detailed the procedures personnel were expected to use to keep themselves safe – which ranged from using meters correctly to wearing the appropriate work gear.
Oak Ridge was one of the four facilities used for the Manhattan Project, the American programme to develop an atomic bomb.
Baffling: While some of the posters are mystifying to modern audiences (left), others simply extolled the need to go to a health physics surveyor for help
But after the war the laboratory's involvement with nuclear weapons ended and work switched to research in medicine, biology, materials and physics.
During the 1950's scientists working at Oak Ridge were to develop the world's first medical radioisotopes for treating cancer.
The term ‘health physics’ refers to radiation protection.
The campaign was devised just two years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
An estimated 220,000 people died in the bombings which are still the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
The events, one of unparalleled horror, left an indelible stain on America’s popular consciousness.
Though scientists were already working on other applications for nuclear energy, it was the images of death and destruction in Japan which stayed in the mind. These were heightened in the late 1940s by Cold War with Soviet Russia.
Fear: The campaign was devised just two years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (pictured) and Nagasaki in August 1945 killing over 200,000 people
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