Family Fallout Shelter
date: label: Date made
content: 1950
label: date made
content: 1950s-1960s
name: label: maker
content: Universal Tank & Iron Works, Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: The family fallout shelter represents the public policy assumptions of the atomic age, namely, that with enough preparation, the American family and with it the nation's social and political fabric would survive a nuclear attack. This free-standing, double-hulled steel shelter was installed beneath the front yard of Mr. and Mrs. Murland E. Anderson of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The Andersons purchased their shelter from J. L. Haverstock, a Ft. Wayne realtor who began selling family fallout shelters as a sideline in early 1955 after reading a promotional <i>Life</i> magazine article.
label: Description
content: The Andersons maintained the shelter from its installation in 1955 through the 1960s, a period spanning the development of the hydrogen bomb and the Cuban missile crisis. Insufficiently anchored against Ft. Wayne's high water table when first installed, the shelter popped to the surface of the Anderson front yard in time for the Cuban missile crisis and was quickly reinterred in a frenzy of shelter building activity in 1961. The donors purchased the property, including the shelter, from the Andersons in 1968.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Indiana, Indianapolis
topic: label: Subject
content: Civil Defense
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History
label: See more items in
content: Engineering, Building, and Architecture
label: See more items in
content: Sputnik
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Timothy L. and Vera R. Howey
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2005.0051.04
label: accession number
content: 2005.0051
label: catalog number
content: 2005.0051.04
objectType: label: Object Name
content: shelter, fallout
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 ft x 13 ft x 10 ft; 4.572 m x 3.9624 m x 3.048 m