Alert America! Convoy at the Armory-Exposition Park
May 17-22, 1952
The “Alert America!” Civil Defense Convoy was a national campaign to demonstrate the value of preparing for an atomic attack. The campaign consisted of three separate convoys, each with ten 30-foot trailers, covering different routes throughout urban and rural America. It became what author Tracy Davis called “the most far-reaching public-education project of its kind.” Built off of the concept of the Freedom Train tour (1947-9), an exhibition of American triumph that stopped at train stops across the country, the Alert America campaign was less celebratory and much more aimed at educating and mobilizing the public. It was promoted as “The show that may save your life.”
The convoy’s exhibits included displays meant to shock the audience through the representation of possible, yet seemingly inevitable, events. For example, visitors saw the atomic devastation of “City X,” an average city that audiences all over America were told “…could be your city!” The exhibit was organized as a cumulative display, from the destruction of life, to how to save yourself, your neighbor, and even other cities by joining Civil Defense. As Bill Geerhart states, “If the first half of the Alert America displays were intended to shock, the second half was intended to sell the hope of civil defense. Exhibits and demonstrations on shelter preparation, radiation detection and rescue work were presented.”
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The Alert America Convoy was an excellent example of Cold War pageantry related to the overall performativity of Civil Defense. “Civil Defense was a domestic policy, yet sent signals abroad: the Kremlin was the implied spectator of rehearsals and Soviet assessment of efficiency was crucial to deterrence” (Davis). In as much as such events claimed to rally the public toward defense, they were also part of convincing “the enemy” that attempts to break American morale would be unsuccessful. “In keeping with the other Cold War pageants of the era, including the Freedom Train, the Alert America Convoy was, at its core, intended to reinforce American values in the face of “Kremlin aggression” as one piece of promotional material put it” (Geerhart).
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In each city that the convoy entered, it was accompanied by defense related activities such as parades, military exercises, air raid siren tests, mutual aid exercises, and even mock air raids performed by the Air National Guard (Davis). The Los Angeles edition of the convoy was installed at the Armory at Exposition Park, at Exposition Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Although it targeted major cities for its week-long events, the convoy also stopped in other, smaller cities along the way. As reported in The Van Nuys News, after it left Los Angeles, it made a stop on Van Nuys Boulevard; however, its arrival was unannounced, and its turnout consisted of only "a few chance passersby."
Take a look through the slideshow below for news articles and images of the actual exhibits that were on display!
(Images courtesy of USC Digital Library Los Angeles Examiner Collection, Newspapers.com, and Conelrad.com)
Take a look through the slideshow below for news articles and images of the actual exhibits that were on display!
(Images courtesy of USC Digital Library Los Angeles Examiner Collection, Newspapers.com, and Conelrad.com)
Sources:
Tracy Davis, The Stages of Emergency
Geerhart, Conelrad
The Van Nuys News
Tracy Davis, The Stages of Emergency
Geerhart, Conelrad
The Van Nuys News