"How to Prepare Your Plant for Atomic Attack" print (1951)

In 1951 nuclear missiles hadn't been invented yet, and atomic bombs were much smaller and less numerous than those later generations would have to worry about. In this kind of setting the American fire extinguisher giant Walter Kidde & Co. published How to Prepare Your Plant for Atomic Attack. It's a 30-page booklet full of illustrations and photographs, compiled for the company by various anonymous illustrators and photographers. 

Guided by it, a factory's safety manager might be able to keep production humming (or at least gurgling) through and after a Soviet attack, which is kind of a quaint idea compared to the complete annihilation scenarios of the 1960s and afterwards. I imagine it was written with WWII-Blitz-of-London scale damage in mind, rather than Hiroshima plus Nagasaki plus decades of "advances." 

I've scanned the booklet's cover, cleaned it up a bit, and am making it available as a print in two sizes. The larger size shows some nice paper grain and ink texture, given the original booklet is only 5x8". I'd like to give many thanks to the Walter Kidde & Co. for allowing me to reproduce this, as per their statement on page 28: "in the interests of national defense Walter Kidde & Company, Inc. grants permission to reproduce portions of this booklet without prior approval." Just promise me you'll use the cover as a reminder to be constantly vigilant. 

A booklet cover reproduction available at 12x18" or 24x36" on Epson Enhanced Matte 192 gsm paper printed with Epson UltraChrome XD2 archival ink. Sold in an open edition, unframed.