I have to compare a ray bradbury story called "Thre Will Come Soft Rains" with the main fear americans had in '50 &'51. I know a little bit about it but i could use more details and maybe some links to a site.
2006-10-18 04:53:01 · 12 answers · asked by jr_goodman 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Three big fears, with a reference to get you started on each - and they are all linked together, of course.
1. The Soviet bomb - The Soviets completed their first atomic test in August 1949.
Here is a document from 1950 to that effect effect:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/primary/jointintelligence.html
2. Domestic "Red Scare" - communist infiltration of U.S. government
McCarthy started his hearings in 1950.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/mccarthy/
3. Expansion and international aggression by Communist states (Soviet Union and China). The Korean War started in 1950.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/AMH/AMH-25.htm
2006-10-18 05:58:10 · answer #1 · answered by TJ 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I was very young at the time, but I remember having air raid drills in San Francisco, when a loud civil defense siren would sound and we would practice "black outs" by turning out the lights and pulling down all the window shades and going downstairs into the basement and getting underneath a heavy workbench we had. We would stay there until the "all clear" siren would go off. This was terrifying to me as a small child. It was to prepare us for being bombed or attacked, I guessed, and to this day when I hear a civil defense siren, my heart pounds.
2006-10-18 12:02:10 · answer #2 · answered by Jan H 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Following world war 2 Americans live in fear of a nuclear war.
Many individual families went so far as to build personal bomb shelters and stock for their family with supplies to live there foe several weeks.
Schools ran bomb drills, similar ro fire drills only kids were instructed to duck beneath their desks.
I think part of the fear stemmed from the guilt many Americans felt for dropping the bombs in Japan.
2006-10-18 12:16:20 · answer #3 · answered by MUD 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I was born in Dec 1950, in 1951 all the Americans I knew were afraid I'd live.
2006-10-20 10:19:58 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most Americans feared communistic raids. This is the reason why so many schools preformed air-raid drills and why so many families built bomb shelters in their back yards. My high school was built during the early 1950's and we had a huge bomb shelter underneath our flag pole because during the time the school was built it was deemed necessary for the school to have a shelter.
2006-10-18 12:20:12 · answer #5 · answered by SilverRain_Jae 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The worst fear Americans had in 1950-51 was that you would become pregnant if you were a girl and that your girl would become pregnant if you were a guy.
2006-10-18 11:59:51 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The threat of Communisim and its creeping into the governmant and average life of citizens. Google Senator Joseph McCarthy.
A period in history where lies, bullying and the doctoring of documents and photographs ruined the lives of thousands and pitted American against American.
Roy Cohen and Bobby Kennedy were involved in this too.
Commonly known as "The Red Scare"
2006-10-18 12:26:24 · answer #7 · answered by Quasimodo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cooties. There were recurring cooties epidemics in the early fifties.
2006-10-20 15:28:32 · answer #8 · answered by dyauspiter 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Commies under the bed.
2006-10-18 11:56:22 · answer #9 · answered by james t 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
that was the era of McCarthyism when people were paranoid about communists
2006-10-18 15:22:40 · answer #10 · answered by smiling 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋