JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

I’ve written perhaps 100 posts for the History of Fission and Nuclear Weapons series on this blog, and in that I’ve collected a number of (pre-1960) images showing a nuclear explosion over specific, recognizable U.S. cities. Some of these came as a result of Cold War propaganda, others were used to show the effects of the bomb on a familiar profile.  I’ve not put them together in one post before, so I thought to do it now.  (The very first image of any sort of nuclear weapon published in the popular press showing its effects on a U.S. city appears in PM newspaper, 7 August 1945–as I’ve said before, I have no idea how these folks put together such a comprehensive issue in the day+ after the Hiroshima bombing, but they did).

Here are the U.S. cities I’ve collected so far–the majority of them are New York City, mainly because it has the most recognizable features making it easier for a broad spectrum of readers to understand the destructive force of the bomb(s).

Manhattan, Collier’s Magazine, 1948

Seattle, 1955:

Not a mushroom cloud, but the only thing I have for San Francisco:

Movie still from “One World or None”, 1946.   https://youtu.be/u6ORe_tHYXU