Cold War, Hot Bargains

Palley’s Government Surplus and General Merchandise catalog, ca. 1959

All the essentials you need for your family fallout shelter! Nothing alarming here – just an illustration of an atom bomb and the admonishment that you have a “responsibility to yourself, your family, and your country.”

And Palley’s was here to help, with a useful list of essential survival gear with which to outfit your fallout shelter – some of it government surplus left over from World War II and Korea. At the top of the list is the two-week food survival kit, packed by Genera Mills (yes, the breakfast cereal folks) and a 77-gallon water tank.

There were also U.S. Marine cookstoves and first aid kits, canteens and foam rubber mattresses, sunglasses and periscopes, and flashlights and field telephones for signaling to the family next-door, presumably holed up in their own shelter.

And asbestos gloves, because why not?

Of course, we didn’t know then that asbestos would kill more Americans than atom bombs.