Design
In 1954, Americans Were Told to Paint Their Houses to Increase Their Chances of Surviving an Atomic Bomb
How the paint and varnish lobby used the Cold War to sell property upkeep.
That's what the narrator tells us early on in "The House In The Middle," a 1954 film sponsored by the "National Clean Up-Paint Up-Fix Up Bureau," in cooperation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration.
The 12-minute film, interspersed with actual bomb testing footage, makes the case that a well-kept and nicely painted home could save one's property from atomic destruction: