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This 1953 Propaganda Cartoon Depicts Our Happy Future With Atomic Energy

Dr. Atom explains the basics of atomic energy in this 1953 educational cartoon sponsored by General Electric. bq. A Is For Atom speaks of five atomic "giants" which "man has released from within the atom's heart": the warrior and destroyer, the...

Dr. Atom explains the basics of atomic energy in this 1953 educational cartoon sponsored by General Electric.

A Is For Atom speaks of five atomic “giants” which “man has released from within the atom’s heart”: the warrior and destroyer, the farmer, the healer, the engineer and the research worker. Each is pictured as a majestic, shimmering outline figure towering over the earth. “But all are within man’s power; subject to his command,” says the narrator reassuringly, and our future depends “on man’s wisdom, on his firmness in the use of that power.”

The potential of nuclear power plants providing enormous amounts of energy is romanticized, and this video was released 1 year prior to the startup of USSR’s Obninsk Power Plant, the world’s first to be hooked up to an electrical grid.