Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series: Cold War Capital City, or: How Frankfort Learned to Stop Worrying

Home to only 18,000 people in 1960, Frankfort nevertheless found itself in the crosshairs of the Soviet Union during the Cold War on account of being Kentucky's state capital and lying in proximity to bigger cities and military installations. How did the city government, its residents, and the state government system plan to withstand a nuclear attack in the event of World War III? From "duck and cover" exercises at school to public stockpiles of supplies to backyard fallout shelters, join Dr. Jim Seaver as he explores how the people of Frankfort did their best to prepare for the worst at the height of the Cold War.
As a cultural historian and folklorist of the mid-twentieth century, Dr. Jim Seaver is fascinated by the ways in which ordinary Americans prepared for the extraordinary during the Cold War. He says that this topic found him during a chance encounter with an old civil defense-branded radiation detector in Louisville over a decade ago. Born and raised in Lexington, Dr. Seaver received a B.A. in history from the University of Kentucky before earning M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Indiana University. Since 2022, he has worked at the Kentucky Historical Society and called Frankfort his home.
Please register at https://www.pspl.org/event/fhls-seaver. For more information, contact Diane Dehoney at (502) 352-2665 x100 or [email protected].