Ice Cream Trucks & Civil Defense                                                                      Scolere

 

Leah Scolere, lms43@cornell.edu 

 

PhD program, Department of Communication, Minor in History of Architecture and Urban Development

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ice cream trucks and their pervasiveness in suburban America during the mid 1950s into the 1960s are looked upon with great nostalgia and largely excluded from any discussion of Cold War history and culture.  In the constant recall of the image of children running to ice cream trucks, the history of the ice cream truck has been reduced to nostalgic icon of 1950s suburban Americana and consumer culture. Largely forgotten is the role that ice cream trucks played in civil defense politics.

The ice cream trucks functioned on several different levels throughout the Cold War in relation to adults and children.  Community civil defense leaders, the soft-serve industry, and interested citizens took part in the Cold War paranoia and ramping up of civil defense related to mobilization of soft serve ice cream trucks and other vehicles. The soft-serve mobile trucks and their civil defense involvement as promoted in popular press, official Federal Civil Defense Administration publications, and industry promotions reproduced prevailing notions about the role of the family, race and class within suburban America. On another level, many citizens and kids remained oblivious to newly civil defense-decaled ice cream trucks in their neighborhoods and their voluntary role in civil defense efforts. (Figure 1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

McEnaney argues that civil defense literature served to “domesticate the bomb” by taking large scale, global problems and making them “local with familiar solutions.” [1] This perpetuated a way of talking about civil defense in which nothing was as it seemed and everything was rooted in the familiar and everyday—“where fallout was dust, family fire drills were games, and fallout shelters were family, family type or home shelters.” [2] In a similar way, the seemingly surface, carefree, kid centric soft serve ice cream trucks with their lively jingle music and their colorful graphics were not what they seemed.  In another instance of the familiar being co-opted for the selling of civil defense, the everyday ice cream truck experienced by kids throughout America is revealed and promoted to be heavily equipped and technologically advanced militaristic vehicle that is ready to aid in crisis and attack. The popular press during the late 1950s and early 1960s seemed taken with revealing the unexpected “utility” that existed behind the “gay exterior” of the soft-serve truck.[3] For example, the Janesville Daily Gazette started an article with the question: “What can an ice cream truck do for civil defense?” [4]  The July 15, 1962 The Levitttown Times article on ice cream trucks and civil defense lead with the attention grabbing headline, “Softee Can Get Hard,” in which a Mister Softee soft ice cream franchise owner demonstrated how the generator of the truck could supply vital emergency power to homes, hospitals and temporary “mass care centers.”[5] The photo featured in the article was a strategically cropped image of the highly mechanical and technical looking ice cream truck generator to further promote the unexpected toughness and importance of a mere ice cream truck in the minds of American citizens.

 

Civil Defense Ties

 

Mister Softee and Dairy Dan were two ice cream truck companies who volunteered their vehicles and actively promoted the utility of their vehicles as part of the civil defense effort in case of an attack. (Figure 2)  While there may have been other

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

companies involved in civil defense efforts, of the nearly dozen different soft serve companies operating at the time, only these two companies came up in the literature as promoting their involvement or being praised for their involvement in civil defense. A prominent industry journal, Ice Cream Trade Journal, describes Mister Softee’s efforts in volunteering 1400 ice cream truck drivers along with their trucks as part of the civil defense volunteer effort,  “Mister Softee, combining public relations and concern for the nation’s civil defense is embarked on a program in which its soft ice cream truck operators and their vehicles are being sworn in for civil defense and disaster control.” [6] In this particular case, the several Mister Softee volunteers participated in a test run as part of the New Jersey Civil Defense effort in which they turned their trucks into “ emergency units on simulated missions of mercy” and carried “blood plasma and instruments for detecting radiation to the waiting planes.”[7] In fact, the director of New Jersey Civil Defense promoted the Mister Softee volunteers as “a most valuable contribution to civil defense setup, urging other companies with mobile units to join the program.”[8] Similarly, Dairy Dan ice cream trucks and volunteers participated in a nationwide Operation Alert on May 3rd-May 5th in Greeley, Colorado in which the trucks were “placed at the disposal of local authorities” to be used as “emergency of supplemental power suppliers or as first aid stations.”[9] (Figure 3)  In both cases, these volunteer efforts of Mister Softee and Dairy Dan were promoted not only in industry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

trade journals but also appeared in local newspapers with a similar narrative around volunteering and being part of the community. Although it is not clear how many of other ice cream truck companies were officially affiliated with civil defense efforts, the following quote indicates that there may have been a number companies involved: “More than 250 mobile soft ice cream units in 23 states responded to a recent nationwide Civil Defense Alert held May 3-5 in of the most unique efforts ever taken by private industry to aid the CD program.”[10] This quote also points to the relationship and involvement of private industry in civil defense.

 

Situating civil defense and mobile ice cream.

 

Landscape of Mobile Soft serve and Franchise Growth. The 1950s marked a shift in the ice cream industry with the supermarket and self-serve ice cream replacing the past dominance of the drugstore fountains.[11] By 1965, the advancement of freezer technology, predominance of home freezers, and self-serve freezers in stores shifted the emphasis to grocery stores “marketing some 55 percent of the nation’s ice cream.” [12]  While hard ice cream had moved to the supermarket, a revolution in ice cream had occurred with the development of “soft ice cream or soft-serve frozen dessert.”[13] This introduction of soft ice cream “re-energized street vending” and the mobile soft serve market began to take off with number of companies leading this phenomenon including Mister Softee in 1956.[14] This rise in this mobile market for ice cream has been attributed to the rise in car consumption and movement of families to the suburbs.[15]

 

By 1961, the mobile soft serve industry was referred to as  “one of the fastest growing phenomena in the nation’s economy” and it was estimated that there was about $80 million in sales during 1960.[16]   In addition to Mister Softee and Dairy Dan, there were about a dozen or so other privately held mobile soft serve companies, many of whom were based out of Pennsylvania and New Jersey because nearly “80% of all the soft serve ice cream consumed in the United States” was produced in four states: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Indiana.”[17] The rapid growth is best exemplified by Mister Softee, which started in 1955 with six trucks with $100,000 in sales and grew to 1600 trucks by 1960 grossing approximately $25 million. [18]

 

In the ice cream industry journals, from 1959-1962 there was continual promotion of civil defense participation and volunteerism. The editor of The Ice Cream Review encourages involvement in civil defense as an easy way to get publicity and build reputation, while being a good citizen:

 

"A gesture that cost little or nothing, but gained local newspaper publicity for an Illinois franchiser of mobile soft serve ice cream trucks was an offer of the firm's trucks to the Illinois Civil Defense Director in the event of disaster. Potential sales at the time like that we imagine wouldn't be enough to be for the cost of gas so what's he got to lose?" [19]

 

Both Mister Softee and Dairy Dan created their own corporate publications that were distributed to their franchises and ice cream truck drivers to explain how the ice cream trucks could be an important part of civil defense and to persuade them to volunteer their efforts and their trucks in their local community as a part of the effort. Mister Softee created a publication as a part of the driver-training program that was intended to illustrate “the many ways mobile ice cream units can provide vital assistance in times of need.”[20]  Similarly, Dairy Dan created a two-sided brochure urging drivers to contact their local civil defense director to enroll and highlighted the key ways that the Dairy Dan Unit was equipped to serve civil defense: “10,000 watt generator—light 10 house, uncontaminated water supply, mobile: to move from one disaster area to another, illumination in critical areas, and mobile refrigeration unit for medical supplies and food.”[21] (Figure 4)  The Dairy Dan trucks and drivers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

were positioned as an essential part of civil defense in the community: “ You and your Dairy Dan Unit are of inestimable value to your community—and you can become a vital part of that program.”[22] (Figure 5)   All volunteered ice cream trucks were given a civil defense decal to display prominently to signal their participation in the Civil Defense Network. These decals can be easily identified on Mister Softee trucks, illustrations, and advertisements of the time.  The Dairy Dan brochure included an illustration of the truck directing the exact placement of the civil defense decal on both sides of the vehicle.[23]  The ice cream truck owners and industry worked to position the trucks as vital mobile units that could provide food, medical aid, and transportation services during a post-attack world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mobility and the Suburbs

 

               In order to understand the role and motivations of mobile soft serve trucks in civil defense, it is important understand the context of the Cold War suburbs.  Conformity pervaded the post-war suburbs. The rhetoric and representation of the suburbs focused on depicting the nuclear family and emphasizing the order, cleanliness, and tidiness of the home and the yard as a means of making class and race distinctions as to who belongs within the suburbs and how the suburban environment distinguishes itself from the urban environment and diversity of class and race.[24]

 

During the Cold War, the rhetoric and exclusionary representation of the white suburban nuclear family, the importance of cleanliness of home, and conformity only heightened as depicted through civil defense propaganda and implementation in residential neighborhoods.    In the early 1950s, due to a lack of funding from Congress, the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) partnered with industry to spread the idea of preparedness through the idea of self-help.[25] This notion of self-help meant that citizens were to take “primary responsibility for safeguarding their families, private property, and neighborhoods.”[26] This manifested itself in the FCDA literature and recommendations with an emphasis on recruiting volunteers for the highly touted warden service within fallout shelter literature and residential neighborhoods.

 

Within the home preparation and fallout shelter literature, there was exclusive focus on the family and the family shelter. In fact, each member of the narrowly defined representation of family—father, mother, son, and daughter was encouraged play a role in civil defense preparations.  In the 1955 FCDA produced workbook, A Family Action Program, the family was called upon to partake in home protection exercises and to assign each member of the family responsibilities for a wide range of conditions from: responding to the alert signal, preparing the fallout shelter, fire fighting and prevention, rescue, emergency aid, food provisioning, and home nursing.[27]  Families were encouraged to make these emergency drills into a series of games that were continually played in preparing their home for an attack.[28]  Publications like the FCDA A Family Action Program served to elevate and reinforce the importance of the family and the white suburban home and neighborhood in the survival of the Nation, while effectively excluding everyone else from a post attack survival plan.

 

Other publications by various private and trade associations more explicitly linked housekeeping and cleanliness to survival. The 1954 House in the Middle civil defense propaganda film by the National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association explicitly equated cleanliness, whiteness, and tidiness with survival of an atomic attack by depicting a dirty house, a dingy house, and a clean, white house in which only the white house in the middle remains standing after the test bomb presented in the film.[29] Not only is the upkeep of the exterior of the home important, but also the film goes on to present how important the housekeeping of the interior of the home is to protect against destruction. The film narrator points to clutter on tables, trash, and dirt as evidence of poor housekeeping and neglect that will ensure the family’s doom during an attack.  This Cold War film takes the already present suburban narrative of cleanliness as status and conformity and extends it as necessary for survival. Good citizens were encouraged to be on the look out for clutter and signs of loosely defined untidy living. Children were encouraged to get involved in local “fix up campaigns” to rid communities of untidy spaces to focus on the landscape in front of the homes.[30] The film offers the explicit directive that there are “four basic doctrines” for safer homes and communities: “beauty, cleanliness, health, and safety.”[31]   In equating beauty and cleanliness with health, safety and ultimately survival, this film along with the fallout shelter literature escalates the culture of conformity and homogeneity within towns and communities to a level which empowers each citizen, under the guise of tidiness, to look for subjective differences in the landscape, the architecture, or interior as a sign of danger to the community.

 

In additional to literature about the home and fallout shelters, the FCDA focused on expanding civil defense to neighborhoods and communities. The warden service was conceptualized as a neighborhood civil defense organization that would help neighborhoods prepare for survival by recruiting volunteers, organizing neighborhood survival committee, and preparing residents for evacuation drills.[32] The warden service and the block warden played a fundamental role in enlisting residents to be good citizens by being active participants in civil defense activities and preparations. The warden service heightened the surveillance within neighborhoods. According to the 1955 Warden’s Handbook one of the main responsibilities of the block warden was to “record and maintain essential information concerning residents, available protective equipment, and physical features of the block.” [33] In addition to surveying the neighborhood, the warden was charged with “preparing and maintaining accurate maps of the block and taking and maintaining an accurate census of the block.”[34]  In these Cold War suburban communities, the heightened surveillance exercised by block wardens and residents served to amplify the culture of conformity.

 

Just as the fallout shelter literature and representations prioritized the safety of the nuclear family to the exclusion of the those individuals who were not a part of the traditionally defined white family composed of dad, mom, and two kids, the block warden civil defense literature was similarly entirely preoccupied with the survival of the family in a post-attack world. Non-family situations and portrayals were absent from the majority of FCDA literature.[35]  The FCDA National Women's Advisory Committee report from the 1954 Washington Conference explicitly states that one of the most purposes of the warden service beyond coordination of evacuation and temporary care after an attack is the “rehabilitation of the family in the community” and restoring the “family back as rapidly as possible.”[36]

 

The restoration of the white suburban family in a post-attack world was used as a panacea that would serve to stave off the chaos from the evacuation of people of various races, religions and socio-economic status from the city that would not fit with the suburban communities.  The 1954 National Women's Advisory Committee: Federal Civil Defense Administration report articulates this concern:

 

“When you evacuate a tremendous industrial area with a polygot of nationalities, of religions, of different income levels, into a quiet, middle class mostly agricultural town, things happen.”[37]

 

Further, the civil defense literature reveals detailed preparation in the form urban analysis in order to understand the various types of people, religions, income levels, and racial breakdown for an evacuation. The term “fit” in relation to difference of race, religion, and socio-economic status was used to preserve the homogeneity, whiteness and middle class status of the suburbs by excluding others through difference. For example, The 1954 National Women's Advisory Committee: Federal Civil Defense Administration report discusses the importance of knowing the composition of the city so in the event of evacuation and dispersal to suburban areas “people can be fitted as closely as possible into the kind of community structure to which they are accustomed.” [38]

 

Implications For Mobile Soft Serve

 

In the appearance driven environment of Cold War suburbs, the heightened scrutiny around logging and accounting for people and buildings, created a culture where people and businesses were continually pressured to demonstrate that they fit in and were good citizens through volunteer civil defense efforts. The already existing acute awareness of difference within the postwar suburbs that Harris points to escalated through civil defense neighborhood services.[39]  In of itself, the mobility of soft serve trucks could be considered in contrast to the highly ordered, fixed, and proper places of the suburban communities. Instead of homogenous, quiet neighborhood and predictable interactions that were attached to the home and nuclear family, the mobile ice cream truck introduced instability into these suburban communities.  The mobility of the ice cream truck destabilized and loosened up dominant meanings of place into the neighborhood by broadcasting the iconic jingle music, defining new spaces around the interaction of the trucks, and roaming the neighborhoods during the summer until as late as 9 or 10PM.

 

Mobility has traditionally been considered a disruption to the stability of fixed places. Further, mobility has been associated with “geographical defiance” and resistance[40] and can be understood as tactical or a “practiced space” rather than a “proper place” or fixed place.[41]  More recently, Loomis draws on Cresswell’s notion of “positional ideologies” in relation to the mobility of contemporary food trucks as a way to distance them from mobile vending more broadly. [42]

 

This frame of mobility as undesirable, threatening, and unstable has been historically applied to the informal economy including mobility of street vendors, food trucks, and carts; this frame has been used as a narrative to remove them from public space— citing issues of safety and cleanliness.[43] Through newspapers articles, industry journals, and advertising of the time, it is clear that at the same time that the mobile soft serve industry was rapidly growing, there were concerns shared by industry members and franchise owners and drivers about access to communities and specific ongoing  “legislative bans” that were “designed to chiefly discourage expansion of mobile soft serve” into particular areas.[44] Mobile soft serve vendors were actively battling legislative bans.  One particular case in North Carolina received a great deal of nationwide press around the banning ice cream trucks in residential areas due to concern about to noise violations.[45]

 

 Noise was considered not only a disruption to the quietness of the retreat of the suburban neighborhood but also had class and race implications. Harris draws on Dell Upton’s argument about the relationship between spatial identity and noise where “cacophony was linked with darkness, savagery, whereas quiet and/or sounds deemed harmonious had associations with upper classes and whiteness.”[46] Further, maintaining quietness was “paramount for the preservation of a neighborhood that conveyed the appropriate messages about the status of the occupants.”[47]

 

In residential communities that equated quietness as a way to distance themselves from the noise and crowding of working class urban lifestyles, the roaming soft serve trucks and the kids that surrounded their trucks and their broadcasting of music served to initially position trucks in tension with the stable, fixed, and ordered ideology of the suburbs. In addition to noise, there was concern about ice cream trucks interfering with the family dinnertime and a New Jersey Alderman requested an hour and half ban on ice cream trucks sales during supper in order to preserve the sanctity of family dinner. [48] At other times, bans were enacted due to “health and safety issues”[49] around children getting hurt because they were running into the street when they heard the ice cream bells.   Ice cream trucks were referred to as “jingle-belling peddlers”[50] and an  “attractive nuisance” in the press as a way to further position ice cream trucks as disruptive and “out of place” in both the suburbs and urban areas.  However, the soft serve truck owners were constantly working to combat these negative categorizations. For instance, Mister Softee enrolled children in its safety club to promote traffic safety and caution with children.

 

Due to their mobility and noise, soft serve trucks had to work hard to make themselves more widely accepted in suburban communities. There was significant discussion within industry ice cream trade journals about the importance of developing community relationships and visibility once access to a community is gained. For example, Chris Anastos, industry reporter, describes some of the strategies that the mobile soft serve industry was initiating during the Cold War era: “Once mobile soft serve is established, however, public and community relations continue to play an important role. Many manufacturers encourage their dealers to become a part of their respective communities and participate in fund drives and other public service undertakings.”[51] Emphasis was placed on appearance of the driver and the truck to help make ice cream trucks more readily accepted into suburban communities. Soft serve industry leaders point to Mister Softee’s appearance as a way to gain acceptance by mothers to increase sales to children:

 

 “Appearance is important in this business.  We never let a dirty truck go on the street. This care has much to do with the fine reception Mister Softee trucks have been getting in Lancaster. Their sanitary appearance and white uniformed drivers help convince mothers that Mister Softee ice cream is good for their children.” [52]

 

The similarity of construction and visual presentation across the dozen or so companies of the pristine, white mobile soft serve trucks along with the visual presentation of the truck graphics, and the white, military like uniforms of the drivers worked to formalize the informal and signal stability of place through increased legibility, order, and cleanliness. In other words, it is likely that in order to combat some of the negatives associated with soft serve trucks and to take their place as “good citizens,” the soft serve trucks cleverly went the route of supporting Cold War propaganda.

 

Mobility As A Civil Defense Tactic

 

This focus on mobility and mobile units to aid in civil defense represented a shift in thinking by the federal government to focus on the needs for a post attack world. The Eisenhower era marked a departure in policy from the Truman era’s solo focus on the public shelter to the concept of evacuation as the way to survive an attack.[53] There were a number of civil defense “pocket manuals” published that focused on mobile solutions to rescue and emergency mass feeding and seem to start to pave the way toward the volunteering of ice cream trucks as a desirable mobile unit for civil defense. The Emergency Mass Feeding Pocket Manual, jointly produced by the FCDA and American Red Cross, emphasized improvisation suggesting that a “standard truck or other large vehicle in the community” could be converted into a mobile canteen.[54] This mobilization for a post attack world especially played out in the nationwide Operation Alerts that took place 1958 and 1960.[55] Around the time of the 1960 Operation Alert, soft serve ice cream trucks began to announce their enrollment in the civil defense network of volunteers. Civil defense publications placed responsibility on smaller cities, towns, and suburban areas to come to the rescue of the “critical target areas” or the 92 cities that were considered “centers of population” and industry that had the highest likelihood of being attacked.[56] According to the 1955 FCDA publication, The States, Counties, Cities and Civil Defense, outlying areas were “responsible for sending immediate ‘mobile’ support to attacked areas.”[57]  There was an expectation of obligation and duty that surrounding communities would save the cities in attack that was expressed in publications such as the 1954 National Women’s Advisory Committee: Federal Civil Defense Administration:

 

                     “Civil Defense is the problem of the Nation, and those who are located at some                              distance from a target city should give thanks daily and should organize their                                resources to come to the aid of those who are located within danger areas.”[58]

 

The representation of the suburbs and communities outside of the cities as the being privileged and therefore obligated to come to the rescue of the cities complicates the dialectic between the city and the surrounding communities.  On one hand, this rhetoric reinforces the center-periphery dynamic of the city as powerful and important (industry and population center) and the surrounding communities as inconsequential. Alternately, the civil defense literature reverses this dynamic by positioning the surrounding communities and suburbs as being privileged and therefore obligated to be altruistic and save the cities with their volunteer mobile units. In doing so, the civil defense literature serves to reinforce the status of the suburbs as self-sufficient, white, and upper middle class in contrast to the city as needing assistance, chaotic, working class, and non-white.

 

        While the Federal government and the publications they issued through the FCDA focused on leveraging the mobile aid of the periphery suburban communities to swiftly provide aid to urban centers, the ice cream industry journals and popular press indicate that some soft serve owners viewed their mobile units as a form of self-preparedness within their own communities. As reported in the 1960 Ice Cream Trade Journal, the president and co-founder of Dairy Dan Ice Cream Trucks suggests the concern of protecting suburban areas and surrounding smaller towns that might not have Federal attention, aid and infrastructure in the event of an attack:

 

                     “AS Rothstein, president of the firm stated in a letter to dealers ‘it might seem                                incongruous to use an ice cream unit as an emergency vehicle, nevertheless you                          are uniquely equipped to be of great value in many ways should a disaster of any                          nature strike your community. While large cities have specially equipped                                        disaster units, he stated, many small cities and towns are not so equipped.” [59]

 

Ice Cream Trucks & Kids

 

Despite the Cold War preoccupation of adults, the mobile soft serve industry was very dependent on suburban nuclear family and selling to children who were largely oblivious about the Cold War politics when they would run to the truck to get ice cream all throughout the summer and into the fall.  The Mister Softee advertisements in local newspapers usually directly addressed children with their “Hey Kids” ads.[60] Further, Mister Softee’s focus on the suburbs can be seen through its introduction of a new compact ice cream truck specifically for the suburbs in order to keep pace with the “population explosion” and the demand of the “sprawling suburbs.” [61]  Soft serve neighborhood drivers were clearly strategic and savvy about knowing how to sell to their target audience of children often offering prizes, contests, and gaining rapport with parents—especially the suburban moms that were home in the neighborhood most of the day. Mister Softee’s advertising to potential new franchise owners emphasizes the profit that could come from children in their 1960 advertisement copy: “A wonderful way of life… Make big profits from ‘little ones’ with Mister Softee.” [62] The accompanying illustration depicts a group of white children of various ages gathering around the Mister Softee truck. This advertisement equates owning an ice cream truck with the American dream and an easy way of selling to children.  Notably, the civil defense decal is depicted on the truck and serves as a hiding in plain sight graphic for those who are attuned to civil defense.  This advertisement and other similar soft serve promotional materials of the era contributed to the visual rhetoric of insidious penetration of the military and surveillance in private life and neighborhoods.

 

The Selling of Civil Defense and Ice Cream

 

The participation of ice cream trucks in the civil defense network can be partially understood as an extension of this relationship between private corporations and local civil defense agencies and the selling of civil defense. Moor briefly points to the Dairy Dan ice cream truck and its involvement with civil defense as an example of the “institutionalization of civil defense in the marketplace as everyday goods and services became identified as part of the survival effort” and a means of selling civil defense.[63]  The FCDA’s partnership with the Ad Council and the subsequent ad campaigns, at times, explicitly framed civil defense as good citizenship.[64] During the early 1960s, there seemed to be emphasis from the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization on “industry talking to industry” as a way for private corporations and businesses to get involved in preparing for an attack.[65] In the 1961 Annual Report Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, industries and organizations were specifically called on to help in preparations.

 

In addition to featuring those in the industry who volunteered as a part of the civil defense effort, The Ice Cream Review reported that Frank Ellis, Director of Civil Defense Mobilization came to speak to 1200 industry attendees at the October 1961 annual convention of International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers (IAICM) about “a blueprint of government plans in event of nuclear attack.”[66] Although, the proceedings from this conference have not been readily accessible, this mention of Director of Civil Defense Mobilization, Frank Ellis speaking at the convention illustrates direct communication between the Federal government civil defense and IAICM and starts to provide us with clues as to when and where conversations of industry involvement may have come up within the ice cream industry.

 

Conclusion

 

               In addition to the concern about protecting small cities and towns and the pressure from the Federal government for industry and private corporations to do their part, the mobile soft serve companies likely saw volunteering their trucks as an easy way to gain publicity and further embed themselves as good citizens in the marketplace of the suburban neighborhood from whom they earned their livelihood. In addition to the appearance of the clean white truck, promotions for kids, their military-like uniforms, the Civil Defense decal served to help further position a sales truck as “in place” and acceptable in the uniform and highly regulated suburban neighborhood. This notion of being “in place” and appearing as a good citizen was especially important during a time when there was an escalated degree of surveillance going on within neighborhoods. While the ice cream trucks of the 1950s and 1960s are often remembered fondly for their expected presence as a part of summer days and evenings of suburban American childhood, they are excluded from most narratives about participation in civil defense and the intersection of government, private corporations, and the suburban nuclear family. The ice cream trucks and their participation in civil defense illustrate the degree to which Cold War militarization pervaded the everyday experience. Not always delivered through expected channels, ice cream trucks’ civil defense volunteerism demonstrate the ways that the privatization of defense during the Cold War came cleverly cloaked in ice cream dessert, childish graphics, carefree music, and everyday ritual of neighborhood families.

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[1] McEnaney, Laura, Civil Defense Begins At Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life In the Fifties. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000),73.

 

 

[2] McEnaney, Laura, Civil Defense Begins At Home, 74.

 

 

[3] “Truck Can Double As CD Unit,” Janesville Daily Gazette, 20 April, 1962,

http://www.newspapers.com/download/image/?id=13145066&print=1&fcftoken=.pdf

(Accessed 22 March. 2015).

 

 

[4] “Truck Can Double As CD Unit,” Janesville Daily Gazette.17.

 

 

[5] “Softee Can Get Hard,” The Levittown Times, 15 July.1961, 2

http://www.newspapers.com/download/image/?id=48550528&print=1&fcftoken=.pdf

(Accessed 22 March. 2015).

 

[6] “Mister Softee Mobile Units Volunteer for Civil Defense and Disaster Control.” 56 Ice Cream Trade Journal (August, 1960), 91.

 

[7] Ibid

 

[8] Ibid

 

[9] “Soft-Serve Mobile Ice Cream Units Aid Civil Defense During Recent Exercises.” 56  Ice Cream Trade Journal (June, 1960), 61.

 

[10] “Soft-Serve Mobile Ice Cream Units Aid Civil Defense During Recent Exercises.” 56  Ice Cream Trade Journal (June, 1960), 61.

 

 

[11] Dickson, Paul. The Great American Ice Cream Book. [1st ed.] New York: Atheneum, 1972.

 

 

[12] Jakle, John A., and Keith A Sculle. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants In the Automobile Age. (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999,) 179.

 

 

[13] "Big Revolution in Ice Cream." The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), May 05, 1962. http://search.proquest.com/docview/493035816?accountid=10267

 

 

[14] Jakle, John A., and Keith A Sculle. Fast Food, 184.

 

 

[15] "Big Revolution in Ice Cream." The Chicago Defender.

 

 

[16] “Focus On Mobile Soft Serve.” 45 Ice Cream Review (August, 1961), 32.

 

 

[17] Willatt, Norris. "The Business Front." Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly (1942-Current File), Jan 16, 1961, 11.

http://search.proquest.com/docview/350391616?accountid=10267

 

 

[18] Willatt, Norris. "The Business Front." 11.

 

[19] “An Editor Gets Personal.” 45 Ice Cream Review (February, 1962), 74.

 

[20] “Mister Softee Mobile Units Volunteer for Civil Defense and Disaster Control.” 56 Ice Cream Trade Journal (August, 1960), 91.

 

[21] Dairy Dan Publication, Virgil L. Couch Papers, 1951-1958 (Couch Papers); Box 20, Civil Defense Publications by Businesses and Corporations, 1950-1958 (5), Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, 1.

 

 

[22] Dairy Dan Publication, Virgil L. Couch Papers. 2.

 

 

[23] Dairy Dan Publication Civil Defense Decal, Virgil L. Couch Papers, 1951-1958 (Couch Papers); Box 20, Civil Defense Publications by Businesses and Corporations, 1950-1958 (5), Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

 

 

[24] Harris, Dianne Suzette, Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race In America. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

 

 

[25] Moor, Angela Christine. Selling Civil Defense: The Politics and Commerce of Preparedness, 1950--1963. ProQuest, 2008. (Order No. 1460476). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text: History; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: History. (304381405). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/304381405?accountid=10267

 

 

[26] McEnaney, Laura, Civil Defense Begins At Home, 23.

 

 

[27] Federal Civil Defense Administration, A Family Action Program: Home Protection Exercises. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955

 

 

[28] Federal Civil Defense Administration, A Family Action Program: Home Protection Exercises. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955, 3.

 

 

[29] The House in the Middle, National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association, 1954.

Operation Cue, Federal Civil Defense Administration, 1955

 

 

[30] Ibid.

 

 

[31] Ibid.

 

 

[32] Federal Civil Defense Administration, How To Establish And Organize A Warden Service.U.S. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1955

 

 

[33] Federal Civil Defense Administration, The Warden’s Handbook H-7-1. Washington, GPO, 1951, 3.

 

 

[34] Federal Civil Defense Administration, The Warden’s Handbook, 12.

 

 

[35] McEnaney, Laura, Civil Defense Begins At Home.

 

 

[36] Federal Civil Defense Administration, A Report On The Washington Conference of National Women’s Advisory Committee. Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1954, 21.

 

 

[37] Ibid.

 

 

[38] Federal Civil Defense Administration, A Report On The Washington Conference, 18.

 

 

[39] Harris, Dianne Suzette, Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race In America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

 

 

[40] Cresswell, Tim. In Place/out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression. (Minneapolis, Mn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 88.

 

 

[41] Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 117.

 

 

[42] Loomis, J. M. (2013). Moveable Feasts: Locating Food Trucks in the Cultural Economy. 2013.

 

 

[43] Hunt, Stacey. "Citizenship's place: the state's creation of public space and street vendors' culture of informality in Bogota, Colombia." Environment and planning. D, Society and space 27, no. 2 (2009): 331.

 

[44] “Focus On Mobile Soft Serve.” 45 Ice Cream Review (August, 1961), 32.

 

[45] “Kids Protest Ban on Ice Cream Trucks,” Lebanon Daily News, 18 May. 1961,

http://www.newspapers.com/download/image/?id=82245197&print=1&fcftoken=.pdf (Accessed 22 March. 2015).

 

 

[46] Harris, Dianne Suzette, Little White Houses, 272.

 

 

[47] Ibid.

 

 

[48] “Dinner Distraction,” Medford Mail Tribune,18 July, 1956, http://www.newspapers.com/image/96972812 (Accessed 10 May. 2015).

 

 

[49] “Milford Drive Pushed to Bar Streets To Ice Cream Vendors,” The Bridgeport Post, 16 Jun. 1967, http://www.newspapers.com/image/60700792 (Accessed 10 May. 2015).

 

 

[50] “Carolina Town May Ban Ice Cream Trucks,” The Weirton Daily Times, 20, Jan. 1962, http://www.newspapers.com/image/96972812 (Accessed 10 May. 2015).

 

 

[51] “Focus On Mobile Soft Serve.” 45 Ice Cream Review (August, 1961), 67.

 

[52] “Soft Serve Mobile Stores.” Ice Cream Review 42 (April, 1959), 36.

 

[53] McEnaney, Laura, Civil Defense Begins At Home.

 

 

[54] Federal Civil Defense Administration and The American National Red Cross, Basic Course In Emergency Mass Feeding Pocket Manual. Washington, GPO, 1957. NEED PAGE

 

 

[55] Oakes, Guy. The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

 

 

[56] Federal Civil Defense Administration, A Report On The Washington Conference, 10.

 

 

[57] Federal Civil Defense Administration, The States, Counties, Cities, And Civil Defense. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1955, 13.

 

 

[58] Federal Civil Defense Administration, A Report On The Washington Conference, 11.

 

[59] “Soft-Serve Mobile Ice Cream Units Aid Civil Defense During Recent Exercises.” 56  Ice Cream Trade Journal (June, 1960), 62

 

[60]  “Hey, Kids—Mister Softee Is Coming To Town,” The Express (Lockhaven, Pennsylvania),11, June. 1958.

 

[61] “Mister Softee Announces New Compact Truck.” v. 56 Ice Cream Trade Journal (Dec, 1960), 89

 

[62] “Make Big Profits From ‘Little Ones’ With Mister Softee.”43 Ice Cream Review (June, 1960), 85.

 

[63] Moor, Angela Christine. Selling Civil Defense: The Politics and Commerce of Preparedness, 1950--1963. ProQuest, 2008. (Order No. 1460476), 1. Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text: History; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: History. (304381405). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/304381405?accountid=10267

 

 

[64] Moor, Angela Christine. Selling Civil Defense.

 

 

[65]  Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, 1961 Annual Report. Washington, GPO, 1961.

 

[66] “Capital Report: Ice Cream Manufacturers Get Down To Business.” 45 Ice Cream Review (December, 1961), 20.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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