What have we forgotten? Using school magazines to reveal children's thinking about the Cold War and the future during the 1950s and 1960s

Olsson Rost, Anna ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7309-9721 (2021) What have we forgotten? Using school magazines to reveal children's thinking about the Cold War and the future during the 1950s and 1960s. In: Childhood memories of Cold War times and beyond: between connections and divisions, 20 October 2021 - 21 October 2021, Berlin.

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Abstract

“Our fate lies in the hands of scientists. Are we heading towards a better way of life, or are we, slowly but inexorably moving towards Orwell’s conception of the future? Or indeed is our destiny that of the final destruction of our planet? Time alone will tell.” This phrase makes up the concluding words of a written piece composed in 1955 by a school pupil in a small Welsh coastal town. Considering how the Cold War is often remembered, perhaps we are not too surprised by this chilling conclusion? In fact, maybe we even expected it? This conference paper aims to demonstrate how the use of school magazines can reveal the complexity of children’s thinking about the Cold War whilst living in the midst of it. These primary sources allow us a unique insight into narratives of uncertainty, fear, and hope. They also bring science and technology to the fore, illuminating perhaps less expected ways that children made sense of the Cold War. This exploration of school magazines as primary evidence allows us to re-examine how we remember the Cold War home front, and what we might have forgotten. Furthermore, it intriguingly lets us take a peek at children’s feelings and beliefs about the future beyond the Cold War. This paper hopes to encourage wider study of school magazines and similar sources in order to trace beliefs, ideas, and attitudes among children about the Cold War. This posits an exciting prospect for historians of childhood as well as the Cold War to reveal a more complex history of children’s thinking and experiences during this period.