Clean Up Paint Up

White text and illustrations of hands cleaning and painting on a blue background

This button is most likely related to two documentary film shorts released in 1953 and 1954 called The House in the Middle, which showed the effects of a nuclear bomb test on three small houses. The houses on the left and right are run down and poorly maintained, but the house in the middle is clean, freshly-painted, and well-kept. The middle house survives the attack, while the more rundown houses do not. The 1953 version of the film was created by the Federal Civil Defense Administration (which created a nationwide plan for fallout shelters) to show that taking care of your house could help protect you from a nuclear bomb dropped by the Soviet Union.

The 1954 version of the film was released in color by the National Clean Up – Paint Up – Fix Up Bureau, which was created by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association. This version of the film was geared more toward marketing paint than protection against bombs.