Birth of The Peace Symbol (1958) w/ Ian Chillag

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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It’s February 22nd. This day in 1958, in advance of a massive nuclear disarmament protest in London, designer Gerald Holtom came up with a simple design that would go on to be the logo not just for the no-nukes movement, but come to be known as the peace symbol.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Ian Chillag of Everything is Alive to talk about Holtom’s original design, whether the peace symbol is now hopelessly cheesy — and whether it will ever come back into fashion.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:10.0	This day February 22nd, 1958, the Direct Action Committee is making preparations for a large
0:18.4	march in London to protest against nuclear weapons. They're doing all the things you do ahead of a big march,
0:23.8	which would be in about a month,
0:24.8	but you know, there's communication,
0:26.1	there's outreach, logistics,
0:27.8	and maybe they're starting to make some signs.
0:29.9	And then they're thinking,
0:31.2	what would go on these signs that were going to hold at this march?
0:33.7	Well, it was on this day ahead of this nuclear disarmament march that what came to be known as the
0:39.5	peace symbol was originally presented.
0:41.6	Now you can picture it probably,
0:43.0	it's the circle with the line down the middle
0:44.8	and the two branches coming off at the bottom third.
0:46.8	It's like the Mercedes-Benz logo
0:48.7	with the extra little line down the middle.
0:51.0	This is where it came from.
0:52.8	The symbol was immediately adopted by the Direct Action Committee for their March
0:56.4	and the symbol would of course go on to be used worldwide and come to be about much more than
1:01.0	just nuclear weapons.
1:02.0	It is the peace symbol.
	...

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