In the fall of 1957, my mother was 12 years old. She had a budding interest in science and an especial interest in space because 1) it was the fall of 1957 and 2) her father was an aeronautics engineer who was just being drafted (unsure if it was just before or just after Sputnik) into becoming an astronautical engineer (which he remained until he retired in the 1980s). From October to December of 1957, she clipped every story she could find (most likely from the Baltimore Sun).
I have created a preliminary scan of the scrapbook. In the future, I’d like to see if I can do a higher-quality one and correct the two errors I made during the scanning process. In once case, a clipping flipped over and I didn’t notice until after the PDF was completed. In the other, I forgot to remove one layered section of a story (many stories were positioned in layered format and had to be rearranged for scanning). Everything else should be readable.
This scrapbook provides a fascinating snapshot of three months in which the world changed dramatically. The clippings reflect optimism, fear, and some confusion. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.
Space Travel: Here and Yet to Come (46.4 MiB, 990 hits)
