Archive for the History of Southern California Aerospace

Huntington Library, Art Collections, And Botanical Gardens, San Marino CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will create an archive on the history of southern California aerospace. For the last hundred years Southern California has provided the primary home for the U.S. aerospace industry. Although this geographic concentration had important consequences for both aerospace and Southern California, no systematic archive on the subject currently exists, and much important historical material has been lost. The project will preserve documentary collections and oral histories in an aerospace archive at the Huntington Library. Southern California aerospace illuminates crucial issues in science and technology studies and in American history. It was a major sector of the U.S. economy in the last century and employed a substantial fraction of American scientists and engineers. Its history highlights disciplinary differences between science and engineering and between design and production engineering, and institutional relationships among universities, government labs, and industrial corporations. Aerospace overlaid on these relations the differences between civilian and military sectors, especially the issue of classification. Finally, the industry's concentration in Southern California underscores the effects of place in science and engineering: how technologies can reflect the particular geographical context that produces them, and in turn how the production of such technologies influences the broader context. The history of Southern California aerospace thus combines history of science and technology with scholarly interests including labor, industrial policy, gender and ethnicity, art and literature, popular culture, and the environment. This project will provide vital and lasting infrastructure for research, teaching, and outreach. The aerospace archive capitalizes on the institutional collaboration of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, combining the curatorial and scholarly resources of the Huntington Library and the University of Southern California. The project includes strong outreach to science writers and science museums, and it supports an ongoing "Teaching American History" program for K-12 education at the Huntington Library. A project website will help disseminate the archive's products. The project will thus provide a sorely needed entry point for research into this vital aspect of American history.