Megan Prelinger

This book was tailor-made for my space-race-steeped childhood psyche. While I was not, of course, reading Aviation Week and Missiles and Rockets magazines as a toddler, the graphics that Megan Prelinger uses as the centerpieces of her work nonetheless seem comfortingly and excitingly familiar.
[As a side note, the author runs a private library in San Francisco (http://www.prelingerlibrary.org) that is open to the public on occasion. I happened to be in SF on one of those weekends, and made it a point to visit. Megan was very gracious and interesting to talk to. If you have the chance to drop by, I recommend it.]… (more)

In Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962, Megan Prelinger writes, “In the first half of the twentieth century science fiction evolved into a medium for exploring dreams and anxieties about technology, society, and the future. Space became the realm in which authors strove to portray and understand the rapid changes that were occurring in all three dimensions” (pg. 9). She argues, “The history of the early space age that emerges from the advertisements is as much cultural as it is technological. Space was breaking out of the confines of genre-bound science fiction to become a mass civic objective; it was becoming an inevitable and even essential destination for human discovery. The most complex ads are in fact ideological statements using art and design (often drawing on science fiction’s visions of future technology) to persuade the audience of the imperative need for funding to build the human future in space” (pg. 15). Further, “These revealing artifacts from fifty years ago provide a map to understanding some of the dynamics of contemporary space politics and the uneasy balance of power between military and civilian interests in space… As this book shows, events that are sometimes reported in contemporary media as if they were happening for the first time in fact have historical precedents” (pg. 21). Another Science Fiction focuses on five subjects: Satellites in the Sky, the Human Body in Space, Spacecraft: Form and Function, the Landscape of Space, and Mid-Century Modern Space. Prelinger draws upon the historical work of Johanna Drucker and Emily McVarish for theory as well as interviews with those who worked in mid-century aerospace advertising, in particular Willi K. Baum, to put the work she studies into its context. Her work follows in the tradition Roland Marchand began with his monograph, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940. Like that work, this is a must-read for cultural historians.… (more)

A lovely book, that I discovered while browsing at the local book store. I'm old enough to remember seeing some of these ads in 'Scientific American' and other magazines. I have always wondered why they disappeared from view, and why their promised breakthroughs never seemed to materialize. Ms. Prelinger's book answered that question for me quite nicely. The book illustrates a promised future that never seemed to happen, via advertisements (of all things!). An enjoyable, if somewhat bittersweet, book.… (more)