Spaces of Calculation: Street Addressing and the Making of a Geo-coded World

Description

According to the Library of Congress website, "Street addressing is one of the most basic strategies employed by governmental authorities to tax, police, manage, and monitor the spatial whereabouts of individuals within a population. Despite the central importance of the street address as a "political technology," few scholars have examined the historical and contemporary practice of street addressing with respect to its broader social, political, and ontological implications. When, where, and why did the technique of house numbering historically emerge as a mechanism of spatial ordering? How did it come to be so taken for granted as part of everyday life in post-industrial societies?

In this presentation, Kluge Fellow Reuben Rose-Redwood explores the cultural and political history of street addressing in the United States, from the late 18th century to the present, including the recent shift from rural route and box numbering systems to 911 addresses."

San Diego Air and Space Museum [CA]

Description

The Museum provides visitors with a journey through the history of flight. Visitors may stand beneath a model of the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon of 1783—the first manned vehicle in recorded history to lift man above the Earth. They can view specimens of aircraft from World War I, or marvel at the antics of the barnstormers of the 1920s. Mint condition aircraft help visitors appreciate the increasingly complex technology represented in the classic military aircraft of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and exhibits on space flight project aeronautics into the future.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, research library access, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Discovery Museum [CA]

Description

"The Discovery Museum of Sacramento is a family-focused educational institution dedicated to enriching the lives of local residents and visitors to the Sacramento Region by encouraging the exploration of history, science, and space." The museum is split into two entities, the Challenger Learning Center, which is an interactive space mission simulator which consists of a realistic Mission Control Center and spacecraft, and the Science and Space Center, which is a traditional museum focusing on scientific discovery. The Challenger Learning Center is primarily a children's educational center, and is only open to public groups by appointment. The Science and Space Center features a variety of exhibits, including live animals and a planetarium.

The site offers an events calendar, visitor information for both locations, an online gift shop, and information on all programs offered by the Challenger Space Center.

Armstrong Air and Space Museum [OH]

Description

Named in honor of Neil Armstrong, first person to set foot on the moon, this museum chronicles the history of spaceflight and Ohio's contributions to such endeavors. Among the items on display are a F5D Sky Lancer, the Gemini VIII spacecraft, Apollo 11 artifacts and a moon rock. In the museum's Astro-theater, multimedia presentations of the sights and sounds of space unfold against a starry background.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, and multimedia presentations for museum visitors. The museum also offers a variety of academic content standards-based educational programming. The programming is available for school groups, community organizations, and scout troops. Available after school during monthly sessions is the Young Astronaut Program designed for young children in grades 2-7 curious about space exploration and travel. For more information about YAP, please contact the museum.

Virginia Air and Space Center

Description

The Virginia Air and Space Center serves as the visitor center for NASA Langley Research Center and Langley Air Force Base. Visitors' imaginations will soar as they launch a rocket, pilot a space shuttle, and come face-to-face with the Apollo 12 Command Module and a DC-9 passenger jet. They can also experience a 3D IMAX film in the Riverside IMAX Theater.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, IMAX film screenings, lectures, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

SpaceProgramArchive.com

Image
Photo from Press Telegram, February 1, 1958
Annotation

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik, effectively beginning the "space race" with the U.S. that would last throughout the Cold War. Sputnik followed more than 25 years of research by scientists interested in rocket propulsion. This extensive archive presents more than 50,000 scanned newspaper pages, shedding light on virtually all aspects of the space program from 1930 through 2009. A good place to begin is the website's "Timeline" section, which highlights prominent events in the history of space discovery, such as the Guggenheim Foundation's decision in 1935 to support Dr. Robert H. Goddard's research into self-propelled rockets, and the launch of the Challenger in 1985 which made Sally Ride America's first woman in space. It also provides links to newspaper articles. An "Advanced Search" features allows users to input specific search terms and dates and retrieve newspaper pages—primarily from newspapers published in smaller and medium-sized cities in the south, mid-west, and California (Fresno, Jefferson City, Tuscon, Danville, VA) covering those events. The archive's decision to provide full scanned newspaper pages (as opposed to transcribed articles) allows users to better historically contextualize these events with other prominent contemporaneous events.