Schedule

Schedule

NASA recoloredSunday—Welcome to the Institute

1:00-5:00 pm              Participants will arrive and get checked in to their dorms

6:00-8:00 pm              Welcome Dinner at La Lune Palace, Long Beach Airport

7:15-8:00 pm              Dave Neumann, Brief introduction to agenda and expectations, logistics, and questions

 

Monday— World War II & the Rise of the Sunbelt

How and why did the Sunbelt develop in Southern California?

8:00-8:30 am             COFFEE

8:30-9:15 am             Walking tour of CSU Long Beach with discussion of the historical development of the institution

9:30-11:00 am            Dr. William Deverell, “The Southern California Sunbelt in National and Regional Perspective”

11:00-11:30 am          Dave Neumann, Discussion of readings

  • Nash, “ “The Western Aircraft Industry”
  • Starr, “Swing Shift”
  • Gluck,  “Introduction,” Rosie the Riveter Revisited : Women, the War, and Social Change
  • Escobedo, “Reenvisioning Rosie: Mexican Women and Wartime Defense Work”

11:30-Noon                LUNCH

Noon-12:30 pm         Travel to Long Beach Airport

12:30-3:00 pm           Tour of historic Long Beach Airport & visit to Rosie the Riveter Park

3:00-3:30 pm             Return to campus

4:00-5:30 pm             Dr. Arthur Verge, “World War II in Southern California: Development of Aerospace Culture”

 

Tuesday—The Experiences of Aerospace Workers

What do oral histories and other sources reveal about aerospace workers’ experiences?

8:00-8:30 am              COFFEE

8:30-10:30 am            Dr. Ali Igmen, Introduction to Oral History & the Rosie the Riveter Oral History collection

10:30-10:45 am          BREAK

10:45-11:45 am          Prof. Tim Keirn, Discussion of readings

  • First half of Westwick, ed., Blue Sky Metropolis

11:45-12:30 pm          LUNCH

12:30-1:45 pm            Dr. Peter Westwick, “Working in the Aerospace Industry: Executives, Engineers, and Factory Workers”

1:45-2:00 pm              BREAK

2:00-2:30 pm              Travel to Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey

2:30-5:00 pm              Gerald Blackburn, Downey Aerosopace History and Roundtable with former aerospace employees

5:00-5:30 pm             Return to Long Beach

 

Wednesday— The Space Race in the Cold War

How did aerospace become a site of Cold War superpower competition—and cooperation?

8:00-8:30 am              COFFEE

8:30-9:30 am              Travel to Cold War Museum in Culver City

9:45-11:15 am            Dr. Andy Jenks, “The Space Race in the Cold War: Aerospace and the Soviet Union”

11:15 am-1:30 pm     LUNCH & explore collections of Cold War Museum

1:30-2:00 pm              Travel to California Science Center

2:00-4:00 pm              Dr. Kenneth Phillips, Tour of Air & Space Exhibits, California Science Center

4:00-5:00 pm              Return to Long Beach

5:00-5:30 pm              Prof. Tim Keirn, Discussion of readings

  • Scott, “Missile and Space Industry: The Southern California Nexus in National Context”
  • Sides, “The Window of Opportunity: Black Work in Los Angeles, 1941-1964”
  • Zuoyue Wang, “Engineering a New Space: Chinese American Scientists and the Engineers in Aerospace in Southern California”

 

Thursday—Living in the Space Age

How did the aerospace industry shape American life and popular culture?

8:00-8:30 am              COFFEE

8:30-9:00 am              Prof. Tim Keirn, Discussion of readings

  • Second half of Westwick, ed., Blue Sky Metropolis

9:00-10:00 am            Travel to Pasadena

10:00-12:00 pm          Guided tour of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

12:30-1:30 pm            LUNCH & Return to Long Beach

1:45-3:15 pm              Dr. Peter Westwick, “The Southern California Aerospace Industry and the Cold War”

3:15-3:30 pm              BREAK

3:30-4:00 pm              Dr. Eileen Luhr, Discussion of Readings

  • Avila, “Chocolate Cities and Vanilla Suburbs: Race, Space, and the New ‘New Mass Culture’ of Postwar America”
  • Bernstein, “From the Southwest to the Nation: Interracial Civil Rights Activism in Los Angeles”
  • Nicolaides, “The Suburban Good Life Arrives”

4:00-5:00 pm              Dr. Eileen Luhr, “Cold War Suburbia: Race, Class and Gender in Southern California Housing”

5:30-9:00 pm              DINNER & screening of The Right Stuff with Introduction by Dr. Peter Westwick

 

Friday—Looking Forward, Looking Back

How do we remember the Cold War through memoir and commemoration? How has the aerospace industry in Southern California developed since the end of the Cold War?

8:00-8:30 am              COFFEE

8:30-9:00 am              Travel to Del Valle Park, Lakewood

9:00-10:45 am            DJ Waldie, “The ‘Holy Land’ of Lakewood: Life in the Archetypal Postwar Southern California Suburb”

  • Beers, “Lucky Star”
  • Wiener, “Memorial Day in Lakewood”

10:45-11:00 am          Return to CSULB

11:15 am-12:45 pm   Dr. Peter Westwick, “Death and Rebirth: The SoCal Aerospace Industry Since the End of the Cold War”

1:00-2:00 pm          Final Wrap Up