A Trip Through Space for Boys and Girls (1954)

While flipping through the 1954 bookA Trip Through SpaceI was take up by one aspect of the interstellar story that I ’ve never noticed in a pre - Apollobook … a girl in space !

Here at Paleofuture we ’ve looked at quite a few books that tell child of the fifties and 60s about the wondrous world of space travelling in store for them . But I can honestly say that I ’ve never noticed one that included girls in this fantastic , blank space - fare future .

Exploring Space , First Men to the Moon , Boytopia , The Complete Book of Space Travel ; none of these delineation of succeeding cosmonaut bother to include women . A Trip Through Spacewas write by Catharine E. Barry , an associate conservator at theHayden Planetarium , but there is n’t much information about her online . Any biographic entropy about Ms. Barry from readers is greatly appreciated .

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Now , I know that pointing out sex inequalities of the 1950s is n’t a particularly novel observance and I only own about half a dozen children ’s book from the fifties and LX that envision future space traveling . So it ’s hard for me to definitively say how common depictions of female cosmonaut were during this period without more panoptic research . With that said , I mistrust that the girl inA Trip Through Spaceis a rare depiction indeed .

I ’m fascinate by what kind of stories we tell our child and how that mold our society . The account we take heed as kids no doubt greatly influence our linear perspective on what ’s possible for the future , both globally and in person . Sally Ridebecame the first American cleaning woman in blank * in 1983 — the year I was stick out , in fact . What stories did Sally Ride hear growing up that pose her on a path follow scientific discipline ? Growing up , how did she see herself fitting into the space plan ? As a 27 class old Isle of Man who did n’t grow up during the Space Age it ’s sometimes knockout for me to earn personal perspective on things like this .

I emailedVirginia Postrel , author ofThe Future and Its Enemies , columnist atBloombergand editor program of the websiteDeep Glamourso that I might better understand the gender government of the clip . When I moved to Los Angeles I had dinner with Virginia , her married man andPaul BoutinatCafe fifty , where a written matter of the 1959 Thomas Kyd ’s bookYou Will Go to the Moonhangs on the rampart . Over dinner Virginia talked about how much she loved that book when she was a minuscule girl . Virginia ’s electronic mail to me appears below .

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When I was in kindergarten ( some 1965 ) , we had a metre every day where we could look at books . My favorite books were You Will Go to the Moon ( 1959 ) and a book on the planet . I did show You Will Go to the Moon nigh every Clarence Day , and I never noticed that the character in the book is a boy or that the text say , “ You will be a space man . ” I only remark that decades later when the book turned up on the wall of Cafe fifty and I later acquired a used copy . As a tyke I never explicitly aspire to be an cosmonaut . It was more that I take over that in the future people would go into place , perhaps on business trips or as tourists . I never got to the details . I do n’t know that more woman being represented would have had much effect on me , because I ’ve never had much of a job place with male role models , but it might have made a difference for other female child . Later , in the early seventies , when I was 12 or 13 I watched Star Trek , which , of course , had plenty of female characters . The recurring ace were a switchboard operator , a nurse , and a secretary , but there were nonrecurring scientists , diplomat , historian , etc .