The Space Age Hits the Road:Visionary Car Designs in America.

Saturday, February 6, 2010 – Monday, May 31, 2010

University Park Campus
Doheny Memorial Library
Ground Floor Rotunda

Photographs document the American love affair with chrome and steel.

The cars rolling off the assembly lines of Detroit’s Big Three automakers were among the most memorable symbols of the future… as it was imagined during the 1950s. Their elongated tail fins and cockpit-like windshields drew inspiration from the U.S. space program and the aesthetics of jet aircraft, evoking the idealized lifestyle promised to Americans by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.

Many of the photographs seen here were originally published in the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper and are now a part of the USC Libraries’ Special Collections.