On the Moon

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Captain Marvel: Mayhem on the Moon (1968)

It's been fifty years since man first set foot on the moon—and in all reality that collective experience has had greater effect on Earth than in the stars. In celebration of the millennia of lunar curiosity that culminated in July 20, 1969's touch, LSU Libraries Special Collections launches the exhibition, On the Moon—which explores the lunar world and its effect on the tides of the human mind. 

Taken from the library's collections, the exhibit will include various items from the year 1969 that reflect on the goings-on on the ground while man first walked on the moon—particularly here in Louisiana. Visitors will glimpse into windows of the day's politics, social change, literature, and popular culture—featuring strikingly relevant icons of activism, race relations, university policies, local businesses and industry, hurricanes, political commentary, and war. 

In the midst of it all will stand tall timeless works of science and literature, including a 1635 compilation with Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), with engravings based on his early drawings of the moon when first viewed through a telescope; Pierre-Simon Laplace's Traité de mécanique céleste (Treatise of Celestial Mechanics, 1798-1825) in which he proposed a dynamic theory of tides; Daniel Defoe's The Consolidator (1705); Edgar Allan Poe's tale of moon travel by balloon, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" as it first appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger (1835); a 1902 edition of Jules Verne's important early work of science fiction De la terre á la lune (From the Earth to the Moon); and a 1979 edition of Philip K. Dick's The Man in High Castle, the basis for the current Amazon Prime television series. The exhibit will be on display until July 26. Free to the public. lib.lsu.edu/special.