09 Aug IHC Pre-Doctoral Fellow: Eric Fenrich
Eric Fenrich is a Doctoral Candidate in History. His dissertation is titled The Color of the Moon: The American Manned Space Program and Racial Inclusion, 1957-1978.
This project examines the interactions between the U.S. space program and the struggles for racial justice within the United States between 1957 and 1978. It will analyze how racial concerns influenced the projection of NASA’s public image and its internal recruitment policies. Additionally, the project will analyze how African American popular culture, activism, and media coverage shifted from an integrationist approach that accepted the validity of the space program as a Cold War imperative to an approach that questioned American priorities of spending federal monies in space rather than on Earth.