The San Diego Air & Space Museum recently received a generous award from the California State Library for their “California Revealed” project. This project will enable the Museum’s Library & Archives to digitize 50 items containing thousands of pages of content. The materials selected for digitizing include board minutes from the Consolidated/Convair Aircraft Corporation from 1924 to 1954, which give an important insight into the major decisions that made the company one of the most important aerospace manufacturers in America.

Also selected for digitization are the Northrop Grumman company newspapers that range in date from the 1940s to the 1980s. Northrop was another major aerospace corporation in California that employed several thousand people during the 1950s.The company is is known for manufacturing the futuristic "Flying Wing" aircraft and several other important designs, such as the F-5.

The Northrop Grumman company newspapers will provide valuable insight into the California aerospace industry during the Cold War and also include stories of human interest such as employee spotlights, company sports teams, social clubs, and special events. These newspapers and will be available in late 2020 to search and read online at www.Archive.org.

This is a continuation of the Museum’s partnership with the California State Library, which has generously digitized many of our oral histories, including rare interviews with T. Claude Ryan, plus three over-sized scrapbooks that belonged to Reuben H. Fleet, the founder of Consolidated Aircraft.