In 1959, the Marathon County Historical Society created a new exhibit that reflected the excitement over the space race.
A Trip to the Moon, Audio Reel, 1959A Trip to the Moon
The Marathon County Historical Society received as a gift the former home of Alice and Cyrus Yawkey in downtown Wausau. And after a few years of renovation, it was opened as a history museum. But while the community was generous in donating all sorts of items to the new historical society, it was difficult to fill a house with exhibits and displays. Thankfully Edward Schoeberger moved his family to Wausau in 1956, and he became the assistant director. His background as an artist helped create exhibits that reconstructed and even
In 1959, Schoenberger created a new exhibit that would provide an interactive experience for visitors, who were invited to pretend to be astronauts and take off from the Wausau spaceport to visit the moon!
The exhibit had a wall painted with science fiction looking panels and gizmos. It had window ports that would slide open to reveal painted scenes and even a paper mache moon lit up with movie-like magic.
The component of the exhibit that brought together the full experience was the pre-taped audio narration that would be played to walk visitors through the trip. MCHS worked with audio engineers at the local television station to splice together a full soundscape. Narration full of scientific (and scientific-sounding) jargon, sound effects, and even a partial orchestral score that underplayed the whole thing.
An Uncertain End
We recently rediscovered the roll of audio tape that would have been played as part of the exhibit and digitized it. It runs about a half hour, and took visitors from blast off to touching down on the moon, before a bit of suspenseful action and an uncertain end. Was the dissonant orchestral score which leaves an uncertain air meant to prompt contemplative consideration of the meaning of life and perhaps raise questions about the nature of human curiosity and where it perhaps ought not take us? Or maybe the exhibit only worked as long as you stayed in the “space ship” and the promised outing onto the surface in the “moon-mobile” was not possible in a small historical society museum in 1959, and the diegetic score was included to provide background as visitors were prompted to leave the room so it could be reset. We may never know for sure…