Hi
If you go to
www.nzmeccano.com you will find an online (or downloadable) a complete set of Meccano magazines from 1916 to 1980. These also had lots of interesting stories of how we viewed science, discoveries, inventions and topics of the day.
Another source of interesting material is in the "Silicon Chip" DVD of the complete set of Radio and Hobbies from its beginning in 1939 to its end in 1964. One interesting article there was a a description on building a giant solar cell in space and beaming the energy down as microwave link to be converted back into electricity. There was a recent mention in the press of this idea as a new invention.
Barry