In the future, kids will be so dumb that they'll forget the year (and spooky music will swell on cue).
It saddens me greatly to read about films that are forever lost to deterioration. The 1984 book Yesterday's Tomorrows by Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan mentions a film that was released in 1908 under the title The Air-Ship or One Hundred Years Hence. The ad below advertised the film, giving it second billing to The Great One Hand Pianist. This ad for the Electric Theatre appeared in the May 19, 1908 La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wisconsin).
Anyone with more information about this film is encouraged to fill us in. For now, let us raise our glasses to this paleo-future wonder, currently playing at The Great Showhouse in the Sky.
This Closer Than We Think! strip ran in the December 25, 1960 Chicago Tribune.
Chistmas cards of the future may be transmitted electronically. The post office is studying the use of space technology for quick movement of endless quantities of mail between widely separated points.
To do this, microwave stations would be set up. Envelopes would be opened mechanically, and the automatic "fingers" would remove the contents and expose them to a scanner. Impulses from the card or letter might be beamed to a postal satellite or even the moon, bounced back to the destination point, reproduced there in the original printing or handwriting, sealed in a capsule and delivered. All this might be done minutes from the time the communication first arrived at a post office thousands of miles away.
See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Closer Than We Think! Monoline Express
Below is film of the moving sidewalk featured at the Paris Exposition of 1900. The film is credited to Thomas Edison.
Are the switchboard girls listening in on your calls? Get the Wireless Telephone! This story ran in the February 20, 1910 Washington Post (Washington, D.C.). The story has a number of typos and grammatical errors so I took some liberties with the transcript, but you can read it unedited above.
The part about calling your husband and telling him to stop at the butcher's shop is amazing. I don't think I'd believe the article was real if I hadn't found it myself.
The wireless telephone makes it easy enough for the timid lover who hasn't the courage to make his avowal to his Valentine face to face.
He could have used the ordinary telephone you say? Ah, there was the dread of the listening giggling telephone girls at the Central switchboard. Crossed wires might cross him in love besides.
He wasn't safe with the old style telephone - for it is old style though still in use. Somebody else might cut in. Somebody else might cut him off and thereby cut him out.
For the wireless telephone is here. That is if it isn't here it's there.
And do you think it is necessary to hitch a wireless telephone to a tall steel tower to get results? Not at all. Mr. Pickerill uses an umbrella. Mr. Pickerill says if you are at all superstitious about raising an umbrella in the house -- for the wireless telephone can be used anywhere within a radius of several hundred miles outdoors or in-you can hitch the telephone to a typewriter or an iron bed or the metal frame of a sewing machine or the coal scuttle or the radiator or the kitchen stove or the gas fixture - he doesn't care - and call up your own true love.
Wives can call husbands at their offices or on the way to Harlem or the suburbs in the car and say, "Do stop at the butcher's on the corner and get some liver and bacon!" It's the girl's day out. And you know how she is! She never orders a thing ahead.
As a matter of fact, the present style telephone is used mostly by loving couples. After a man's married the trouble begins - not on account of needles and pins money so much as because he doesn't telephone that he'll be late at the office or has to sit up with a sick friend.
"When we were keeping company you used to ring me up a dozen times a day simply to ask me if I still loved you!" the wife will cry. "And if Central would say Busy you'd get so jealous and accuse me of having other fellows call me up. And if Central would say Nobody answers you'd write complaints to the main office. But now you never even let me know you are not coming home!"
Lovers must be sure that their wireless telephones are in tune as well as their thoughts in accord. The wireless telegraph companies are appealing to the Government to supervise aerograms because mocking amateurs are continually butting in on the Hertzian waves.
So too if lovers are not in tune, the wrong girl may get the wireless telephone proposal.
Advice to Married Men - Don't you care when your wife says angrily, "Don't tell me, I know you heard me. I called you all day and your wireless telephone was in perfect condition when you fastened it to your hat this morning when you left the house."
Affect a look of surprise and reply, "Don't be angry dear. I forgot to take off my rubbers and wore them all day."
The image above is from an insert in the Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond DVD set. The image was used in Disneyland as the poster for the Space Station X-1 attraction.
Space Station X-1 invited Disneyland guests to circle the earth from fifty miles up for a satellite view of America.
See also:
Tomorrowland, Disneyland Opening Day (1955)
Walt Disney Explaining the Carousel of Progress to General Electric (1964)
The March 3, 1949 Austin Statesman (Austin, Texas) ran the picture above, declaring that the people of Nice, France believe robots will be kings in the year 2000.
SALUTE TO THE FUTURE - The people of Nice, France, are preparing for their annual carnival, one of the top features of the season on the French Riviera. Among the biggest attractions in the parade will be this "robot." The people of Nice will honor it, because they feel robots will be kings in the year 2000.
A number of major news outlets got burned in 2002 on a fake story about blondes going extinct. The idea that blondes will soon be non-existent is not a new one, as you can see by reading the story below. "Blondes to be Extinct" ran in the March 7, 1907 New Oxford Item (New Oxford, Pennsylvania).
Another man has come forward to declare that the woman with the golden tesses is doomed, says the New York American. This does not mean that she is to be absent next summer from the beaches, when her bathing suit is of the proper color, or that she is not to be found the next Winter, wearing a white veil to accentuate the head of hair nature or a chemist designed for her.
But in about six hundred years the blonde will be a curiosity. She is to join the horse with five toes and the dodo. The leading lady doing Ophelia in a play by Shakespeare will not be able to wear her own hair unless she violates tradition. The color will predominate in the department stores around Christmas time and still be a favorite for dolls.
Of all the paleo-futuristic concept videos we've looked at in the past four months, the future depicted in Grey Flannel Navigator may have been the most accurate. Granted, it's the safest but computer networking and ordering pizza through your computer was pretty visionary for 1988. The assumption that we need an image of a person as an interface seems to be where most of these videos fall down.
Below are all three parts of the 1988 Apple concept video Grey Flannel Navigator. Thanks again to Keith C. for the video.
Part 1
The evening edition of the December 5, 1924 State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) ran a short article about Henry Ford's automated vision for the future. It was titled "Machine Men," and the author laments the hustle and bustle the automobile has produced. The author calls "pish-posh" on Mr. Henry Ford and his projections of life with less work.
The article is transcribed below in its entirety.
Where is Henry Ford going to land us? asks Arthur Train in The Forum. His ambition is to build and market a hundred million automobiles so that every child will have one. His "vision" is for a world where everything is done by machines. His perfect man would press a button by the side of his bed and find himself automatically clad, fed, exercised, amused, and put to bed again. Thirty minutes' work for each of us a day would be enough, he says, to keep civilization going. Pish-posh, Henry! Does anybody suppose you would stop until you'd eliminated the necessity for all work whatsoever? Of course you wouldn't! When you rearranged everything so that the human "robot" can sit on his front porch and talk to another "robot" friend a thousand miles away on his eye glass string, mow his farm in Mongolia and milk his reindeer in Nova Zembla by wireless, hear and see what is going on upon the other side of the world by looking at a shirt stud, transport himself thru the air on a broomstick, and kiss his wife and best girl by radio - will he be any better off? Before we had motors in New York I used to go down town in a rattling old surface car that took half an hour; but now in your cabriolet, even if you've reduced the price $590.65 F.O.B. Detroit, it takes an hour. Have I gained anything? Somehow I feel as if I'd lost a little of my liberty. I don't want a nickel-plated stomach or an oxydized liver. I don't want to sit in one place and be artificially respirated and exercised, in order to keep my blood in circulation. I like to work. I like to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow because it makes me hungry to do it that way. For if, Henry, everything is done for us, what eventually are we going to do?
See also:
Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)
Robots: The World of the Future (1979)
The Mechanical Man of the Future (1928)
The Robot is a Terrible Creature (1922)
The 1982 book Fact or Fantasy? (World of Tomorrow) by Neil Ardley features this picture of "time tourists" choosing their destination.
Time tourists choose an era of the past to explore. They then enter the time machine on the left and watch history unfold before them. But they can only view the past and not enter it and live there. The time machine does not show the future, otherwise people could change what is going to happen.
Part 3 of Apple's 1988 paleo-future concept video Grey Flannel Navigator gives us much needed closure about that business plan.
The 1979 book Wasn't the Future Wonderful? features the above two-page spread of Jack Dempsey challenging a robot. Unfortunately, the book doesn't specify the publication or date except that it's from the 1930s and probably from Modern Mechanix. Below is an excerpt from the piece.
I can whip any mechanical robot that ever has or ever will be made.
Maybe that sounds a bit egotistical, maybe you will say it's just the voice of a "has-been," but I assure you that neither is true.
Engineers can build a robot that will possess everything except brains. And without brains no man can ever attain championship class in the boxing game.
See also:
Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)
Robots: The World of the Future (1979)
The Mechanical Man of the Future (1928)
The Robot is a Terrible Creature (1922)
Mammy vs Robot (Charleston Gazette, 1937)
Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)
Arthur Radebaugh's Closer Than We Think! strip for the May 21, 1961 Chicago Tribune envisioned a Monoline Express of the future. Below is the text of the strip.
Two ideas now being developed in Detroit - an automatic highway and a high-speed monorail bus system - are combined in the concept of the Monoline Express, in which private automobiles will use a novel "high road" to commute to town or travel between cities.
General Motors proposes the "autoline" - a computer-controlled highway in which cars would travel almost bumper to bumper at speeds of 120 miles per hour or more. And a business group wants to see the two sections of the University of Michigan campus linked by a "monobus" which would move on a novel monorail guide trough up in the air. Put together, the two concepts result in automatic travel in your own car at light aircraft speed!
See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)
'Flying Saucer' Buses (1950)
Word Origins: Imagineering (1947)
Speed is Key to Future Travel (1965)
The June 10, 1958 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune ran an article about predictions for Chicagoland and the world. The predictions were sealed in a time capsule and supposed to be opened in the year 2000. Below is an excerpt from the article as well as a copy of the piece in its entirety.
The predictions included the conquering of space, advanced atomic energy and electronic progress, a higher standard of living, shorter working hours, and longer vacations (with four weeks as the average). The chicken in every pot and a car in every garage forecast has been changed to a helicopter and heliport in every back yard.
See also:
Commuter Helicopter (1947)
The Flickr group Wasn't the Future Wonderful? has some great examples of postmodern paleo-future art. These pieces co-opt and remix past visions of the future, giving an interesting context to current visions of the future.
Kozmonaut by ART NAHPRO
eye lines by Nesster
Moonweb by Matt West
Au Revoir Planet Earth by Mattijn
Soon Mariska, Soon by john_bolin2002
Violet Gaze sent in these great images from the 1964/1971 book Childcraft Vol. 6 How Things Change. The paleo-future view of education was exceptionally accurate compared to a lot of other predictions. The homework machine envisioned in 1981 was big, but not altogether wrong.
My favorite element of this two-page spread is the fact that the girl has a hyper-futuristic "answer machine" and yet still uses a typewriter.
See also:
Homework in the Future (1981)
The Road Ahead: Future Classroom (1995)
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (Part 7, 1993)
Project 2000 - Apple Computer (1988)
Family Guy produced a spot-on parody of the Jetsons that you can view here.
See also:
The Jetsons "A Date with Jet Screamer" (1962)
Jetsons
We read the predictions of futurist Mr. Bois in a September 26, 1909 New York Times article about the flying bicycles of the future. Just ten years later the September 23, 1919 Janesville Daily Gazette (Janesville, Wisconsin) ran this picture of a "flying bicycle." If only it worked.
See also:
A Hundred Years From Now. (New York Times, 1909)
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Collier's Illustrated Future of 2001 (1901)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
The Next Hundred Years (Milwaukee Herold und Seebote, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)
The 1987 book Welcome to Moonbase describes the "history" of colonizing the moon. The manual explains "lunar manufacturing," "job guidelines," and "lunar tourism," among other things. Stay tuned as we explore this fascinating book from the paleo-future.
See also:
Space Colony Pirates (1981)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Space Colonies by Don Davis
More Space Colony Art (1970s)
Mars and Beyond (1957)
Challenge of Outer Space (circa 1950s)
The McFly 2015 project is incredibly focused. Its single goal is to entice Nike to produce the paleo-futuristic shoes worn my Michael J. Fox in the movie Back to the Future: Part II. The project was launched in April of 2007 by the Maloof brothers (Michael and Charles). When I emailed them I got a response outlining their future plans:
We are currently producing an official commercial for the project that will be available on YouTube, iFilm and other online video sites. We are also making official McFLY 2015 button pins and stickers because there has been a huge demand from all those who have signed up, the American rock band Whirlwind Heat (they were discovered by Jack White of The White Stripes) even asked their fans to sign up so they can rock the McFLYs on stage during a rock show.
A cynic can view this entire campaign as a great way to sell a brand without a product. Selling a sense of community centered around the idea of longing for the paleo-future? Brilliant. These guys are going to sell a lot of buttons and stickers. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a McFly 2015 t-shirt soon.
See also:
Back to the Future: Part II (1989)
Hoverboards Are Real! (1989)
Associated Press Woman's Editor Dorothy Roe included a poem in her 1944 article about the kitchen of the future. I found the article in the March 20, 1944 Charleston Gazette (Charleston, West Virginia) and the poem is transcribed below.
After the war . . .
We'll just a press a button for food or for drink,
For washing the dishes or cleaning the sink.
We'll ride in a rocket instead of a car.
And life will be streamlined . . .
After the war.
After reading the entire article, which we'll look at later this week, you can tell that Roe attempts to put the hopes of post-war America into perspective and let people know that we may not be headed for a push-button future after all.
See also:
1999 A.D. (1967)
Call a Serviceman (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
Something must be wrong with its radar eye! (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)
'Summer Terrace' All Year Round (1960s)
Below is a short clip from the 1972 paleo-futuristic documentary Future Shock. This segment focuses on the prospect of changing your skin color.
Will the human race emerge in a range of brilliant colors? Given the choice, would we want to look alike or different? What is beautiful?
You can find Future Shock on the DVD Yesterday's Tomorrows Today, released by A/V Geeks.
See also:
Future Shock (1972)
Future Shock - Electrical Stimulation (1972)
The September 27, 1901 Lincoln Evening News (Lincoln, Nebraska) included a short story and illustration of the elevated train of the future. At a speed of 600 miles an hour, it would have been quite impressive. Below is the entire article.
The object figured in the accompanying illustration may be termed either an aerial automobile or a terrestrial aeroplane, for, while it derives its means of propulsion from gigantic air screws, or propellers, it travels along a double set of rails. It has an inclosing aeroplane, or horizontal shield to maintain its equilibrium and support in the air. It is cigar shaped, made of aluminum, hardwood and glass. Electricity will drive the propellers and it is expected that the frightful speed of 600 miles an hour will be attained. The car, which is inclosed, is capable of carrying 23 passengers. The speed at which it is intended to propel this aerial train is great enough to make a passenger's breath away, and, while the problem of propulsion has been a great one that of bringing the train to a stop without smashing everything into smithereens is still greater. The result of the trial trip is looked forward to with great interest but the inventor, Dr. Adolph Broadback, declares that his "artificial bird" will have no more trouble in stopping than the eagle or the swallow, which he is to emulate and, if possible, surpass. Of course, earlier inventors equally confident have been obliged to acknowledge failure, but the enthusiastic doctor in this case will not even admit that there is a doubt of success.
As a writer and producer for the 1993 video Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future, Henry Bassman has a fascinating link to the paleo-future. Bassman worked at AT&T for almost thirty years. While there, he worked on technology videos, the introduction of cellular telephone systems, UNIX, optical communications systems, advanced microprocessor technology, among many other things.
I sent Henry a few questions and he was kind enough to send back some answers.
1. Who was the audience for Connections and how was it distributed?
The audience was highly diverse -- from young adults in universities to successful business people. We wanted to demonstrate our technology vision for the future of communication and enlist people into signing up for that future. We gave away hundreds of copies, offered them to schools and other institutions on loan and sold copies.
2. How were the “technologies of the future” conceived?
First I convened a group of technology-savvy communicators since scientists and engineers tend to be poor prognosticators. We developed a number of scenarios that we thought were possible. I developed those scenarios into one or two paragraph capability descriptions and circulated them among AT&T's leading scientists and engineers in Bell Labs, Lucent, and AT&T headquarters. We winnowed out the ones the experts said were unlikely in our 12-14 year timeframe, made changes in others and came up with a list of potential new capabilities. Then I went to Universal Studios and Disney Studios to interview writer/directors and production companies. We chose Universal because they gave us the most creative script ideas.
We wanted to demonstrate that people and their basic needs would not change in our timeframe but that new technology would help them achieve those needs in a more fulfilling and less stressful way. Then we wrote a script that incorporated most of the scenarios we had developed. We showed people going through their normal lives - working, getting married, fishing, having community conflicts, going to school and used what we knew to be the technology possibilities to accomplish those purposes. We even demonstrated how something as mundane as buying a rug could become a more satisfying experience with technology of the future. We did not include people having their refrigerators restocked automatically for example because we guessed a) there was too much investment in brick and mortar for supermarkets and b) food shopping is as much impulse buying as planned buying. Besides, for many people a trip to the supermarket is an outing rather than a chore.
3. What technology did you hope would catch on but didn’t?
I sure wish I had a dungeons and dragons game. That would be cool. Incidentally I based the game concept on Adventure, which used to come with every UNIX tape. I also wish I had one of those intelligent agents who I could command verbally to do all my dirty work. I still do most of my input via keyboard. Only the agent would look more like Pamela Anderson than Sidney. When Sidney says "I am sorry Ian, I am not permitted to divulge that information," it came straight from UNIX permissions.
4. What technology featured in the video was the most prescient?
The ubiquitous use of computers for networking, accessing information, accomplishing work, shopping and socializing. This video was made several years before Netscape. There was no common awareness of the Internet. Internet is not even used in the video. At the time even email required some sophistication to use. Some people thought we were exaggerating the central role computers would play in people's lives, but you can see we may have even underestimated in that regard.
5. Were there any technological advancements you thought about including but were too far-fetched for the time?
Teleportation was not included because it defies physics. "Beam me down Scotty" is a wonderful fancy, but not possible based on our present knowledge of physics.
6. It seems that the networks AT&T envisioned at the time were much more centralized than the current version of the Internet. Was AT&T working on the infrastructure of such a network at the time?
The voice telephone network and the video networks are still centralized and to some extent hierarchal. The phone companies are just now talking about building Internet Protocol infrastructures. Cable television is also centralized as is satellite television and radio. My understanding is that the Internet is a backbone network that operates in a non- hierarchal way but is accessed by ordinary users such as ourselves through these traditionally hierarchal networks. Large businesses bypass the traditional networks with private digital networks they either build themselves or lease from network providers. So, communications continues to be controlled by the network owners who provide access for a fee. Once on the network, you can use as much as you want and can for the access fee. Even then, providers, like Comcast, reserve the right to restrict your amount of usage or terminate service if you use too much.
7. Is there any more info you’d like to give about Connections?
Making the program was a highlight of my career at AT&T. I made lifelong friends during the project and felt more creative and unrestrained than at any time in my AT&T career. I am delighted that people are still watching the program and that we hit the mark on some developments that have already come to pass and others that are still in the future. I am sorry that we failed to see how ubiquitous, convenient and affordable wireless telephony would become. A mobile phone was extremely expensive to buy in those days; it was bulky and the minute by minute rates were very high. Today I own five mobile phones (one for each member of my family) and would not leave home without my Palm Treo, which is a hybrid telephone/computer. Who knew?
See also:
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
The June 8, 1919 Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) featured a great article about mind-reading machines that would be commonplace in the office of the future. Oddly enough, they still needed stenographers to type out the correspondence. Why couldn't the man simply verbally dictate his thoughts to a typist? That is a question for the paleo-future to which we may never have an answer. The entire article is shown below.
