Comments on Paleo-Future: French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)

This is a great site. Thank you for your informati...

2008-07-14T14:59:00.000-04:00

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Fakethis is photoshopped

2008-06-01T10:57:00.000-04:00

Fake

this is photoshopped

The "stereotypical 'chinaman'" in the Paris-Beijin...

2007-10-03T18:34:00.000-04:00

The "stereotypical 'chinaman'" in the Paris-Beijing train is wearing a queue, which all Chinese were required to wear to show allegiance to the Manchu emperors, whose reign ended in 1911. As this was just before that time, showing them in this light isn't stereotypical, but reflects China at that moment without looking into the political future, which these prints clearly were not designed to do.

As a teacher, I would love posters of these prints...

2007-09-21T23:03:00.000-04:00

As a teacher, I would love posters of these prints. I'd have my kids write short stories based off of them. Does anyone know if they can be purchased poster-sized and, if so, where?

Je ne vois pas la différence avec la France d'aujo...

2007-09-20T16:28:00.000-04:00

Je ne vois pas la différence avec la France d'aujourd'hui...

Hey, heating with radium is actual. Think of nucle...

2007-09-19T04:09:00.000-04:00

Hey, heating with radium is actual. Think of nuclear power plants...

Nice pics anyway :-)

my boyfriend has a lovely old print with some of t...

2007-09-16T05:50:00.000-04:00

my boyfriend has a lovely old print with some of these pitures on it (it must be a series of images because his has about 6 of these). he picked it up from a carboot sale.

I love this stuff, and I have to agree the heating...

2007-09-15T08:24:00.000-04:00

I love this stuff, and I have to agree the heating with radium was the best.

The "cars of war" remind me somehow of mad max.

2007-09-15T07:05:00.000-04:00

The "cars of war" remind me somehow of mad max.

You've been "slash-dotted" on the Yahoo! e-mail gr...

2007-09-14T20:37:00.000-04:00

You've been "slash-dotted" on the Yahoo! e-mail group for Studio Foglio's "Girl Genius" webcomic! (Specialist subject: mad scientists and their handiwork.)

If these pictures are grocery giveaways then almost certainly they are for amusement and not serious futurology. I suppose we must consider that the visible future then included European imperial government of most of the world and continuing technological advance, and international tension... and we know what happened. "6/28 changed everything."

I agree: the horse in 1910 was still the, um, workhorse of transport, away from railways, you'd see horses every day, there were very few motor vehicles. Just as in our 2007 there are very few personal flying machines... but they exist, it's just that -you- don't own one. John Travolta has a Boeing 707 and a Gulfstream.

Flying firemen, thermal currents... maybe :-) As for radium -and- the "chemical dinner", I suppose the small quantities involved (tiny wineglasses and plates) are the point.

One thing... I don't see robots, that someone complained of; all of these machines have operators, or programmers - I don't think you work the bath machinery while you're in it. Now who invented the robot... Isaac Asimov pointed to Greek myth and "Frankenstein", there were children's clockwork toys, L. Frank Baum's Tiktok of Oz... he still had to be wound, as far as I recall.

It seems the pics shows the older years of 1910!!

2007-09-14T08:12:00.000-04:00

It seems the pics shows the older years of 1910!!

My favorite is the 'Heating With Radium' one. Lol....

2007-09-12T10:54:00.000-04:00

My favorite is the 'Heating With Radium' one. Lol. Nothing beats that winter chill better than Radium induced death!
The other one that really captured my attention was the 'Correspondence Cinema', as it is pretty cool we have that today in the form of video-link conversations, which are only a 1-2 second lag away from being in real-time.

Only the clothes design will never change in their...

2007-09-12T07:44:00.000-04:00

Only the clothes design will never change in their visions! We have invented everything but we'll keep those ugly clothes!

Those flying firemen, the barber and all those fly...

2007-09-12T07:05:00.000-04:00

Those flying firemen, the barber and all those flying men aren't a bad idea! Whoah.. they weren't all stupid, i guess! *lol*

Came in through this post -- which is fascinating ...

2007-09-11T23:22:00.000-04:00

Came in through this post -- which is fascinating by he way -- and fell in love with your blog! Kudos!

don't drink and fly!

2007-09-11T18:42:00.000-04:00

don't drink and fly!

Gretchen-- good point on Roddenberry. The thing h...

2007-09-11T18:39:00.000-04:00

Gretchen-- good point on Roddenberry. The thing he did that was really smart though, was to focus his future not in the next century, but 300-400 years in the future. That way, by then, none of us would still be alive to see if he was right or not.

No video games, iPod, or pet rock! This artist wa...

2007-09-11T17:07:00.000-04:00

No video games, iPod, or pet rock! This artist way off...

I love these pictures! Hey, I wouldn't mind at al...

2007-09-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

I love these pictures! Hey, I wouldn't mind at all if we went back to the womens fashions from the 1900's. I still have to put up with bell bottoms and it's the 21st century for crying out loud!!!

I love the fact that the "Car Shoes" picture shows...

2007-09-11T14:32:00.000-04:00

I love the fact that the "Car Shoes" picture shows a dude in the background eating concrete.

Great stuff.

Hey, wrt the "heating with radium" thing everyone's getting a chuckle out of, wasn't there a big craze for a while using radium in everything, even cocktail drinks? It seems I remember reading a horrifying article somewhere about folks whose jaws were eaten up with cancer because of the fad.

Or did I dream it?

Interesting that such a high fashion culture envis...

2007-09-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

Interesting that such a high fashion culture envisioned no change in fashion over 100 years.

I'm sure that the predictions we have today for th...

2007-09-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that the predictions we have today for the next hundred years will be perceived just as "campy" as these are to us today. Let us not forget that Jules Verne who died in 1905, predicted many things in our century accurately such as air conditioning, the submarine, the automobile, and a trip to the moon where three astronauts are launched from Florida and return via a water landing. I wonder how many of there French prints are inspired by Mr. Verne rather than an original concept. It is also interesting that many of these predictions are identical to predictions that we make for the year 2100!

I love seeing what people think the future will be...

2007-09-11T12:39:00.000-04:00

I love seeing what people think the future will be like. Some are way out there - remember Space 1999?

Then there are those true visionaries like Gene Roddenberry. It's truly amazing what he got right. Was he a time traveller or just a really good guesser?

i love these. i remember watching films in grade ...

2007-09-11T11:47:00.000-04:00

i love these. i remember watching films in grade school about the future. now that i am here in my future, where is my damn jet pack?

These are ridiculous. They are cartoonish at best...

2007-09-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

These are ridiculous. They are cartoonish at best. They only take what they know exist at the time and just add to it. The dress, haircuts, decor still is still suppose to look in 2000 as it did in 1910.