Humanity has always been wondering of what the world would look like in the future. Let’s have a look what kind of predictions people in the past made about 2000 and how close they were. I can admit some would be good to become true.
In 1900 Hildebrand’s, a then-leading German chocolate company, produced a set of cards depicting the “sweet” life that awaited us in the year 2000. The truth is that in a few pictures fell close enough.
Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine
In 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910 Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists depicted their imagination about the future into amusing sketches that were placed in cigarette and cigar boxes. The drawings were later made into postcards and also displayed at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.
We went to the moon in 1969 but in 1900 artists depicted the return of a group of travelers from the moon in the year 2012, believing that lunar travel would that time become routine.
Video Phone
This 1909 illustration of New London in the future can be found in the Library of Congress collection.
Now let’s have a look at the future predictions made in USA
According to the Library of Congress this painting by Harry Grant Dart was used as the cover for an issue of All Story magazine between 1900 and 1910. It’s really surprising seeing a woman at the wheel, women couldn’t even vote in the United States until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920.
in 1901 the 14-year-old from Milwaukee, Wisconsin made predictions about what the world of 2001 might look like.
This 1920 cartoon of future plane travel can be found in the Library of Congress collection.
1934 issue of Popular Science features the sleek, modern look amphibian train will be able to whiz above desert sands on an overhead rail, or plunge into the water to ford a river.
Back then in 1926 sterile pre-cooked cheap meals made in laboratories rather than kitchens seemed like a great idea.
The same year the Ladies Home Journal article predicted that animals wouldn’t exist in the wild anymore at all, and would only be found in zoos, unless they were in use as livestock or service animals.
source: wired, publicdomainreview, paleofuture, weburbanist, jerryterrenceoriginal
9 comments
A very thorough research. Quite “Jules Verne” in many things. On the dot for a few. I remember in the sixties, SF writers predicted widespread usage of “visiophones”. 50 years later it is now a reality with “skype” (Where did you get that? Amazing)
Now, about riding and vote… women most certainly drove horse carriages in the 19th century wild west. Not linked to voting rights. 😉
I always think that women have come a long way, so long that young people don’t realize it. My grandmother was born in 1890. Women acquired the right to vote in France only in 1946, right after the war. So my grandmother voted for the first time in the post WWII general election of 1946, when she was 56 years old. Amazing isn’t it?
Take care
Brian
Nice collection. But seriously, “Skype”?
Wow. That was super interesting. My moms name is Hilde and she was born in Berlin in 1939! This reminded me of her! Thx also for dropping by my blog!
Thank you! Glad you liked it 🙂
Fascinating