Paleo-Future

Fun House has posted some fun images from the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle, which was also known as the "Century 21 Exposition....

The November 26, 1939 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX) featured this prediction of the fold-up car of the future. Even the young man of ...

While The Complete Book of Space Travel was aimed at teen and pre-teen boys, the 1958 book Exploring Space was looking for a younger audie...

This two-page spread from a 1982 issue of Electronic Games magazine is pretty spot on with many of its predictions. However, being "ch...

I haven't yet read Mac Montandon's book Jetpack Dreams , but thanks to this video it's made its way to the top of my book heap....

The July 16, 1943 Morning Herald (Uniontown, PA) ran this piece about the kitchen of the future, complete with built-in pots and pans. The ...

Well Medicated recently compiled a number of paleo-futuristic images (mostly stolen from the always-excellent blog Modern Mechanix ), inclu...

The January 29, 1939 Hammond Times (Hammond, IN) ran this piece about the super-fast airplanes of the future. The article quickly devolves ...

The The Kids' Whole Future Catalog really is a treasure trove of 1980's futurism. Today we have a letter from Jenny, writing her fr...

The March 18, 1920 Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA) declared that movies would help future generations better understand the...

These French cards , archived at the Library of Congress, were produced sometime between 1890 and 1900. Most of the cards illustrate importa...

The July 24, 1968 Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, NM) ran this piece by Jack Lefler about the possibility of a cashless society that would...

The 1998 book The Millennium Bug by Michael S. Hyatt is pretty pessimistic about mankind's future, given the "Y2K problem." I...

The October 22, 1957 Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune (Chillicothe, MO) ran this image of a flying bus of the future. Commuting will be a b...

We've looked at plenty of predictions about how, in the future, we'd all be eating meal pills. From turkey dinners to beer to tut...

Reader Tom Z sent in this March 27, 1960 edition of Closer Than We Think , featuring the "Jetscalator." Tom explains: This CTWT ha...

I can't believe it took me this long, but I figured out the universal writing formula for futurism! It just clicked after reading a 1980...

Before starting the Paleo-Future blog I had no idea that weather control was such a prominent feature of mid-20th-century futurism. Raised ...

The September 27, 1964 Gastonia Gazette (Gastonia, NC) quotes Wolf Wehran, a representative of the Camera Industries of West Germany, (and ...

My interest in futurism can probably be credited to two things: Disney's EPCOT Center and children's science books of the 1980s and...

Oh, hello! Good to see you! It's been awhile. Glad you're still with us. Haven't blogged in a couple months but I hear it's ...

The March 12, 1961 Independent Star-News (Pasadena, CA) ran an article which heavily quotes Ed Dolker, deputy director of the California De...

While not spectacular to someone from 2008, this illustration of the "super-highway of tomorrow" was quite extraordinary to people...

You may have noticed a certain paleo-futurist quoted in yesterday's USA Today : Matt Novak, however, remains unconvinced. The host of Pa...

Remember when adding "2000" to a product name was shorthand for futuristic, cutting-edge technology? In 1969 RCA invited the Ameri...

The August, 1918 cover of Hugo Gernsback's Electrical Experimenter magazine featured the "aerial mono-flyer of the future." T...

Making things smaller and more efficient has, at least since the Industrial Revolution, been a staple of American futurist thinking. A wome...

I would argue that the most funny, edgy and entertaining writing in the U.S. does not come from The Onion , but from high school newspapers....