Spaceport of the Future (1957)

For those of you who haven't yet checked out Plan59, I highly recommend it. The site has some amazing images of the paleo-future such as this Spaceport of the Future, as well as other vintage ephemera.

I know I've seen this image somewhere but I can't place it. Any idea where this image was originally used? I almost want to say that it has a Ford Motor Company connection.

See also:
Space Colony Pirates (1981)
Mars and Beyond (1957)
Challenge of Outer Space (circa 1950s)
Welcome to Moonbase (1987)

Longer Honeymoons, Happier Wives (1923)

Margaret Sanger wrote a short piece about the year 2022 for the February 12, 1923 Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut).

Birth control will have become a part of education in health and hygiene. Women especially will be demanding it. They will realize that it is a foundation of freedom and intellectual development for them. Women cannot make real progress today so long as they are haunted by the fear of undesired pregnancy.

The results, in much shorter time than four or five generations, will be happier homes, greater mutual respect between husband and wife, honeymoons lasting two to three years before children arrive, with husband and wife thoroughly [unreadable] to one another, because there has been time for mutual understanding and development before parenthood is entered upon. There will be far more consideration for the mother and more understanding of her needs, with the result of better health and development for the infant as well as greater comfort for the mother. Four or five generations will develop new men and women with finer susceptibilities, nobler sentiments toward each other and a worthier sense of responsibility toward the race.

See also:
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)

Schools on the Move (1982)

You'd need one hell of a permission slip for this field trip.


Classes will never be boring on an airship traveling around the world! Imagine gliding over the Amazon River in South America or retracing Ulysses' journeys through the Greek Islands. Picture what it would be like to hover over the Great Pyramids in Egypt or follow a herd of elephants across the African plains. The University Blimp will turn geography lessons into exciting real-life adventures.


This image of the future can be found in the 1982 book The Kids' Whole Future Catalog.

See also:
The Kids' Whole Future Catalog (1982)
Homework in the Future (1981)
The Answer Machine (1964)
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)

Railroads on Parade (1939)

The play Railroads on Parade was featured at the 1939/40 New York World's Fair. It told the story of railroad transportation progress from the 1820s until 1939, and into the future. The photo below depicts a "woman of the future" from the cast and can be found in the book Dawn of a New Day, published in 1980.



See also:
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)
Memory of 'Tomorrow' (New York Times, 1941)
Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)
Metal Man Comes to Life (1939)

Gyroscopic Rocket Car (1945)

Carl H. Renner painted this "Escacar" for General Motors in 1945. The Escacar is described as a "Unicycle Gyroscopic Rocket Car."

Like the painting of a commuter helicopter we looked at a few months ago, this image can be found in the Petersen Automotive Museum book, Driving Through Futures Past.


I couldn't find much information about Carl H. Renner online. If you have any information on Mr. Renner please add it to the newly created Paleo-Future Wiki.

See also:
Commuter Helicopter (1947)
Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)
GM Car of the Future (1962)
Word Origins: Imagineering (1940s)

Fruition of Ideals of Democracy (1923)

In a February 12, 1923 Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut) article Cordell Hull, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, bet on the survival of the American two-party system. That wasn't a surprising prediction. What is somewhat surprising is that the assumed alternative was a one-party system.

The principle of democracy being eternal, they will necessarily exist a hundred years from now, and the achievements of government, through the application of those principles to changing conditions, will logically be greater than they have been in the last 100 years.

That there will be two political parties then as now seems almost inevitable, if progress is to continue. It is scarcely conceivable that human nature can change in one century sufficiently for all to think alike. In such an event there would also be danger of inertia - and inertia would mark the beginning of decadence.

Democratic government means a greater diffusion of power, less restriction of the individual and therefore less regulation by laws. With the development of intelligence class differences and distinctions should disappear, therefore the representative legislative bodies of the people, if there are more than one, would be truly representative bodies of all the people.

With a continuation of the discoveries of science, their uses and applications, and a more general acceptance of the fundamental moralities of Christianity I should say that the world, and the United States in particular will be a pretty good place to live in 2022.

See also:
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Governor Knight and the Videophone (Oakland Tribune, 1955)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Future (1967)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Year 2000 (1967)

Closer Than We Think! Robot Housemaid (1959)

This Closer Than We Think! strip ran in the September 13, 1959 Chicago Tribune. Unlike Rosie the Robot, this robotic housemaid floats on a cushion of air.

The last paragraph describing, "a device to take food automatically from storage and cook it on a preset schedule," sounds very similar to the food preparation system in the 1967 film, "1999 A.D."


There'll be no servant problem in your home of the future. Instead, employ a robot - to cook, set the table, clear it off, wash the dishes and put them away.

A firm of industrial designers, Sundberg, Ferar, Inc., has already projected an idea for such a "mechanical maid." A self-propelled serving cart would move linen, glasses, china and silver to the table. After dinner, it would wash them and store them away.

Meanwhile, Westinghouse is researching a device to take food automatically from storage and cook it on a preset schedule. All milady would have to do is preset her menu and table arrangements each morning.

See also:
1999 A.D. (1967)
Call a Serviceman (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)

The Comfort of the Paleo-Future

LiveJournalist Blayne has an interesting analysis of why we may long for yesterday's future. His take on paleo-futurism seems to be rooted in the comfort of the nostalgic.

After the romantic innocence of retro-futurism is stripped away, you can see what drives our contemporary longing for imagined past-futures: Nostalgia, and a sincere desire for a return to familiar images of our past. It is in these familiar icons that we cope with our uncertain future. In my idle moments, its this desire "to return to a world that never really existed" that puts me at ease, regardless of what the buildings look like.

Garbage Men of the Future (1989)

This image is from Isaac Asimov's book Space Garbage, published in 1989 as part of the Library of the Universe series. The caption to the image appears below.

Low orbits are the most littered with space junk. Perhaps one day orbiting "garbage collectors" will be used to clean up these trash-filled orbits.

Alcohol Unknown in 2022 (1923)

This 1923 prediction in the February 12 Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut) was written by William H. Anderson, New York Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League. Mr. Anderson insists that by the year 2022 only the "abnormal, subnormal, vicious and depraved" will drink alcohol.

Drink up you friendly degenerates! We only have a few years left!

By the year 2022 the general public will have learned that the proverb "Wine is a mocker" is scientifically true; will have discovered that beer is "not liquid bread but poisoned water;" and will have accepted the fact that alcohol is "a habit-forming, irritant, narcotic poison." The beverage use of it will be utterly unknown except among the abnormal, subnormal, vicious and depraved, which classes will largely have been bred out of the race in America.

The result will come because the beer and wine campaign will die when the American people comprehends that it seeks to write a lie into the Constitution and in spite of its pretenses would operate to bring back the saloon.

The prohibition Law will speedily be enforced with increasing efficiency due to comprehension that olation of any law brings all laws into contempt and jeopardizes our free institutions.

The millennium will not have arrived because of Prohibition, which will then be world-wide, but the road will have been cleared and made straighter.

See also:
Just Imagine (1930)
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)
Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)
Work Days of Two Hours (1923)
United States a British Colony (1923)
Looks for Era of Brotherhood (1923)

Just Imagine (1930)

The 1930 film Just Imagine depicts the futuristic world of 1980. With flying cars, food pills, and a totalitarian government the world is orderly but not much fun.

This scene depicts the meal of the future. The prohibition reference is particularly funny.



Many thanks to Amy Macnamara for this paleo-futuristic classic that hasn't yet been released on VHS or DVD.

See also:
That Synthetic Food of the Future (Ogden Standard-Examiner, 1926)
Food of the Future (Indiana Progress, 1896)

Disney Calls Future a Thing of the Past (1997)

As I've argued before 1997 can be seen as the year that postmodern paleo-futurism went mainstream. Disney's self-aware redesign of Tomorrowland meant that mainstream American culture was out of ideas for the future.

It was as though the people at Disney were throwing up their hands and saying, "The year 2000 is just around the corner! Without flying cars we've got nothing! Check your parent's attic, there must be something cool up there!"

The most sincere and sentimental company in America had decided to simply co-opt past visions of the future.

The excerpt below is taken from a February 23, 1997 New York Times article that sums up the Tomorrowland redesign and what it meant for futurism.

''The new Tomorrowland begins with Jules Verne and ends with Buck Rogers,'' said Beth Dunlop, a Florida architecture critic who recently released a company-approved book on Disney architecture.

Tomorrowland is hardly alone. The future is growing old all over Disney's magic kingdom. From the film lot to the Epcot theme park to the real-life town that the company calls Celebration, Disney has largely given up on imagining a new future. When a story line or ride design calls for a touch of times to come, it is usually, as posters for the new Tomorrowland boast, ''the future that never was.''

The shift is profound for a company whose founder was one of postwar America's great popularizers of technology. And it is a reflection of the ennui that many Americans, at century's end, feel about the chips and bits in which they are immersed.

''We went to the Moon and all we got out of it was Teflon pans,'' said Karal Ann Marling, a professor of art history and American studies at the University of Minnesota, expressing an increasingly common attitude.

''Our goals as a people are not these pie-in-the-sky objectives that people grew up with in the 50's,'' said Professor Marling, who is the curator for a Montreal exhibit in June on Disney theme park architecture. ''They settle now for a house in the suburbs and to hell with the Moon. What's the point of building monorails if we can hardly get the car to work?''

See also:
Postmodern Paleo-Future
Article for MungBeing

Man and the Moon filmstrip (1970s)

The filmstrip Man and the Moon depicts moon colonization as something just around the corner. A video clip of the filmstrip is below and can be found in its entirety at Droppin' Science.




(On a sidenote, the Droppin' Science website says that Man and the Moon was produced before the first moon landing, which isn't true. The narrator mentions the first moon landing midway through the filmstrip.)

See also:
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Future (1967)
Future Cities: Homes and Living into the 21st Century (1979)
Challenge of Outer Space (circa 1950s)
Mars and Beyond (1957)
Animal Life on Mars (1957)
Plant Life on Mars (1957)
Man and the Moon (1955)

Looks for Era of Brotherhood (1923)

Winifred G. Hedenberg laments the brutality of WWI in the February 12, 1923 Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut) article "Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence."

The year 2022 will see a world reverted back to barbarism if another war on the scale of the so-called World War takes place within the next fifty years; but it will be a degenerate type of savagery, with man killing his fellows at sight. None of the noble traits of the American Indian will be found in the 2022 type of savage.

On the other hand, if no major conflicts take place between nations I believe 2022 will see an era of universal brotherhood, where poverty, wars, famines, the Republican Party and other like afflictions will be unknown. Prisons as we know them to-day will have vanished. I believe by that time no person will have any reason for theft or the minor crimes responsible for filling our jails to-day.

See also:
Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)
Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)
Work Days of Two Hours (1923)
United States a British Colony (1923)

Pears Soap Flying Machine (1906)

This fanciful flying machine was used to sell Pears' Soap in the July, 1906 issue of the Atlantic Monthly Advertiser. This image can be found in the Smithsonian Institution Images Catalog.


See also:
Futuristic Air Travel (circa 1900)
Aerial Navigation Will Never Be Popular (1906)
Paleo-Future Wallpaper

Closer Than We Think! Headphone TV (1960)

Hacking the brain hasn't caught on in consumer products quite yet, but we can see that it's always been right around the corner.

This Closer Than We Think! strip was found in the November 27, 1960 edition of the Chicago Tribune.

Today's television receivers may one day be replaced by devices that will "tickle" the brain, breaking right through to man's inner consciousness. At least that's what electronics trailblazer Hugo Gernsback believes.

Brain tissue conducts electricity. What would be more logical then, asks Gernsback, than the development of a "superceptor" whose impulses would create images directly in the mind, like dreams, instead of lighting up a television screen? And three UCLA scientists have suggested that with the introduction of such a receiver, everyone in the family would be able to tune in his individual program - with eyes open or closed, whichever he prefers!

See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Closer Than We Think! Monoline Express
Closer Than We Think! Lunar Mailbag (1960)
Closer Than We Think! Polar City (1959)
Closer Than We Think! Fish Bowl Swimming Pool (1958)
Closer Than We Think! Throw-Away Clothes (1959)

Futuristic Air Travel (circa 1900)

This painting by Harry Grant Dart is one of my favorite images of the paleo-future. According to the Library of Congress it was used as the cover for an issue of All Story magazine between 1900 and 1910.

The most revolutionary aspect of this image may be the depiction of a woman at the wheel. Women couldn't even vote in the United States until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920.

You may recall that I created some wallpapers last week using this image, among others, which can be found here.


See also:
Paleo-Future Wallpaper
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)

United States a British Colony (1923)

Author and critic Henry L. Mencken makes some pretty bold predictions in the February 12, 1923 article, "Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence," published in the Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut).

A hundred years hence the United States will be a British colony, its chief function will be to supply imbeciles to read the current English novels and docile cannon fodder for the British Army.

I believe that Prohibition will be overthrown and restored several times before 2022. There will be periods of Prohibition and wholesale drunkeness, as now, and periods of license and moderation. Just how the wave will be running in 2022 I hesitate to predict.

The American who will be most agreeably discussed by Anglo-American historians in 2022 will be Woodrow Wilson, the first Premier of the United American Colonies.

The greatest living American author is Dr. Frank Crane. He will be remembered long after Walt Whitman is forgotten.

See also:
Sinclair Lewis Will Be Read Until Year 2000 (1936)
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)
Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)
Work Days of Two Hours (1923)

The Future of Real Estate (1953)

Steve over at Finkbuilt sent me a link to this great image of a couple buying a house in the (paleo)future. The publication appears to be from December, 1953.


See also:
Something must be wrong with its radar eye! (Chicago Tribune, 1959)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)
'Summer Terrace' All Year Round (1960s)

GM Car of the Future (1962)

The advertisement below ran in the Official Souvenir Program for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The ad proclaims that General Motors is, "setting a course for the future" by showcasing the "fully functional Firebird III space-age car." The full text of the ad is transcribed below.



Mobility - the easiest, fastest, surest kind possible - turns your world of tomorrow into an accessible and amicable place. The fret is removed from traffic and it is fun, not frustrating, to take short jaunts on vehicles which float along on a pad of air or to Sunday-drive down automatic highways.

The General Motors Corporation exhibit in the Coliseum presents a preview of the fascinating changes coming in the automobile industry. You see now the full-size, experimental Firebird III. This pace-setter for the car of the future, proven in road tests, is thrust with a turbine engine. Its simple control stick accelerates, brakes and turns. Push the control forward and the Firebird III moves ahead; swing it left or right and the wheels turn; pull back and it brakes. The electronic guide system can rush it over an automatic highway while the driver relaxes.

Although the Firebird II stands as the center attraction in the exhibit, you see other displays of the future. There is a model of the automatic highway, prototype of a stretch of experimental roadway which was built in New Jersey to demonstrate how electronics can steer cars and even stop them. This quarter-mile stretch of road has been received enthusiastically by officials, who predict that electronic mechanisms in the future can eliminate routine driving chores and make long distance highway travel safer and easier.

The General Motors exhibit includes solar energy demonstrations and you may test your skill with sun-powered guns which activate parts of the display. Yet another exhibit reveals the principles of ground effect machinery, where objects are moved along a flat surface on a cushion of air. In the next century, more people will be going more places in fascinating new vehicles . . . and they'll go safely.

See also:
Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)
Seattle World's Fair Official Souvenir Program (1962)
Century 21: Space Needle Designs (1962)
The Future World of Transportation

Work Days of Two Hours (1923)

Today's section of the February 12, 1923 article, "Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence," was written by engineer Walter N. Polakov and predicts a future workday of just two hours.

The engineer lives and works for tomorrow; today is but a stepping stone. The dreams of engineers - Frontinus, Da Vinci, Jules Verne, Prof. Bethelot and others - came true; water power is converted in non-substantial form, flying is a reality, submarines and heavier-than-air ships are here, synthetic food and artificial rendering of barren soil into fertile gardens are no longer dreams and ideals. Indeed, the engineers are warranted to dream; nay, more, without the dreams, without ideas beyond immediate reach, the engineers are merely gravediggers.

The problems of 100 years hence will flow from the solutions of problems of today. What are they? There is but one engineering problem today, around which all others hinge: physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual welfare of man. Nothing else matter; everything else in the field of engineering is either contributing or damaging the attainment of this goal of engineering.

Nineteenth century was chained to matter; twentieth century is one of emancipation from matter and of direct control of energy devoid of bulk. This gives us a starting point.

By 2022 we shall be free from pounds of space. Thus, miles, acres, dollars will be terms the meaning of which would be looked up in dictionaries. The units in general use will be second, measures of time, energy and life. Petroleum and coal will nearly be exhausted and means will be [unreadable] to utilize directly the radioactive energy of solar rays. This will not be conducted by cables and wires but secured at the place of its utilization, much as radiograms are received today. Aerial transportation will be revolutionized as air ships need not carry the bulk of power-generating materials and equipment - it will be supplied in transit, and mode of motion will be that of gliding through attraction, with gravitation compensated.

Work will gradually become more and more mental and less physical; hours of work that 100 years ago were sixteen per day and today eight, in 2022 will be not over two hours a day because of the advance in technique. Considerable leisure created by highly specialized experts will call for regenerative recreation and play thus compensating for narrow specialization by broadest development of human personalities in all directions without the tint and sting of mercenarism.

See also:
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)
Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)

Starfire (1994)

Today we have the 1994 Sun Microsystems concept video Starfire in its entirety. You can still access individual clips of the program from the links below or you can download the video here.



See also:
Starfire (Part 1, 1994)
Starfire (Part 2, 1994)
Starfire (Part 3, 1994)
Starfire (Part 4, 1994)
Starfire (Part 5, 1994)
Starfire (Part 6, 1994)
Starfire (Part 7, 1994)
Starfire (Part 8, 1994)

New London in the Future (1909)

This 1909 illustration of New London in the future can be found in the Library of Congress collection.

Thinks We'll Do Our Reading on Screen (1923)

The second part of the February 12, 1923 article, "Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence," focuses on motion pictures.

Written by David Wark Griffith (D.W. Griffith) the piece provides some great insight into the hopes and dreams for this new medium. While he has some spot-on predictions, Griffith couldn't have been more wrong about "instantaneous transmission" (i.e. live television) never taking off.

The great publishing industry will be the publishing of motion pictures instead of print.

Motion picture libraries will be as common as private libraries - more so.

Theatres will have the same relation to these libraries as the spoken theatre today has to the printed copies of dramatic works.

By their very scope and area of appeal the films must vastly outrank the stage in importance. The artistic development should be parallel since one will always draw more or less from the other.

Talking pictures will have been perfected and perhaps have been forgotten again. For the world will have become picture trained so that words are not as important as they are now.

All pictures will be in natural [unreadable]. The theatres will have special audiences; that is, there will be specialty theatres.

I do not see the possibility of instantaneous transmission of living action to the screen within 100 years. There must be a medium upon which the dramatic coherence can be worked out, and the perfected result set firmly before the screen will be permitted to occupy the public's attention. In the instantaneous transmission there would be entirely too much waste of the public's time, and that is the important thing - time.

See also:
Movie Trends of the 21st Century (1982)
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)

Seattle World's Fair Official Souvenir Program (1962)

The Seattle World's Fair of 1962 brought us Seattle's most iconic structure, the Space Needle. Also known as the Century 21 Exposition there is much to examine for those interested in the paleo-future. The image above is the cover to the Official Souvenir Program. We'll be taking a peak inside over the next few weeks. An excerpt from the introduction to the program appears below.

The World of Century 21 awaits in the Washington State Coliseum, at the west entrance to the grounds. The building encloses the state's theme show, a dramatic concept of 21st century man's environment presented in a unique cube structure rising above the Coliseum floor. On the floor level are industrial and governmental exhibits, all contributing to the image of the future.

See also:
Century 21: Space Needle Designs (1962)
To The Fair! (1965)
Expo '92
Walt Disney Explaining the Carousel of Progress to General Electric (1964)
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)

The Coming Ice Age (1982)

The 1982 book Fact or Fantasy (World of Tomorrow) by Neil Ardley contains the two-page spread below which illustrates domed cities of the future. The domes are necessary to protect humanity from the "savage cold" yet to come.


What is our planet going to be like in the future? From the way in which the Earth moves around the Sun, we have some ideas of the kind of weather that both we and our descendants are going to suffer or enjoy. It seems that the rest of their century; in general, summers will be less warm and winters more severe. Meteorologists expect the next century to be mostly cold, but the weather should improve in about 150 years time!

See also:
Closer Than We Think! Polar City (1959)
Communities May Be Weatherized (Edwardsville Intelligencer, 1952)
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Superfarm of the Year 2020 (1979)

Moving Sidewalk Mechanics (1900)

Edison's film from the 1900 Paris Exposition is amazing, but it leaves you wondering how that moving sidewalk ....well, moves. Wonder no more. This French website answers a few questions via these great illustrations.




See also:
Moving Sidewalk (1900)
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)

Pictures Stately Edifices (1923)

As promised, we have the first in a long list of predictions found in the February 12, 1923 Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport, Connecticut).

Today's excerpt is from architect Thomas Hastings. It's particularly unsettling to read someone from the 1920s writing about the possibility of another World War. I get such a feeling of detachment, as though watching a movie playing out through history.

Architecture expresses the life of each period. Will life a hundred years hence be freer, cleaner, saner? Inevitably the architecture of 2022 will register that. Will civilization relapse perhaps through the medium of another world war, into semi-barbarism? Then barbaric will be the architecture of that time.

There is this much to be said: Steel construction frees architectural design from limitations which masonry necessarily imposed. Thus far the result has been confusion - the one and only real confusion that has ever occurred in a continuous historic succession of architectural developments. But that is because present day architecture steers a wavering course between the Scylla and Charybdis of all modern art; on the one hand, too much archaeology or selection from the past, and on the other hand, too much sterile realism.

Granted a broadened intellectual horizon (and the probability of revolutionizing inventions - even the discovery of forces which we know nothing about now.) the architects of 2022, we can imagine, will be busying themselves with edifices of a statelines and power such as we have only dreamed of hitherto.


See also:
Thinking Men and Women Predict Problems of World Century Hence (1923)
Prelude to a Great Depression (The Chronicle Telegram, 1929)
Part-Time Robot (1923)