As a follow-up to last week's post on the moving sidewalk of 1900, today we have an illustration published in 1956. The image below appears in the book 1999: Our Hopeful Future by Victor Cohn. It was produced by Goodyear and shows the (semi-realized) hopes for this paleo-futuristic technology.
See also:
Moving Sidewalk (1900)
I want an oil cream cone! (1954)
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
See Robert A. Heinlein's 1940 novella about 'technological change and social cohesion'
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll
Amazing how they accurately predicted the retro car styling of the early 21st century (a la PT Cruiser, Chevy HHR, etc.) [grin]
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember the swing dancing fad that swept through the country's young population a few years ago? (It might not have passed just yet, given the popularity of Christina Aguilera's song "Candyman.") The return to retro styles in music and autos suggests to me the failure of "singularitarian" trends in the culture. The early 21st Century stubbornly refuses to look "futuristic," at least in the ways the paleo-futurists led us to expect, so we've had to mine the past for novelty for the current generation.
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