Speed is Key to Future Travel (1965)

An editorial in the April 11, 1965 Modesto Bee and News-Herald (Modesto, California) describes the future of transportation. Below is an excerpt as well as the original piece in its entirety.

The US News & World Report of Washington, DC, in a recent article summed up some of the plans which will be in actual use, probably in another 10 years. They include:

Trains running on cushions of air in tunnels dug deep under densely populated areas, as kinds of supersonic railroads; the trains would pick up and drop off cars along the way without stopping, so passengers going to a particular town would enter the car to be left there; trains to carry automobiles between major superhighway points, much as the railroads now transport big trucks by the piggyback system; the use of automatic highways with electrically powered automobiles controlled by computers; "urbmobiles" which the commuter would rent for to and from work travel, the agency renting them to those needing in city transportation during the day; catapults to get cars moving at the 100 mile an hour rate more quickly and separate truckways to carry truck tractors hauling trains of three mammoth trailers.



See also:
Amphibian Monorail (1934)
Monorails at Disneyland (1959 and 1960)
Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)

Disney's Magic Highway, U.S.A. (1958)

[Update: The Paleo-Future blog has moved. You can read and comment on this entry here.]

On May 14, 1958 the Disneyland TV program ran an episode called "Magic Highway, U.S.A." It examined the past, present and (paleo)future of transportation. The 2719 Hyperion blog has a great breakdown of the episode.

Below is a short clip of the episode as well as some paleo-futuristic still images. Many thanks to Paul at Waltopia for the video.

As father chooses the route in advance on a push-button selector, electronics take over complete control. Progress can be accurately checked on a synchronized scanning map. With no driving responsibility, the family relaxes together. En route business conferences are conducted by television.


I really wish that Disney would release this as part of their Walt Disney Treasures collection. (Maybe an entire DVD devoted to Disney paleo-futurism?) Better yet, they could offer every Disneyland program on iTunes or use an advertising-based model. I know that Disney likes to make their offerings scarce through limited release DVDs, but the free flow of information just breeds piracy if "legitimate" copies aren't made available.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Enjoy.

See also:
The Future World of Transportation
Walt Disney Explaining the Carousel of Progress to General Electric (1964)
EPCOT's Horizons
Tomorrowland, Disneyland Opening Day (1955)

Waitress of the Year 2000 (1939)

The photo below ran in the May 7, 1939 Chicago Daily Tribune.


What the waitress of the year 2000 may wear. Marjorie Hannon, W-G-N actress, models this costume, designed by the National Restaurant association for exhibit during Restaurant week, May 8 to 14. That metallic hair ribbon is an antenna for ultra shortwave radio which brings patrons' orders directly to tiny earphones concealed beneath her uniform. Pockets contain condiments for those who have time to eat a leisurely meal; concentrated capsules for those who haven't. Asbestos gloves prevent burns from hot plates.

See also:
Miss A.D. 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 1952)

Commuter Helicopter (1947)

This painting by Alexis V. Lapteff (1905-1991) is titled "Family Departing Visit with Grandparents in their Commuter Helicopter." It was produced in 1947 and is featured in the Petersen Automotive Museum book, Driving Through Futures Past.

See also:
Flying Car Patent (1991)

Project 2000 - Apple Computer (1988)

[Update: The Paleo-Future blog has moved. You can read and comment on this entry here.]

In 1987 Apple Computer held a competition called Project 2000. Apple asked student research teams to submit papers detailing what the computing technology of the year 2000 would look like. In early 1988 Steve Wozniak, Alvin Toffler and Ray Bradbury, among others, sat on the judge's panel. The winning team was from the University of Illinois with their paper called Tablet: The Personal Computer of the Year 2000. Below is an excerpt and various images from the paper. You can read the paper in its entirety here.


Our machine will have the same dimensions as a standard notebook. It will look like an 8"x11" monolith from the movie 2001, and be reminiscent of the Dynabook. This rectangular slab will weigh but a few pounds, and have no buttons or knobs to play with. The front surface will be a touch-sensitive display screen and will blink to life upon touching two corners.




There is supposedly a 12-minute video called "Project 2000" floating around. I have yet to see it but would love to see if it's in the same vein as Apple's Knowledge Navigator from 1987.

See also:
Apple's Knowledge Navigator (1987)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)

The Mechanical Man of the Future (1928)

On December 9, 1928 The Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden City, Utah), along with many other papers, ran a syndicated story about the mechanical man of the future. Much like the insistence that giant robots would soon fight our wars, this article clearly must be taken with a grain of salt.


The mechanical man, brazen-lunged creature of dreadful portent is among us! A few years from now you may rub elbows with him in the subway, turn out in the street to let him pass upon his ruthless way, or even, if you are a malefactor, find yourself pinioned in his grip of cold steel and compelled with unreasoning inflexibility toward a place of confinement.

What can the mechanical man do? Plenty! He can walk, and he can talk. He can stand, sit, bow, and otherwise comport himself after the fashion of a human being. But he can do more than that. He can shake hands and breathe, telephone, operate practically any electrical device, and perform any number of duties advantageous to mankind.

See also:
Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)
Mammy vs Robot (Charleston Gazette, 1937)
Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)
That Synthetic Food of the Future (Ogden Standard-Examiner, 1926)

Online Shopping (1967)

The most accurate prediction of the 1967 film 1999 A.D. was that of "fingertip shopping". With a video console channeled into the store of your choice you could (gasp!) shop from home.

The "electronic correspondence machine" (or "home post office") was also quite visionary, although it seems no one was betting on the QWERTY keyboard.



You can find 1999 A.D. on the DVD Yesterday's Tomorrows Today, released by A/V Geeks.

See also:
1999 A.D. (1967)
Monsanto House of the Future (1957-1967)

In the Twentieth Century (Newark Daily Advocate, 1901)

The piece below ran on the first page of the January 1, 1901 Newark Daily Advocate (Newark, Ohio).

The second to last sentence beautifully expresses humanity's fascination with futurism: Now, candidly, wouldn't you like to know what sayers will be saying, thinkers thinking, writers writing, doers doing and plotters plotting at the end of the next hundred years?

Will lovely woman do the proposing?
Will woman bosses run [politics?] as they now run the home?
Will the housemaid be a houseman?
Will horses be exhibited as curiosities?
Will politics be run on a philanthropic basis?
Will the Boston woman discover the north pole?
Will airships be provided for messenger boys?
Will men wear frilled shirt waists and women trousers?
Will the [unreadable] Mrs. Grundy be driven into a convent?
Will the college girl carry a cane and smoke a pipe?
Will there be free lunch stands for women?
Will men go to church evenings instead of to the club?
Will the wife kiss her husband goodby before starting off to business?
Will squirrels want just a quarter of a second longer to make faces at the hunter?
Will rich noblemen marry poor American girls?
Will hornets and other stinging things arbitrate instead of fight when their nests are pulled?
Will the grain be extracted from the head of wheat and other cereals by a magnet and save the labor of harvesting straw?
Will there be a law compelling [unreadable] remain silent?
Will cows come home at milking time as eagerly as field hands come to supper?
And will those same cows semioccasionally turn grass into butter instead of milk?
Will there be any escape from the [coon?] song save suicide?
Will every busy man wear an illuminated collar button?
Will mind reading [unreadable] a key to the intentions of hens as to their duties and villainies?
Will the automatic principle be adjusted to taxes so that they pay themselves?
Will there be a society for the extermination of noisy milkmen which will really [unreadable]?
Will pounds be pounds and quarts be quarts in weight as well in price?
Will women be compelled to flatten their pompadours at the theater so that men may see the play?
Will all consumers of [unreadable] have the common sense to lay in their winter stock in midsummer at any sacrifice?
Will the creatures that build guano mountains at the equator occasionally fly over the impoverished farms of North America?
Will our beloved country still be going to the "demnition bowwows" and political orators howling for votes to save it?
Now, candidly, wouldn't you like to know what sayers will be saying, thinkers thinking, writers writing, doers doing and plotters plotting at the end of the next hundred years?
Will the century be ten years [unreadable] . . . library?


We have seen the year 2001, but it is unlikely many of us will get to see 2101. Enjoy it while it lasts, and don't forget to buy that cute guy or gal a drink on your way out.

See also:
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Collier's Illustrated Future of 2001 (1901)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
The Next Hundred Years (Milwaukee Herold und Seebote, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)

Spacecraft of 2004 (1978)

The 1978 book Spacecraft 2000-2100 A.D. tells the story of futuristic spacecrafts in the past tense. That is to say, the book tells the "history" of the 21st century through different types of space vehicles.

The image below is of the TTA Colonial III spacecraft from page 49.

The Colonial was the first of the high-capacity freighters and in its life has undergone a number of major changes.

The early models bore no more than a passing resemblance to the one which is so familiar to us today. The Colonial I was first built in 2004 and was manufactured in the great TTA yards in North Africa with the specific task of transporting the massive amounts of equipment and materials required for the construction of the Lunar Research Station.


There's even a Spacecraft 2100-2200 A.D. which was released in 2006.

See also:
Fusion Energy in Space (1984)

Future Without Football (Daily Review, 1976)

An article in the April 6, 1976 Daily Review (Hayward, California) ran with the headline, "Students see future without football."

The 21st century will see the demise of football, a cure for cancer and cities under the sea, according to some bright ninth grade students.

A special "futurology" class at suburban Milford Junior High School also figured the next century will mean bigger government control over more people, a solution to air pollution and new mass transit systems.

The 17 "gifted students" at Milford reached their conclusions after interviewing government and research firm officials, visiting universities and taking several other field trips. Four teachers who helped design the course also are writing a group PhD thesis about the experience.

Student group projects included models of an underwater city, a 21st century home, airport and school. One group designed a 21st century game to be played by two persons in a small cubicle to save space.

"Football won't exist because space will be short," said teacher Ronald Herbers.

In explaining to parents what the "futurology" project was about, the teachers explained, "We hope to help them (students) see that the future is not uncontrollable."

See also:
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Olympic Games on the Moon in 2020 (1979)

Governor Knight and the Videophone (Oakland Tribune, 1955)

This photo ran in the September 3, 1955 Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) with the caption, "Knight 'Looks' Hello - The new Videophone is employed by Governor Knight and his wife at State Fair."

See also:
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (1993)
Face-to-Face Telephones on the Way (New York Times, 1968)

A Wonderful Day to Fly (1980)

The 1980 textbook Building Dreams contains a story called, "A Wonderful Day to Fly." With picturephones, weather control and jet packs, the kids of the 1980s had quite a future ahead of them.

Someday, you may look outside on a clear day. Then you may call a friend and say, "It's not going to rain today. It's really a wonderful day for flying. Let's go!"



See also:
Picturephone as the perpetual technology of the future
Jet Flying Belt is Devised to Carry Man for Miles (New York Times, 1968)

Envision Odd Styles in 1950 (Hammond Times, 1939)

The June 9, 1939 Hammond Times (Hammond, Indiana) ran a story titled, "Envision Odd Styles in 1950." Below is the article in its entirety.

Harvey T. Noyes, self-styled "man of 1950," publicly wears definitely futuristic clothes which he confidently predicts will be all the rage among men-about-town 11 years hence.

His ultra modern wardrobe was handsewn by his bride, who followed his instruction in designing clothes primarily for masculine comfort.

"There are too many pockets, buttons and creases in the clothes men wear now," said Noyes.

The outfit which created a sensation when he first wore it downtown comprised a wine-red satin blouse, a red corded silk ankle-length cape lined white green taffeta and caught at the throat with a red band, trousers that smacked of the medieval "tights" era and soft leather shoes with one lace which ties across the top.

His appearance, conservatively expressed, is colorful as he wanders through the shopping district doing errands for his wife.

"People laugh at me," he said. "But that doesn't bother me, because I feel just as much at home in my new outfit as I did in my other clothes."

Mrs. Noyes now is completing a wardrobe for herself. It is fashioned on the same futuristic principles.

See also:
Miss A.D. 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 1952)
The New Christy Minstrels (1966)

Future Shock - Electrical Stimulation (1972)

This clip from the 1972 film Future Shock depicts a man of the future starting his day with IQ pills and anti-depressant electrical shocks.

A number of years from now, perhaps when a person gets up in the morning and has to take the drug to bring his IQ up to the appropriate level, slap on the battery pack so that whenever he gets depressed he can press a lever and turn on electrical stimulation which delights him a little bit.

You can find Future Shock on the DVD Yesterday's Tomorrows Today, released by A/V Geeks.

See also:
Future Shock (1972)

Space Colony Possible (The News, 1975)

On August 22, 1975 The News (Frederick, Maryland) ran an article titled, "Space colony possible," which advocated the building of a space city. Below are excerpts from the piece.

A $100 billion city in space that would house 10,000 people and beam solar energy to earth could be a reality within 20 years, according to a select team of scholars.

The scholars said a space colony, once built, could transmit limitless solar energy to earth 24 hours a day.

As envisioned, the space colony would resemble a mile-wide wheel and have 10,000 inhabitants living in the outer rim. The vessel would orbit between the earth and moon, some 280,000 miles out in space.

Food for all residents would grow on 111 acres, with crops bathed in continuous sunlight. To maintain gravity similar to earth's, the craft would make one complete revolution every minute.

Residents would have a half-mile long landscaped vista and pure water would be recycled from sewage. The air would be cleaner than that in any city on earth because of constant filtering.

[Dr. Gerard] O'Neill said construction could begin now, using present technology, and the first colony could be functional by the early 1990s.


See also:
Delicious Waste Liquids of the Future (1982)
Robot Rebellion (1982)
Space Colony Pirates (1981)
Sport in Space Colonies (1977)
Space Colonies by Don Davis
More Space Colony Art (1970s)
Mars and Beyond (1957)
Challenge of Outer Space (circa 1950s)

Language of the Future (1982)

The Kids' Whole Future Catalog, published in 1982, contains this illustration of future communication.

In the future, you won't have to learn a foreign language in order to talk to people from other countries. You'll just get out your electronic language translator. If you want to speak in Japanese, you'll just snap a tiny Japanese "memory capsule" into the machine. Then the machine will translate anything you say into that language. When you say "Hello" out will come "Konnichiwa" in perfect Japanese.

(Also, apparently in the future people will be cartoon caricatures of themselves.)

See also:
The Kids' Whole Future Catalog (1982)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (Part 1, 1993)
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (Part 4, 1993)

The Jetsons "A Date With Jet Screamer" (1962)

The Jetsons episode A Date With Jet Screamer originally aired September 30, 1962 as the second Jetsons episode ever.

Even with flying cars and robot maids the Jetsons still utilize punch card computers to cook their instant meal. The advancements of push-button technology are obviously evident in most Jetsons episodes but it's funny to think that in 1962 punch card computers were still the technology of the future.

Below is a clip from the episode. You can watch the entire episode for free or you can find it on the DVD set The Jetsons - The Complete First Season.

UPDATE: Google has apparently never heard of fair use, so they pulled my short video clip of an episode that is available free online.


See also:
Jetsons
1999 A.D. (1967)
Computers the size of a room (1970)

Food of the Future (Indiana Progress, 1896)

This article from the January 1, 1896 Indiana Progress (Indiana, Pennsylvania) describes the synthetic food of the future.

When the food of the future is once in vogue, the food dispensary, licensed by the government, will long since have supplanted the butcher shop and the grocery store. We'll breakfast and lunch and dine by prescription at a cost of 10 or 15 cents per day per capita. Doubtless our houses won't be heated and supplied with power from a Keely motor at a penny a day additional, but the chemical or artificial food of the future is already a moral certainty. For does not Flammarion describe it in "Omega," and has not Bertholot, its chief apostle, been elevated from the laboratory to the foreign office of France?

Given the formula for our food, says Berthelot, the father of the artificial food idea, and why not prescribe it from the chemist's? Surely the nitrogen and carbon of the beefsteak may not be as grateful to the palate if absorbed from a capsule or masticated in a tiny tablet, but the bones and the blood, the flesh and the sinews will be just as well supplied with their essential material, their own special foods, provided always the prescription is right in proportion, and, after all, the pleasures of the table have ages on end been absorbing too much of the time and inclination of man and woman. When the area of chemical food comes, we shall have done with symposia and supper parties, Welsh rabbits and golden bucks.

There are certain elementary food which a man can't do without. He must absorb, or eat and drink, if you please, carbon and nitrogen and calcium for his bones. Without going too much into dry detail, he must absorb or receive each day, to repair the waste of his tissues, calcium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sodium. There are other trifling chemicals like phosphorous, which is an awful thing to burn oneself with, which the well fed man needs. But he could get along without it. He could get along without sodium, were it not for the fact that salt is chloride of sodium, and nobody can get along without salt. It isn't a simple, an element, but it is absolutely indispensable. When the era of the chemical food sets in, we'll all be in the habit of stopping morning and evening at our favorite dispensaries for a bracer of salt.



Adjusted for inflation, $.15 is about $3.50 in 2007 dollars.

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

Future Arcade Games (1985)

The 1985 book Science: It's Changing Your World features this photo of a futuristic arcade game.

"Take that, Darth Vader!" Cruz Fino, Jr., 14, pretends to be a starship commander as he shows how an arcade game of the future might look. A player would sit inside a mini-dome. The player would shoot laser beams at video targets projected onto the wall. Though bright, the beams would of course be of low power and harmless. Cruz, whose father is a technician with Laser Images, Inc., lives in Van Nuys, California.

See also:
Connections: AT&T's Vision of the Future (Part 3, 1993)
Virtual Reality (1980s-today)

Movie Trends of the 21st Century (1982)

The 1982 book The Omni Future Almanac describes the future of Hollywood.

*Cartoons, westerns, and love stories will still constitute the pre-dominant hits of the twenty-first century.

*Future audiences, unfamiliar with classic films like Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and The Godfather, will see these enduring tales remade with the stars of the future. This will continue a revivalist tradition that has long been in existence in Hollywood and on the Broadway stage.

*Instant classics will be created by increased Hollywood hype and intensive advertising. Aggressive marketing techniques will also be used in the promotion of pay television and home video media.

*Old-time movies - black and white films from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s - will be electronically colored by computer techniques for a generation unfamiliar with the medium of black and white photography.

*Trends at the theater concession stand may come and go, but popcorn will remain America's favorite movie-going snack.

*Movie studios will continue to become electronic entertainment conglomerates. With their vast financial resources, these will be the only organizations capable of funding the giant spectaculars of the future. The trend is already exemplified by Universal, Paramount, MGM and Warner. Smaller experimental movies, on the other hand, will flourish with the availability of video to independent producers.

*Though the techniques and technologies of movies are certain to change, movies will always be called movies.


Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca and The Godfather may very well be the only movies in history that haven't been remade. I'd be pleased as punch if they kept it that way. (Oh, and if you could halt production on that remake of The Birds, that'd be awesome.)

Digital Rights Management (April, 2007)

Much like jet packs, flying cars and moon colonies, digital rights management was to be the movement of the future. Back in April of 2007, organizations like the MPAA and RIAA held hilariously paleo-futuristic views on how to prevent piracy. These organizations were convinced that they could have total control over how creative works were used. From the distanced perspective of May, 2007 we can laugh at it now, but I'm sure there are still people insisting it can be done.

Gigantic Robots to Fight Our Battles (Fresno Bee, 1934)

The article "Gigantic Robots, Controlled by Wireless, to Fight Our Battles," from the April 29, 1934 Fresno Bee (Fresno, California) was exceptionally sensationalistic.

Professor [Felix Gaston] Gauthier disclosed in his address that two pacifistic-minded nations are today secretly (and supposedly unknown to each other) planning to construct gigantic fighting robots, controlled by wireless.

"These mechanical soldiers," declared Professor Gauthier, "will be of unexampled proportions. My informants, whose authentic statements I have never had reason to question before, have conveyed to me the startling news that each of these nations hopes some day to build robots 1,000 feet high!"


See also:
Mammy vs Robot (Charleston Gazette, 1937)
Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)

Jet Packs and Macs (1994)

Like the teaser ad for the new Power Macintosh in 1994, this ad reappropriates images of the paleo-future.



See also:
Power Macintosh Ad: This Future Belongs to the Past (1994)

OMNI 500 (1982)

The 1982 book The Omni Future Almanac contains a list of the top companies for the year 2000.

Telecommunications services, energy, and genetic/biological engineering will probably be the significant growth areas over the coming years, and the "Fortune 500" of today will look quite different from the "OMNI 500" of tomorrow. Here is a look at what ten leading companies might look like at the turn of the century.

Warner-Amex Compunications Services
Citicorp
AT&T
Exxon
IBM
Mobil
General Motors
Cetus and Genentech
Time Inc.
Johnson & Johnson

Stay tuned as we examine the "how" and "why" of this paleo-futuristic list.

Communities May Be Weatherized (Edwardsville Intelligencer, 1952)

The Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) ran an article on December 15, 1952 outlining a vision of weather-controlled communities of the future.

"Weather-conditioned" communities in the future are perfectly feasible, according to a professor of architecture.

Ambrose M. Richardson of the University of Illinois announced that his graduate architecture students already are working on a model of plastic pillows, helium-filled and joined to make a mile-high floating dome.

Next spring Richardson intends to try the idea with a small dome covering about an acre of land.

He said the next step may be covering 10 or 15 acre areas such as football stadiums and baseball parks. Larger domes - made of thousands of transparent pillows each only a few feet square - covering whole communities would be only a step away.

See also:
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Hubert H. Humphrey's Year 2000 (1967)
Superfarm of the Year 2020 (1979)

Delicious Waste Liquids of the Future (1982)

The 1982 book Our Future Needs (World of Tomorrow) by Neil Ardley envisions a world where liquid waste is converted into food.

A food factory of the future serves a desert city. Pipes bring waste liquids from industries in the city to the factory, where they are converted into foods by bacteria in tanks. Solar panels capture the Sun's rays to provide heat for the food-manufacturing processes in the factory.

Mammy vs. Robot (Charleston Gazette, 1937)

This Li'l Abner comic by Al Capp ran in the July 18, 1937 edition of the Charleston Gazette (Charleston, West Virginia).



See also:
Donald Duck's "Modern Inventions" (1937)
All's Fair at the Fair (1938)

I want an oil-cream cone! (1954)

In 1954 Victor Cohn wrote the book 1999: Our Hopeful Future. Cohn, a well respected science and medical journalist, reportedly interviewed scientists and engineers at MIT while researching for his book.

Pink snow covered the ground in 1999. Farmers sprinkled dye to absorb sunlight, speed melting and advance planting ... For lunch the Futures ate wood steak, planked and loved it - all except Billy, who bawled, "I want an oil-cream cone." ... "Where's Susan?" said John. "Oh here she comes." "Hi," said the teen-ager. "Gosh, I'm not very hungry tonight." The gang stopped at Joe's Fly-in for plankton-burgers.

Quoted from the book Bad Predictions by Laura Lee.