Posted on 10/04/2015 10:29:43 AM PDT by EveningStar
There are few things as fascinating as seeing what people in the past dreamed about the future.
"France in the Year 2000" is one example. The series of paintings, made by Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910, shows artist depictions of what life might look like in the year 2000. The first series of images were printed and enclosed in cigarette and cigar boxes around the time of the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris, according to the Public Domain Review, then later turned into postcards.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Of equal interest are the assumptions they made about what would be the same. Dirt roads, electric consoles but with mechanical levers, hardwood floors, empty city streets.
And the mechanical barber shop that required barbers at the machine control, one per customer. If they were going to have one barber per one machine per customer, what’s the point of having the machine at all?
It would be interesting to learn about predictions from back then about the future of society and relationships.
For example, would the people of 100 years ago have envisioned:
1. open homosexuality, and special rights for homosexuals in the law.
2. the women’s rights movement, so many women in the workplace doing any job a man would do.
3. the collapse of any social stigma against out of wedlock pregnancy and child rearing, which are also endorsed by our governmental policies of giving welfare to single mothers.
4. The open acceptance and legal access to pornography.
5. Various forms of legalized gambling across the country.
6. The decline in church attendance and decline in religious influence in the culture, and in people’s lives.
7. Acceptance of formerly stigmatized sexual behavior.
8. Entertainment media which pushes and normalizes what would have been unacceptable, bizarre, or immoral behaviors.
9. Decline of family ties, lack of social stigma against people, esp. women, who choose not to get married.
Just off the top of my head, I wonder about some of these things. And then wonder, based on some changes we’ve seen in society, do some of the changes I’ve noted help set the stage for even more changes? Will the structures of society which have changed in the last 100 years change into somethings we would not even envision today?
For example, no way people 100 years ago would have envisioned homosexual marriage. What might be accepted 100 years from now may not have even been conceived of today by any of us.
The 1930 movie “Just Imagine”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eldqx1MChyc
Very similar ‘style’ depicted as in these pictures.
Fun movie too.
Thanks EveningStar.
I worked with a young woman in the mid 50s who was dating a young man that she seemed to like.
One day she came in and said she broke up with him.
We asked her why ?
She said,”He was nuts. All he does is talk about men walking on the moon some day”
.
The thought of taking a non-stop trip in your car and not having to stop for the night sounds like a nice future. Motel industry sure won’t like this though.
communication (Pony express in 1900 vs texting Fiji today),
transportation (a month to cross the US in 1900, to 3 hours today),
which nations are at the top (it wasn't the US in 1900),
global population (only 1.6 Billion souls in 1900, and only 78 million in the US... now 7 Billion globally, and 38 million in CA alone),
medicine (imagine surgery in 1900),
Our grandchildren (or great-grands, depending on your age now) will laugh at Terabytes, keyboards, cancer, power lines, microwave ovens, bullet trains, and HD/3D.
Note there was nobody in Burkhas in those drawings.
France in 2050 will resemble the 7th Century once the Muslims take over.
The reality:
I do see Robert Heinlein in 1952 predicting for the year 2000 that "contraception and control of disease is revising relations between the sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure." Pretty easy to predict that, I guess. Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay would also all be cured by now. Source
You may find things that were predicted on "slippery slope grounds" -- if this happens then sooner or later two guys will be able to get married -- but dismissed at the time as alarmist.
Yeah, I can see your point. I might be tempted to get in, list a destination and going to sleep until the car gets to it's destination.
/johnny
My mom hated the term ‘housewife’. She thought it meant married to a house.
Looks more interesting than things are now...
hey, the tailor one is not far off!
You can get online suits now for pretty cheap, and I think the technology they use for the cuts is not an old guy with scissors.
So...they were close in some respects!
I remember about fifteen years ago, before she passed away, my grandmother was mentioning to me about a film she saw at the theater when she was a young lady that depicted the future, and how fascinating she found it to be. It quickly dawned on me that she was describing “Just Imagine” (1930), which I knew quite well, as I’d seen it and had it on videotape, from an off-air recording in the early-1990s.
She was anxious to see it again, so I showed it to her. But she was crestfallen, and found the film to be dreadful, seeing it seventy years later. Me? I don’t care too much for the film, as I’m not a big El Brendel fan. On the other hand, Marjorie White is always terrific little comedienne, and I enjoy her performances. She pepped the film up a bit when she was around.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
