Predictions for 1993 (from 1893)

PALEO-FUTURE ^ | March 25, 1893 | George Alfred Townson, Kate Field, Nym Crinkle, and John Swinton

[PetroniusMaximus]

Predictions for 1993 (from 1893)

Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 9:10PM

The March 25, 1893 Newark Daily Advocate (Newark, OH) ran predictions of what the world of 1993 would look like. Excerpts from each of the four journalists (George Alfred Townson, Kate Field, Nym Crinkle, and John Swinton) appear below. The entire article is embedded below, or you can read it here.

Substitute the word "blog" for "book" in the last prediction and it could have easily been written today.

● Where will be our greatest city? In all probability Chicago. There will be wonderful cities in the west, none more beautiful and extensive than Salt Lake City; but unless all signs fail Chicago will take precedence.

● So called temperance legislation is a temporary aberration of well meaning but narrow minded men and women with whom sentimentality supplants reason, and who actually thinks morals are an affair of legislation. One hundred years hence personal liberty will be more than a phrase. When it is a fact sumptuary laws will be as impossible as witch burning is now.

● The encyclopedic man, who makes a show of knowing all things, will give way to the specialist, who makes an effort to know one thing and know it well.

● They will have more leisure to think. The present rate of headlong material activity cannot be kept up for another hundred years. While I am writing this the statesmen of the country are asking themselves if it is not time to make laws which shall restrict, if they do not put a stop, to immigration.

● In 100 years Denver will be as big as New York and in the center of a vast population.

● If the republic remains politically compact and doesn't fall apart at the Mississippi river, Canada will be either part of it or an independent sovereignty, and the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico will be the Riviera of the western continent.

● I guess that there will be great political and social changes in our country before the year 1993, and that these changes will be advantageous to the community at large. I guess that before the next century shall end the functions and powers of our government will be greatly enlarged; that railroads, telegraphs and many other things now held as private spoil will be public property; that law, medicine and theology will be more reasonable than they now are; that the inventions and discoveries will be greater than we have ever yet had, and that the welfare of mankind will be higher than it is in this age of confusion.

● Every person of fairly good education and of restless mind writes a book. As a rule, it is a superficial book, but it swells the bulk and it indicated the cerebral unrest that is trying to express itself. We have arrived at a condition in which more books are printed than the world can read. This is true not only of books that are not worth reading, but it is true of the books that are. All this I take to be the result of an intellectual affranchisement that is new, and of a dissemination of knowledge instead of concentration of culture. Everybody wants to say something. But it is slowly growing upon the world that everybody has not got something to say. Therefore one may even at this moment detect the causes which will produce reaction. In 100 years there will not be so many books printed, but there will be more said. That seems to me to be inevitable.

1893 March 25 Newark Daily Advocate - Newark OH Pa Leo Future

[Patriotic1]

Certainly food for thought!

[colorado tanker]

They totally missed the growth of California.

[GeronL]

interesting

[lentulusgracchus]

They totally missed the growth of California.

Yes, and the engine of its growth -- the Central (and Southern) Pacific under the intendency of the Big Four -- was already in place. My great-grandfather was working for that railroad in 1893; his retirement gold watch ticks in my gun safe.

The railroad spurred the ag development and drainage of the San Joaquin Valley and made it boom. That, and the discovery of oil.

[Billthedrill]

At least they didn’t try to sell any of that heavier-than-air flight nonsense. That’s the sort of damfool nonsense a couple of bicycle mechanics might try.

[stormer]

This one made me laugh, "and the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico will be the Riviera of the western continent."

vs.

[Augustinian monk]

“and the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico will be the Riviera of the western continent.”

Well it became the redneck Riviera of the western contintent so he gets partial credit.

[oblomov]

Chicago was seen at the time as embodying the essence of the American spirit. St. Louis was among the top 5 cities in population, and Cincinnatti was among the top 10.

[colorado tanker]

My great-grandfather was working for that railroad in 1893; his retirement gold watch ticks in my gun safe.

Wow, that goes way back! And people here consider themselves practically a native if they've been here 20 years.

Missing California is puzzling. If you look at the growth of cities around the world it's generally the coastal regions and port cities that have more population than interior regions. The predictions about Salt Lake and Denver are also strange. There just isn't enough agriculture and water around here to support a metropolis the size of New York. The prediction about Chicago is more understandable as in 1893 it has seen incredible growth in a short time.

[Lazamataz]

No mention of the internet. No mention of cruise missiles. The laser is only mentioned once. Cable TV, while mentioned extensively, isn’t focused on as much as it should be.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Canada will either become part of the US or retain sovereignty...tough call there!

[WKUHilltopper]

Interesting. Not only did they miss California, but also the President whose name sounds like a cat coughing up a fur ball (Barackkkkk).

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Canada will either become part of the US or retain sovereignty

I think they meant sovereignty from British rule.

[lentulusgracchus]

Yes, they didn't understand how limiting the lack of water would be to the Western cities, and the basically extractive economic activities they're involved in. Those don't support big populations of workers, not like manufacturing.

They missed California because they didn't know about the oil and the agricultural possibilities (the San Joaquin Valley had to be drained). But they were right about Chicago, which has become a megalopolis in its own right, stretching from suburban Milwaukee down to Hammond and Gary.