*In December 1900, at the start of the 20th Century, John Elfreth Watkins wrote a piece published on page eight of an American women’s magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, entitled: “What may happen in the next hundred years”.
He began the article with the words: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible”, explaining that he had consulted the country’s “greatest institutions of science and learning” for their opinions on 29 topics.*
What a silly, deluded, and childish author–he really believed that such an outlandish thing would come to pass as this:
[QUOTE=Quaint and Jejune Dreamer]
Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to English and not copied after the Latin.
[/quote]
Five hundred million people: No, the population of the US is fewer than predicted.
The American will be taller: Yes
No C, Q or X: No
Hot and cold air from spigots: Yes, but the technology is not as predicted.
No mosquitoes nor flies: No
Ready-cooked meals: Yes (i.e., fast food), but the technology is different.
No foods will be exposed: Essentially yes.
Coal will not be used for heating or cooking: Yes, but not because it’s scarce – coal is still used to generate electricity.
No street cars: Essentially yes.
Photographs will be telegraphed: Yes
Trains 150 miles and hour: Yes, but not in the United States(!)
Automobiles cheaper than horses: Yes
Everybody will walk ten miles: Not everybody.
To England in two days: Yes but not by ship. (How did he miss predicting flight?)
There will be air-ships: No, since the prediction said they would not be used for passenger or freight traffic.
Aerial war-ships and forts on wheels: Yes (indeed, both existed less than 20 years later).
No wild animals: No
Man will see around the world: Yes (and woman too).
Telephones around the world: Yes.
Grand opera will be telephoned: Yes (and soap opera too).
How children will be taught: Mostly wrong.
Store purchases by tube: No, since purchasing at home is not done through pneumatic tubes.
Vegetables grown by electricity: Mostly true.
Oranges will grow in Philadelphia: Mostly true, apart from the oranges growing in Philadelphia (it’s cheaper to transport them there from Florida or California).
Strawberries as large as apples: No (fortunately)
Peas as large as beets: No (why would you want them?)
Black, blue and green roses: Mostly not true.
Few drugs will be swallowed: No: oral drug administration is still the easiest, even with all the new drugs.
So I think he got about half his predictions right, which isn’t too bad an average.
I’d call it a remarkably accurate batch of predictions, honestly. Missing commercial airplane travel and a touch of “electricity is magic” screwed up a number of them in various ways.
The biggest thing they missed, though, is that they didn’t expect culture to change. The philosophy behind some of the predictions is a philosophy of domination; the assumption is that the human race will seek to impose its will on every aspect of the world, exploiting it (and themselves) in the most efficient ways possible. The hyper-rationalization of language, wiping out all wild animals, deliberately exterminating whole species of insects by poisoning or destroying their habitats, continued aggressive imperialism by the US and Europe–these are things we probably could have done, or come close…but mostly we haven’t. We’ve learned a little. We’ve changed a little. Not enough yet, no…but we’re trying, if only we can keep the folks who haven’t learned from dragging us back down.
I think the best part about these predictions is what he got wrong.
His error there wasn’t demographic, though, but rather political. He assumed that American expansionism (and inclusion) would continue and that certain Latin American nations would voluntarily join the union. He mentions Mexico and Nicaragua specifically and alludes to others in South America pushed to join the union in reaction to European interference. That would certainly have made the ‘United States of the Western Hemisphere’ (or whatever it ended up being called) at a population level appropriate to his prediction…even higher.
Gotta admit. Adding another 15 or so states, all of whom have Spanish as their primary language, would sure alter the debate!
Still, not the worst set of predictions I’ve even seen.
Yes, what a ghastly idea! Peas are hard enough to deal with now.
I used to work for Ladies Home Journal’s publisher, and they had bound editions going back to the 1880s in a closet–that’s where I spent my lunch hour. One article title that still tickles me–from about 1905, when it made sense–was “Why Girls Today Want to Look Like Ethel Barrymore.”
Oh–and there was a baby-raising article saying that babies must cry regularly to develop their lungs, and if they do not cry, they must be made to do so. *There’s *job I want! Going house to house, making babies cry.
I know of genetically modified black and blue roses… but not green? I think that’s mostly true.[
As a variety, they would be awfully convenient for soup-making - they’d keep fresh in the crisper for as long as the onion and ham, and cook up faster than dried peas. Pity.
Because X is cool and sexy, but Q is so dull. No one wants to see a Q-rated movie and sexy villainesses and femme fatales never have Q’s in their names.
He may have gotten 10 predictions right - but he made a lot more than 29 predictions.
Take the ‘500 million people’ paragraph. He’s 0-for-4 in that one paragraph: on the 350-500 million people, on Nicaragua seeking admission to the Union, on Mexico doing the same, and on European expansion into Latin America.
Or the next paragraph. He’s right about the increase in Americans’ height, about some of the reasons, and about there being a nontrivial increase in life expectancy. He’s wrong about the near-abolition of residences in cities, about the illegality of building in blocks, about the brevity of commuting from the suburbs, and about its cost. So I’d give him 3-for-7 for that paragraph.
And in the third paragraph (C,X,Q), he’s wrong about the disappearance of those letters, the adoption of spelling by sound, the notion that English will become a language of condensed words, and that Russian will be the second most commonly used language worldwide. And I doubt whether English is the language spoken more extensively than any other, given 1.5 billion Chinese in the world. But English may be the language that’s used at least some of the time by more people than any other, as our language has become something of a lingua franca. So I’d give him 0.5 out of 5 for that paragraph.
So that’s 16 predictions in 3 paragraphs, with 26 paragraphs to go. And batting a more realistic .250 so far.
