http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm
I saw this article linked in another thread. It is pretty interesting to read, and the predictions seem a bit more realistic than most. How many of these can we say have come true in anyway?
Does anyone have any other lists like these? It would be interesting to compare.
What a great read. His working makes some of the predictions seem like strange fantasies or science fiction. Even the ones that came kinda true.
That’s so great! Thanks for posting it. I was kind of wondered whether this was genuine such was the accuracy of some of the predictions. Amazing stuff!
Joseph Glanvill, writing in 1661, predicted that one day people conversing “at the distance of the Indies by sympathetic conveyances, may be as usual in the future as by literary correspondence”, and also speculated on the possibility of travelling to the moon. There’s more information in this Guardian article; the book ‘A Brief History of Tomorrow’ by Jonathan Margolis is worth reading if you’re interested in the subject.
I’m most impressed with the prediction of air conditioning, since that technology was far from the horizon back in 1900, whereas the advances in automobiles and telephones couldn’t have been that surprising. (Note how he was way off on air travel, for instance.) 'Tis a shame we don’t have mutant-sized strawberries, though.
As for the morning commute taking “only a few minutes” – HAHAHAHAHA!!! How come traffic predictions are ALWAYS wrong?!?
Not amazingly far. From this Wiki article:
Indeed, this one is more accurate than most, but I’m surprised at what he wrote about air travel in #7 and #8. I wonder whether he failed at seeing how much larger and faster the airplanes would become, or whether he wrongly expected the already-gigantic ocean liners to become superfast.
Note that there were no airplanes in 1900 - just a tiny number of experimenters dabbling with heavier-than-air flight. He was probably thinking of lighter-than-air craft.
Or blue roses.
I could have choked though on cities without “noise.”
Is it known if any writers in classical civilizations imagined the future?
Rob
What a wishful thinker. No rats, mice, mosquitoes or flies, indeed. And this prediction really turned out great:
“The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.” Yeah, right.
I misread prediction #13 as “Strawberries as large as Los Angeles”.
Now that would make a great horror movie. The embattled citizens of Anytown, U.S.A. bring down the enormous strawberry by hurling peas the size of beets at it, while it is strafed by Airborne War Conveyances.
The Internet! It’s a series of tubes! 
Replace “walk” with “eat” and “miles” with “burgers” and I’d have been impressed.
Could you imagine how twlight zone -esque it would be to be thrown into these visions of the future?
A despotic American Co-prosperity sphere, cowing their enemies with a mighty flotilla of Battle Blimps, united in its vision through infotube fed propiganda, as our Fearless Leader stands triumphant, clutching a strawberry big enough you can eat it like a handfruit :eek:
Hey, we would’ve had that, if it wasn’t for that pesky Rachel Carson.
I love that.
Yeah… until he realizes Iridium is charging him $5 a minute. Seriously… 80 artificial moons dedicated to wireless telegraph? No wonder those people went bankrupt.
Who you saying ain’t in New York?
I could use one of those about now…
Really? Coal more scarce than oil? Pretty prophetic, though.
I think I’d rather have global warming.
I don’t know about you, but my hovercraft is full of eels.
I suspect that in 1900 Brooklyn was not officially part of NYC proper. I’d have to look that up though.
Actually it was as of 1898. But people were still angry about it in 1900.
I’m often dubious of these claims about “Predictions of life in THE FUTURE!” from sources along the lines of “Applied Radiophonics, August 1912”. Even when they name an author, I can never quite shut off my “Bullshit Alarm” when I see them.
I’m a huge fan of Retro-Futurism (basically, how people in The Past thought THE FUTURE! would look), and I’m also a historian. And getting hold of copies of magazines from a century ago isn’t quite as easy as you’d think. It’s by no means impossible, but there were a lot of magazines back then- more than you’d think- and not all of them are available on microfiche or electronic format at your local library or online.
I mean, Russell Brand was on TV the other night doing part of a routine based on a well-debunked article allegedly from a copy of Housekeeping Monthly dated May 13th, 1955, and he was going to great lengths to assure the audience that it was actually real and not bullshit.
In short, when I see anything from a decades-old “popular culture” source (ie, obscure magazine, small-town newspaper, or something else equally hard to verify) then my initial reaction is usually scepticism.
FWIW, if it’s not completely on the level then it’s been done up by someone with a pretty good understanding of the language of the time, and Ladies Home Journal is a well-known and easily checkable reference, so I’m pretty sure the article is genuine. Which makes its prescience quite interesting when you consider how far off the mark most Futurists usually are…
From Prediction #2:
What in the world is that supposed to mean? Sure, life expectancy has increased a bit in the past century, but I’m certain it wasn’t as low as 35 years.
If you include deaths during infancy and childhood, life expectancy could be lower than you think. But for people surviving childhood, life expectancy was of course much higher than 35.