How to describe the field and who to include under the term science fiction has launched a million bitter battles. All I will say is that the term is pretty generally applied to all proto-science fiction by those in the field. Everybody who wrote anything speculative is now retconned in.
Gernsback first used the term to refer to Jules Verne in a letter column in the January 1927 Amazing Stories. Oddly, he was still using his coined term “scientifiction” as his official label. Amazing was in fact “The Magazine of Scientifiction” and he used the word in his editorial in that issue. But when he lost control of Amazing and started Science Wonder Stories in 1929, he had switched to calling the field science fiction and everybody followed him.
Wollheim was born late in 1914. I don’t think anybody was paying much attention to 12-year-old him.
The current version involves the child being received by the attendants at the security gate, handed over to flight personnel at the plane, then back to attendants from the plane until they’re with whomever is there to receive them. Those same services are available for people with mobility or language problems; if the person who needs the service is part of a small group, the whole group gets the service.
Yes, the movie plays it for laughs, but also shows that the man is expected to thumb the ride.
Besides, when I said hitchhiking for women was new, I didn’t say that no woman had ever in history hitched a ride. The obvious meaning was that women commonly hitching rides the way men always had was a new development. You may have just been going for the joke, but there are weirdly literal people here so I might as well clear that up.
Perhaps the difference was that cars were somewhat scarce, and people didn’t have any other way of getting around?
That was certainly the case when I was a teenager in the 70’s (driving age here was 18). We hitched becasue public transport wasn’t that good, was expensive, and we didn’t have any other way of getting around.
Regarding the women thing though: I’ve seen B&W movies where rural woman were getting lifts, just to get somewhere. And pre-war books too. Not long distance travel. Some but not all the examples were women being picked up by someone local (who they recognized) Just going into town for shopping, or heading out to the bus stop or rail station.
When was women hitching supposed to be new? In the 60s, the common wisdom was that it was safer for women to have someone with them when they hitchhiked. (It was also common wisdom that a couple with a man and a woman was more likely to be picked up than just a man alone.)
When I was young I both got and offered rides, although I didn’t do either very often.
On a slightly different note - I’ve been binge-watching Match Game from the 70s.
Nearly everyone smokes casually on set. Brett gets in trouble regularly for eating during taping, but no one seems to care about the smoking, and every place has it’s own ashtray. The ashtrays always look clean, so I’m guessing that some gopher cleans them out every commercial break.
Forgive me for assuredly repeating myself but I’m old enough to have had my family physician smoking while he examined me.
Last night I watched The King’s Speech for the first time and was highly amused to hear the court speech therapists/doctors advising Colin Firth’s character to smoke more often as an aid to curing his stutter. “It relaxes the throat muscles!”
Lots of older SF has people in the future casually smoking in spaceships and other confined spaces, and not as the affectation of some rich guy that no one can say no to, but just a casual part of the background. There’s actually a great scene in the first Lensman book where the graduating class of cadets finishes their synchronized marching and sits down in chairs for their graduation speech. The high-ranking guy giving the speech says ‘you’ve all shown yourselves to be immune to the lure of noxious drugs.’ and then moments later ‘Open the compartment in front of you, and you’ll see a pack of your favorite smokes. Light up!’.
With all the talk about smoking, how about drinking. As recently as the 1980s, a drunk like “Arthur” could be the romantic lead (without giving up the drinking to any real extent), and back in the first half of the 20th century, characters in books and movies drank an incredible amount.
Which reminds me of how in The Andy Griffith Show, Otis, the town drunk, is portrayed as a lovable comedic character rather than someone who has a serious problem.
The smoking room on the Hindenburg was carefully sealed so that passengers could indulge without creating a explosive flaming holocaust. The Hindenburg was the equivalent of an aerial ocean liner, as opposed to its predecessor the Graf Zeppelin, which did record-breaking tricks like flying around the world, visiting the poles, etc.
Passengers on the Graf Zeppelin were expected to refrain from tobacco, hashish, and opium until the big bird landed in Germany, Argentina, or New Jersey.
That reminds me of “Dallas”. When I saw it as a tween in the early eighties, I asked myself: “Is it typical for Americans to drink hard booze at each and every opportunity?” They were always drinking, be it a family gathering or a business meeting.
The Hindenburg also included a grand piano (made of aluminum) in the dining room. Passengers on the Graf Zeppelin were entertained by the captain playing his accordion.
There is no historical record of how many of the captive audience leapt out into the Atlantic Ocean.
According to my great aunt that piano sounded terrible. Goodyear had plans for passenger rigid airships that would’ve used helium (like the Navy airships); presumably they ever built one the promotional material would’ve made a big deal over being able to casually smoke anywhere on the ship instead of a tiny sealed lounge.