Year 2000: 1900 Ladies Home Journal Predictions

[Mari333]

hilarious!

some are actually eye openingly accurate..others, hilariously off the mark.....

Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”

Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.

Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.

more predictions at link







fixed:

http://www.yorktownhistory.org/homepages/1900_predictions.htm



http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RiR7L_dyCLI/AAAAAAAAAdU/2COTRQtZAk8/s1600-h/Ladies+Home+Journal+Dec+1900+paleofuture+paleo-future.jpg

[LaurenG]

1. Thanks! nt

[taterguy]

2. ROFLMAO

[Faygo Kid]

3. "No Mosquitoes nor Flies." "To England in Two Days"

Well, we probably could not do much better in predicting 100 years from now.

Hell, when I started my professional career in the mid-70s, we didn't even have fax machines. And just 10 years ago, we still used the telephone at work more than e-mail. So what do I know?

[Deja Q]

4. Well, we now know who Ms. Cleo was in a previous life...

[LiberalEsto]

5. Reminds me of "Sleeper"

The old Woody Allen movie with the giant fruits and vegetables...

[barbtries]

6. and the orgasmatron

lol my son and i just recently watched it. hilarious.

[lunatica]

8. The future looks very nice with the addition of the orgasmatron

Even if it turns out to be Idiocracy in every other way.

[PufPuf23]

11. The BART Transbay tube opened in 1974

A group of friends rode BART from Shattuck Station and under the bay to San Francisco and got off and without leaving BART returned to Shattuck and watched Sleeper. Good times. So modern (then).

[Mari333]

7. this one was the most confusing to me

'Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.'

what..they didnt like those letters back then? also, 'russian' lol.

[1955doubledie]

30. I don't know about the dropping of C, X, or Q, but

a lot of ppl rly shrten thr wrds online now.

Not to mention "leet"...4n|} 7H3 w|2171n6 L00K5 L1K3 7H15.

:rofl:

[undeterred]

9. Notice how they just assumed everything was

going to get better and better...

[Mari333]

10. you just reminded me to post this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJjUVIIYptE

[undeterred]

12. Wow, that was astounding!

When I was at the university a few decades ago, there was a major called "leisure studies". A friend of mine was majoring in leisure studies - which I guess prepares you to run a summer camp or something like that. Anyway, if you poked fun at his major he would get all defensive and serious and tell you that 'by the year 2000 people are going to have so much leisure time on their hands its going to be a major problem... there will be a 30 4 day work week... 3 day weekends... people will have so much money they need somewhere to spend it'.

I wounder what he is doing now.

[hfojvt]

19. OMG, that was hilarious

in some ways though, it is much better and we either don't appreciate it, or take advantage of it.

[katanalori]

15. I know!

More optimism then for sure! In approx. 1900, one of my favorite poets (Ella Wilcox) predicted AND was sure that humans would evolve - no more eating animals, no more wars.

"So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many roads that wind and wind;
When just the art of being kind,
Is all the sad world needs." ~ella wheeler wilcox

[undeterred]

21. I was optimistic when I thought Al Gore was going to be president.

I don't know if I will ever feel that way again.

[jmowreader]

13. Some of it they got right...

Prediction 1: The Census Bureau claims the population of the US was 308 million in 2008. Add in the territories--Puerto Rico, Guam and the like--and it's probably close to 350 million. The territorial expansion part was off, but then again the Union was only 45 states strong in 1900 and, probably, the author couldn't envision Alaska and Hawaii joining the Union.

Prediction 2: The land-use parts, and the average age, are way off but he's right about the vast reforms.

Prediction 3: If only he would have known about television! "Exercise will be compulsory in the schools, but Americans will turn into a bunch of huge fatasses from sitting immobile for hours at a time looking at plays performed on a little box in the living room.

Prediction 4: Well, he blew THIS one right out his ass...

Prediction 5: Part right, part wrong...Europe embraced this one, though.

Prediction 6: He didn't foresee 500-horsepower motors, but he's basically right.

Prediction 7: Line out the part about air-ships not successfully competing with surface drayage and this is very true...especially the part about planes being used as a weapon of war.

Prediction 8: It's kinda neat to see that his simplistic view of the battlefield of the 21st century isn't all that far off from the actual battlefield of the 21st century.

Prediction 9: He couldn't have gotten any closer than he did, because he couldn't have imagined television. Good job.

Prediction 10: Okay, he TRIED to imagine television...anyone remember the prize fight broadcasts of the 1950s-1970s? They had some sort of television apparatus that exposed movie film, which was quickly developed and projected on a screen. Talk about the precursor of Pay Per View!

Prediction 11: Apparently it was easier to spend tax revenues on Public Works projects than it is now...

Predictions 12-14: Oh god, please no one show this to Monsanto...

Prediction 15: Well, THAT one didn't fucking go over...

Prediction 16: I'd heard of people suggesting that, but it will never happen.

Prediction 17: Imagine the Republicans' outcry if that ever came to pass.

Prediction 18: It's even better than he imagined...but what wife has a "boudoir" today?

Prediction 19: Except for the "opera" part, this isn't bad. I would have loved to see this guy's reaction to ProTools, which allows musicians to record in the privacy of their own homes then send their parts to a central location via the Internet.

Prediction 20: Ehhh...

Prediction 21: Homes have no chimneys because they have electric heat, but otherwise this is okay. Some places in Europe DO have centrally-generated steam, so there are "heat spigots" there.

Prediction 22: The only problem with this one is that in his era it was considered vulgar to walk around with armfuls of packages especially if you used public transport like the streetcar, so people would go to the store, buy things and have them delivered. Today it's not vulgar so home delivery of small purchases is no longer done--well, maybe the big-city stores very rich people frequent offer it today, but at the places I shop at you take your stuff with you when you leave.

Prediction 23: Scratch out the part about returning the dishes to a central location for washing, and this is exactly on target. A LOT of restaurants deliver, and many more have "to go" services, where you call in your order before you leave work and pick it up on the way home.

Prediction 24: The only plants this is really done with are tomatoes and marijuana, and they use hydroponics instead of soil, but this one's fine.

Prediction 25: Well...except for the part about growing oranges in Philadelphia...

Prediction 26: I GUESS you could do this one, but people really like to have lots of small fruits instead of one big one.

Prediction 27: So...Viagra's going to be a topical cream? It's kinda neat to see how he foresaw the MRI, CT scanner and other medical tools of that nature.

Prediction 28: We've seen the folly of the idea of exterminating wild animals, although it would be nice if we really could exterminate rats and mice.

Prediction 29: Imagine this guy's reaction if we showed him a 747 or an Airbus A380.

[Motown_Johnny]

14. #4 isn't that far off (#17 either)

#4
San Francisco still has some street cars but a lot of mass transit is done by subways or elevated trains.

(Street cars are not automobiles)



I think they came very close as far as the concepts are concerned. Yes they got the numbers wrong when they took guesses that were specific, even so it was 100 years ago.


#17
OK, we only give free education to every man and woman through High School, not at a University level. Still, maybe with the expansion of knowledge that has taken place in the last 100 years an argument could be made that the level of education they are referring to did come to pass, it just has a different name.

Free bus rides to school, free lunch programs we have both of these. We are even getting close on the "free" medical attention although we are behind schedule on that one. If The Clintons had gotten it done in '94 then this prediction would also be correct.

[dysfunctional press]

20. how close is san francisco to being "noise free"...?

their prediction was that all automobile traffic would be underground or overhead

17 is also pretty far off in many ways- there is no free university education for all. (even in 1900, public schools were already available thru high school)doctors don't come to the schools to treat the poor, and the vast majority of them aren't taken on trips around the world for vacations. etiquette and housekeeping aren't all that important subjects in schools.

i found number 10 to be a close estimation of the internet, and mnumber 18 was certainly right on the money.

[Motown_Johnny]

27. OK, ya got me on the noise free part

but I still think they did a pretty good job for a prediction 100 years out

[jmowreader]

23. I thought that too about street cars, at first

What I think he's really talking about is relegating automobiles to either tunnels or elevated roadways, and converting the ground-level urban road network to pedestrian or bicycle walkways. Obviously that has NOT happened--in fact, I think things have gotten worse. (Put into your DVD player "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" which has the true story of the dismantlement of the LA streetcar network at its heart.)

In all, though, I think the guy did as well as he could under the conditions. He did far better than the people who predicted flying cars and stuff like that.

[Dogmudgeon]

29. Oranges in Philadelphia?

The Tylers -- of Tyler State Park, who endowed what became Bucks County Community College -- grew oranges as early as the turn of the century, probably within a few years of Mr. Watkins' article. There is still a big building at BCCC called the "Orangery" after an attached, long-gone greenhouse. They grew quite a few oranges, and I would be surprised if they didn't sell any to endow various Friends' (Quaker) charities.

Bucks County is suburban Philadelphia.

There are also tropical plants growing in several local arboretums, and at the University of Pennsylvania. Commercially? Yes, there are lots of "hothouses" in this area, and a few local tropical fruit are still grown, although shipping them in has been more economical for decades.

--d!

[surrealAmerican]

16. Interesting stuff.

As usual, the predictions tell us a lot more about the times in which they were made than anything else. It's easy to forget, for instance, that average life expectancy was only 35 at the time. I expect this was largely due to high infant mortality and fatal childhood illnesses.

[hfojvt]

17. I am not sure what he is talking about there

my g-g-g grandfather died in 1901, at age 90. and his g-grandfather lived to be 85 in the 1700s. 35 does not sound right unless he is talking about the whole world, and I cannot imagine they had accurate stats.

[surrealAmerican]

31. If, for instance, your g-g-g grandfather had a sister ...

... who died before she was a year old: the average life span for the two of them would be 45.
Yes, some people had long lives, but there were many who had very short lives too.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. Their apparent fixation on huge crops such as peas and strawberries is also very telling

[undeterred]

22. "A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling."

Well at least I'll be in good company.

[Mari333]

24. LOL

[Manifestor_of_Light]

25. Prediction #19.

The Met has started satellite broadcasting their operas into movie theaters in Hi-Def. They do this on Saturday.

The best thing they ever did to help me appreciate opera was SUPERTITLES.

They project the words, in English, on a screen over the stage, in real time. I saw "Samson and Delilah" by Saint-Saens in 1990, and supertitles opened up a world of understanding for me.

But I still don't like Richard Strauss and Wagner. I saw "Elektra" and it was the only opera I've ever seen that I could not find anything I liked in. Bunch of screaming crazy women.

[Oeditpus Rex]

26. 'There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet

They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second."



O RLY?

[Dogmudgeon]

28. Our REACTIONS are the most interesting

Mr. Watkins got nearly all of his predictions correct. And the ones he got wrong, like the elimination of traffic and noise from cities, have been seriously proposed; the ocean liner on stilts design is actually feasible, but requires too much energy to be put into wide production.

No, what I found interesting is our reactions to the predictions. In most cases, we reacted with ridicule (albeit mild), conditioned by a couple of decades of hip irony. I have to enter a guilty plea myself: I have been heard to quip "where's my jet pack? Where's my monorail?" in public. And in the late 1970s, I wrote a column of future news for a college comedy newspaper -- consciously imitating the segment on Laugh-In a decade before.

What has happened is pretty easy to understand. We have been disappointed so often that anything that can be seen as a hope or an optimistic view is joked into its coffin. Even things that actually exist, like blue roses and the aforementioned ocean liner, are subject to BWA-HAs by people who are unaware of them. My own involvement in the Esperanto "movement" often presents occasion for reflection: Two million people may use Esperanto, but because it was originally proposed as an international language for common use, the conventional wisdom in America dictates that Esperanto "failed".

And when optimism does break out, we set ourselves up for heartbreak. Many of the same DUers who are now hooting that President Obama is a "Traitor! Whore!" are the same ones who were most fanatical about his election.

"Is this 'Change We Can Believe In'?" is today's "Where's my jetpack?" (Are you listening, Ms. Maddow?)

Today, the future is more difficult to foresee. There tend to be two divergent views: "the Human Race will die out, and a good thing, too" or "Borgs, Memes, Cyberpunk, Nano crap, Cloaking Devices, Singularities, and Trek". The common view is that we are the Final Generation -- a view that has been remarkably consistent for over 50 years. Perhaps it is just as well. So when our ship-on-stilts arrives -- or the monorail comes -- it will be no big deal.

By the way, in the late 1980s, George Schlatter produced a 20-year Laugh-In retrospective. One clip from Laugh-In's News Of Tomorrow Today was a joke about the Communists turning into Capitalists -- and knocking the Berlin Wall down.

They were off by all of about two years.

--d!