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I recently found a reprinting of a list of predictions made in the year 1900, about what the world would be like 100 years in the future. What surprises me about the list is that they actually got a lot of stuff right. They also got a lot of stuff way wrong. But what surprised me the most is that all the predictions I read were either pretty damn accurate or laughably off. There weren't many near misses. As an example of guessing correctly, they state that the average height of an American in 2000 will be one or two inches taller than in 1900. In 1900, the average man was 5'9". Today, the average height for an American male is 5'10". As an example of falling short of the mark, they also thought that the average human lifespan in 2000 would be 50 (as opposed to 35 in 1900).
Below are a few highlights, along with some comments by me. Anyone wishing to read a transcript of the full text can find it here.
There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century.
Not bad; as of the 2012 census, the population of the US is about 314 million. Of course, this article also thought that Nicaragua and Mexico would be part of the US by then, so they were probably taking those countries' populations into account as well.
Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today.
I'm not sure how much a horse costs these days, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're more expensive in the long run, at least if you live in an urban environment (and bear in mind that in 1900, cities were only starting to be the most populated parts of the country). The rest of this prediction goes on to say that automobiles would replace the horse-drawn vehicle in every echelon of society, which of course it did. Though they also state that a trip from the suburbs into the city would cost a penny. I doubt a bus or a train could be considered that cheap today, even after adjusting for inflation.
Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums.
This one surprised me. I mean, intellectually, I knew that those old one room schoolhouses of our grandparents time didn't have gyms, but it never occurred to me that they didn't have gym class.
Cities...will be free from all noises.
This is the end of a prediction about how all motorized traffic will be either above or below ground level, and mostly enclosed. For those readers who are fellow Chicagoans, think the El and Lower Wacker Drive, everywhere. Course, the article also predicted that no one would live in cities anymore by 2000, everyone would be in the suburbs, and cities would be more like industrial/economic hubs than anything else.
Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
Granted, color photography was a pretty safe bet, even in 1900. But it's pretty impressive that they were able to predict instant communications before the advent of computers, let alone the Internet. As a side note, does anyone know when we stopped hyphenating "today" and "tomorrow?" I see that all the time in Victorian literature.
In other news, I read Victorian literature. For fun.
No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated.
It should be noted that we actually did try to do this. And we would have succeeded. Fortunately, we figured out that pests like mosquitoes and flies are integral to maintaining our ecology before we stamped them out.
Peas as Large as Beets.
This and the two predictions after it discuss gigantic produce. I'm not sure why people in 1900 would have considered that desirable. Maybe it was their answer to world hunger?
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.
Funnily enough, I made the same prediction about the letters C, X, and Q, and for the same reason, though I also included Y in the mix. According to notes I've compiled for a novel I plan on writing one day set in the 27th Century: "The alphabet consists of 32 letters: 15 vowels and 17 consonants (the letters c, q, x, and y have been removed)." Sometimes, I think it would be nice if English were phonetic.
Russian will rank second.
I'm not sure what the second most-spoken language on Earth is right now, but I'm gonna guess it's Mandarin, just based on how many Chinese there are.
A university education will be free to every man and woman.
Ah, it must be nice to be so idealistic.
Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses.
Scholarships, anyone?
Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of Republicans screaming "SOCIALIST!" in the background. And before you claim that there was no such thing as socialism in 1900, The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848.
Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago.
Holy crap, it's like they actually saw into the future there. Except for the boudoir part. I'm not even wholly certain I know what a boudoir is, let along what that man's wife is doing in it.
Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today.
Though nowadays you don't even have to get out of your freakin' car. Course, the people who wrote this article thought the food would be delivered to your home via pneumatic tube. This was the height of technology back then, and let's be honest, it's still a pretty cool idea even today. That's probably why they appear in Futurama.
Oranges will grow in Philadelphia.
To be fair, you probably can grow oranges in Philly today, given materials and patience. It's just, who'd want to?
Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence.
Man, they just will not let go of the giant fruit thing.
Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless.
Well, most of the items on that list have seedless varieties by now. They forgot bananas, though. Did they already have seedless bananas in 1900? Hell, did they have Cavendish bananas at all in 1900?
There will be no wild animals except in menageries.
Hard to imagine that was ever considered to be an ideal situation, rather than a desperate last resort, eh? For those of you wondering, "menagerie" is an old-timey word for "zoo."
The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise.
I'm not sure if I'd call the modern horse "practically extinct," but they were on the nose about the rest.
Rats and mice will have been exterminated.
See my previous comments about mosquitoes and flies.
-Long Days and Pleasant Nights
