The Washington Post recently posted a series of postcard images from the 1900s, depicting what the year 2000 would look like according to French artists. As expected, they're pretty zany.

You can see the entire collection here: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/

I see three different sorts of cards there.

The first are just wild fantasy, utterly nonsense regardless of when they are 'set'. Things like the underwater croquette, the kids robbing the eagles nest and so forth.

The second are moderately impractical things, general misunderstanding of the underlying technologies. Flying firemen and flying postmen come to mind here. Most of personal flying devices, in fact.

The third and most interesting category, to me, is the postcards that are in fact correct predictions. The artwork doesn't reflect reality, but that's largely a design matter.  What am I talking about? Battle Cars (tanks), Traveling houses (RVs and Motor Homes), automated sweepers (Roomba), Ariel Battles (no Zeppelins, of course...), even the Lady at her Toilet is only a goofy way of depicting the massive levels of automation women (and men) now have to prettify themselves before heading out.  

All in all the french artist wasn't so far off in his predictions.  He just had no idea what stuff would look like. And a absurd fascination with life underwater for some reason.

Quote from: Spike;859107Battle Cars

What if ... Jules Verne had invented Car Wars.

Quote from: Spike;859107The second are moderately impractical things, general misunderstanding of the underlying technologies. Flying firemen and flying postmen come to mind here. Most of personal flying devices, in fact.

I would contest that even these two were correct, albeit not for their individualized urban usage. Planes are regularly used for not only air dropping retardant but also paratrooping in firefighters. Planes are also regularly used for bringing mail in farflung hinterlands, like much of Alaska. Outside of scale and zoning, it got that right too.

However I don't understand the fixation on colonizing underwater for bizarre recreation (croquet? gull "fishing"? whale bus?).

Probably seemed sensible, considering most of the planet is underwater.

Quote from: Opaopajr;859191I would contest that even these two were correct, albeit not for their individualized urban usage. Planes are regularly used for not only air dropping retardant but also paratrooping in firefighters. Planes are also regularly used for bringing mail in farflung hinterlands, like much of Alaska. Outside of scale and zoning, it got that right too.

The personal flight thing seems to have cropped up repeatedly (think the 40s and 50s and the Popular Mechanic predictions of flying cars and jetpacks. I think some of that is a lack of thought into practicality, and some part to simply if you don't know how something is going to be accomplished, why would you assume something along the lines of airplanes?

QuoteHowever I don't understand the fixation on colonizing underwater for bizarre recreation (croquet? gull "fishing"? whale bus?).

Although there's no real 'start' to when underwater exploration happened, reasonably modern diving dress was a 19th century invention, and non-surface-supplied airtanks likely something that was being proposed and experimented upon at the turn of the century. With balloons having made aerial feats a reality, and space not even really on most peoples' minds, I'm sure that underwater exploration captured the imagination.

Quote from: SpikeThe third and most interesting category, to me, is the postcards that are in fact correct predictions. The artwork doesn't reflect reality, but that's largely a design matter. What am I talking about? Battle Cars (tanks), Traveling houses (RVs and Motor Homes), automated sweepers (Roomba), Ariel Battles (no Zeppelins, of course...), even the Lady at her Toilet is only a goofy way of depicting the massive levels of automation women (and men) now have to prettify themselves before heading out.

The sweeper and barber shop are interesting to me because it reminds me of my own assumptions. Why I would assume that it would be "more" logical for someone in 1900 to realize that we would start cleaning with air pressure gradients instead of brushes than for them to predict robotic push brooms? Likewise, them thinking we would have automated straight razors shaving our gents in barbar shops rather than every guy (potentially) having an electrical engine-powered shaver (using oscillating or rotating blades) in their bathroom.

Hard to tell how serious such predictions were... like if people actually expected such things or saw them as flights of fancy even then. Like, the difference between 2001 and Barbarella, which were made the same year.

Quote from: Opaopajr;859191I would contest that even these two were correct, albeit not for their individualized urban usage. Planes are regularly used for not only air dropping retardant but also paratrooping in firefighters. Planes are also regularly used for bringing mail in farflung hinterlands, like much of Alaska. Outside of scale and zoning, it got that right too.

However I don't understand the fixation on colonizing underwater for bizarre recreation (croquet? gull "fishing"? whale bus?).

Quote from: Bobloblah;859193Probably seemed sensible, considering most of the planet is underwater.

one thing to keep in mind is that in the mid to late 1800s there was a lot of talk about how much the population had grown and to some under water colonys seemed obvious

As Tom Servo on MST3K once sighed wistfully, "Ahh, our old future."