Paleofuture

Title card from the 1922 short silent film "Eve's Wireless"

A Mobile Phone From 1922? Not Quite

History often plays linguistic tricks on us, especially when it comes to rapidly changing technologies

Illustration for the February, 1946 issue of the sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories

Trade Your Trouble for a Bubble

Sightseeing across the country in an atomic-powered "pleasure ball"

The New York subway system's moving sidewalk of the future by Goodyear (1950s)

Moving Sidewalks Before The Jetsons

The public's fascination with the concept of "movable pavement" extends back more than 130 years

Everyday Science and Mechanics (February, 1936)

Mobsters Tremble Before the Crime-Fighting, Red Flying Gondola

Science-fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback predicted that, as long as police officers were stuck on terra firma, criminals always would have the edge

Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe by Elliott & Fry in 1896

One Newspaper to Rule Them All

One in a series of 1930s promotional cards for Max Cigarettes

The Future’s War on Cancer

Scientific progress during the 20th century prompted a number of predictions about an impending cure

Christmas in the future as imagined in the 1981 book "Tomorrow's Home" by Neil Ardley

Santa’s Trusty Robot Reindeer

A special visit from the Ghost of Christmas Retro-Future

Flying machine of the year 2012

The Fanciful, Chocolate-Filled World of 2012

In 1912, the French chocolate company Lombart printed a series of six collectible cards envisioning daily life one hundred years in the future

"Highways by Automation" by Arthur Radebuagh

Giant Automatic Highway Builders of the Future

Radebaugh's vision of a road-creating machine may not have been a figment of just his imagination- a Disney-produced television program had a similar idea

Modern Mechanix and Inventions (April, 1934)

Boxing Robots of the 1930s

Jack Dempsey boasted he could tear apart a robot opponent "bolt by bolt and scatter its brain wheels and cogs all over the canvas"

Arizona's Grand Canyon as painted by Thomas Moran in 1908

Senator Barry Goldwater Imagines Arizona in the Year 2012

The Republican senator and 1964 presidential candidate predicted the growth of the Sun Belt and envisioned an open border with Mexico

Collier's magazine cover from May 28, 1954

Weather Control as a Cold War Weapon

In the 1950s, some U.S. scientists warned that, without immediate action, the Soviet Union would control the earth's thermometers

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The Latest Destination for Human Spaceflight

The latest proposed destination for human space missions illustrates the essential hollowness of the current direction of our civil space program

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Pollster George Gallup Jr. Looks to the Year 2000

Thanksgiving meal in a pill

A Thanksgiving Meal (in-a-pill)

The future of food was envisioned by many prognosticators as entirely meatless and often synthetic

How We Will Live Tomorrow

A Whole Town Under One Roof

We're moving on up—visions of a self-contained community within a 1,000-foot tall skyscraper

1968′s Computerized School of the Future

A forward-looking lesson plan predicted that "computers will soon play as significant and universal a role in schools as books do today"

Zipping from San Francisco to Oakland in 5 Minutes

An inventor's plans for traveling inside a giant bullet would have made a trip across the Bay a fast one

"...roads jammed by frantic survivors, blocking entry of rescue teams."

Would You Pass the Panic-Proof Test?

If an atomic bomb drops on your house, a civil defense official advises: "Get over it."

Arthur Radebaugh's jetpack mailman of the future

Arthur Radebaugh’s Shiny Happy Future

For five years, a popular comic strip gave us a preview of life in Suburbatopia

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