(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Predictions about the year 2000, from 1900

Some of them seem anachronistic to 1900, and there's no reference on the page to support the claim of the list bein a century old, but it's interesting regardless.

Comments

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

As I said on MeFi, it's entertaining how they thought that education would be used to make us better citizens rather than better profit generators.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

I agree that there are some anachronisms. I don't think this is legit.

However:

When I was but a teen, my mother found a lovely 19-book collection called the World Book of Knowledge. Sort of like an extremely jumbled encyclopedia, she bought it at a yard sale for some retardedly low price.

It was printed in 1908-1916, and the whole collection had been given to a girl in 1918 according to the handwritten inscription on each one. From what I saw, a subscriber received multiple yearly volumes with new information in each one.

Holy smokes, this thing was a hilarious treasure trove of dated material.

Pictures of Iran show gorgeous cities (in black and white, of course) where tourists are free to enjoy sherbet and tea with the locals. There's a lovely bit about the "Great European War" and how aeroplanes will likely never be used as anything more than war machines - "They lack the stability of our dirigibles, which shall likely soon be ferrying passengers across the world in your lifetime."

And there was this fucking AWESOME bit about Our Friend, the Negro. Lots of "scientific" reasons why the Negro will always be inferior to other races.

One of these days I'm going to coax her into sending me some of these volumes and start scanning them.

[mazarinade.livejournal.com]

I've got a couple of sets of those sorts of books. They're ... mind-expanding, and not always in a good way. The British version sort of assumes that the Empire will Always Be There, Sun Never Setting etc., and the Foreign Sorts Eternally Grateful for our Civilising Influence.

[spartonian.livejournal.com]

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

Word.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

I believe the life expectancy in 1900 was somewhat greater than thirty-five, for one thing.

Yep.. it WAS 50 (48.23). Reference from somewhere I'm not entirely sure of the credibility on, but this seems right...

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Awesome graph here of life expectancy from 1900 - 1960.

[mightycodking.livejournal.com]

The article itself appears to have existed:

http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/t588.htm

Whether the content is replicated faithfully I of course have no idea.