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retro futurism
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house of the future
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retro futurism
Corporate America Predicts the Future at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair
"What'll It Be Like in 2000 A.D.?" asked Popular Science in its April 1962 preview of the marvels to be found at the Seattle World's Fair, which opened that month. First up on Popular Science's tour of the future was the Standard Oil diorama. Not surprisingly it featured a host of gas-guzzling vehicles for land and air—and failed to predict either fuel shortages or oil at $100 a barrel. More »
retro futurism
Roll-Oh the Household Robot Solves All Domestic Problems in 1940
A bored housewife, her "chromium butler," and a condescending workman from Ray's Robot Repair star in Leave It to Roll-Oh (1940), a film short originally shown at the New York World's Fair of 1939-40. Roll-Oh answers the door, vacuums the rug (with his foot), and makes dinner, among other domestic chores, thus freeing the housewife to ... read magazines? Don't miss the repairman's impressive use of techno-babble to confound a presumably ignorant female client, a scenario that's not exactly extinct in today's world. Wish she'd use that button marked "Scram!"
retro futurism
"If Mail Can Be Shot Through a Tube Why Not Meals?"
From his first job at Scientific American circa 1900 to his retirement in 1956 as science editor at the New York Times, Waldemar Kaempffert wrote widely about the sciences. As you might imagine from the man who penned yesterday's Popular Mechanics article, Kaempffert was a man with grand plans for a future world made better by science and industry. In 1918, he explained one of them, related to pneumatic tube meals, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. More »
retro futurism
In 1950, Popular Mechanics magazine visited the world of the future, which turned out to be an imaginary suburb called Tottenville, home of a pretend family named the Dobsons. So what was life like for the Dobsons in the year 2000?
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In the Year 2000, You'd Hose Down the House and Melt the Dinner Plates
In 1950, Popular Mechanics magazine visited the world of the future, which turned out to be an imaginary suburb called Tottenville, home of a pretend family named the Dobsons. So what was life like for the Dobsons in the year 2000?
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