The Present, as Envisioned by The Past, When The Present Was Still The Future

Since our wedding has a vintage tinge to it, I thought I'd share one of the most fascinating write-ups of what people living in 1900 thought the world would look like in the year 2000. You may have seen it before. The article is called "What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years" and appeared in The Ladies Home Journal in 1900. Since Nick works for Amazon, this one is particularly hilarious:

Prediction #22 Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.

They almost got it right. Trucks still deliver goods to your home, but you make the purchase via the Internet, which some people think of as a series of tubes:



Update: even more apropos, here's an artist's conception of what Seattle would look like in 2014, as drawn in 1914.