What The 2000s Would Look Like, According To Artists From A Century Ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
A series of paintings by Jean-Marc Côté and other French artists depict how people of the 1900s thought life would look like in the year 2000.
The first batch of paintings were enclosed in cigarette and cigar boxes during the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. These were later turned into postcards, as per the Public Domain Review.
As you’d expect, there were tons of grandiose ideas about what the millennium might hold, including lots of flying machines, industrial progress, and some frankly strange underwater adventures.
According to The Washington Post, some of the paintings were pretty accurate, so let’s start with what came true.
Machines that Came True
Among the ideas that have actually surfaced in real life are the robot vacuum, mechanical farming equipment, baking machinery, and industrial garment production.
While the images don’t match exactly how these things look now, it’s incredible that these ideas—which were crazy in the 1900s—have become ubiquitous in most of our households.
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Lots, and Lots of Flying
It seemed the people of the past were quite enamored with flying objects and the idea of flying. From flying trains to a flying boat, they imagined most vehicles would be in the air.
Jobs, too, were given wings, literally. They envisioned firemen with wings to scale buildings, and postmen who could deliver right to windows on a flying vehicle.
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Strange Underwater Adventures
Here comes some of the stranger things people in the past thought would take place by 2000, and a lot of the ideas have to do with going underwater. While the oceans still remain largely unexplored, people in the 1900s had thought we’d get much further.
From scuba divers riding on seahorses, to underwater races on giant fish, these ideas sure are fun to imagine. Not to mention, they’d thought we’d be able to go on a deep-sea excursion on a submarine powered by a whale!
Underwater museums are a thing now, so they’re not completely off.
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
While many of the most useful guesses have come true, maybe we should start looking into developing some of the more outrageous ideas. A trip aboard the whale submarine, anyone?
[via The Washington Post, images via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]
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