
Yesterday's Tomorrows
Past Visions of the American Future
Johns Hopkins University Press
Published on 10. July 1996
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-0-8018-5399-9 (ISBN)
Description
Enormous skyscrapers will house residents and workers who happily go "for weeks" without setting foot on the ground. Streamlined, "hurricane-proof" houses will pivot on their foundations like weather vanes. The family car will turn into an airplane so easily that "a woman can do it in five minutes." Our wars will be fought by robots. And our living room furniture-waterproof, of course-will clean up with a squirt from the garden hose. In Yesterday's Tomorrows Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan explore the future as Americans earlier in the last century expected it to happen. Filled with vivid color images and lively text, the book is eloquent testimony to the confidence-and, at times, the naive faith-Americans have had in science and technology. The future that emerges here, the authors conclude, is one in which technology changes, but society and politics usually do not. The authors draw on a wide variety of sources-popular-science magazines, science fiction, world fair exhibits, films, advertisements, and plans for things only dreamed of.
From Jules Verne to the Jetsons, from a 500-passenger flying wing to an anti-aircraft flying buzz-saw, the vision of the future as seen through the eyes of the past demonstrates the play of the American imagination on the canvas of the future.
From Jules Verne to the Jetsons, from a 500-passenger flying wing to an anti-aircraft flying buzz-saw, the vision of the future as seen through the eyes of the past demonstrates the play of the American imagination on the canvas of the future.
Reviews / Votes
Whether it involves gleaming mega-cities, scudding unflawed skies or the inane advertising smile of a man who just loves his personal flying machine, watching Americans look forward is to look back. It is to look at ourselves in our most brilliant and boneheaded moments. Which is great fun. Here, moreover, the fun is enhanced by a cheerful... text and-the real glory-a wonderful abundance of visual material drawn from a Smithsonian traveling exhibit. Boston Globe Many books might be commended as entertaining, instructive, or even fascinating. Yesterday's Tomorrows deserves each of these adjectives... The reader is taken through a gallery populated with forgotten industrial prototypes, architectural models, toy ray guns, flying cavalrymen on 'helihorses,' science fiction props from Hollywood and, or course, all sorts of projects and renderings concerning transportation. Road and TrackMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Baltimore, MD
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
166 farbige Abbildungen
166 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 252 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
476 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8018-5399-9 (9780801853999)
DOI
10.56021/9780801853999
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Joseph J. Corn is senior lecturer in the department of history at Stanford University. He is the author of The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation, 1900-1950. Brian Horrigan is a curator with the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. Originally published in 1984 to accompany an exhibition by the same name organized and circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
Author
Senior LecturerStanford University
Minnesota Historical Society
Content
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1. Finding the Future
Chapter 2. The Community of Tomorrow
Chapter 3. The Home of Tomorrow
Chapter 4. The Transportation of Tomorrow
Chapter 5. The Weapons and Warfare of Tomorrow
Epilogue
Catalogue List
Suggested Reading
Index
Preface
Chapter 1. Finding the Future
Chapter 2. The Community of Tomorrow
Chapter 3. The Home of Tomorrow
Chapter 4. The Transportation of Tomorrow
Chapter 5. The Weapons and Warfare of Tomorrow
Epilogue
Catalogue List
Suggested Reading
Index