Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future

Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future (1984)
By Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan

Synopsis: This book examines past American visions of the future in order to show how those visions shed light on the values of their times; sees future visions as cultural artifacts. This is a coffee-table type book that sprang from a Smithsonian exhibit, and includes chapters on 1) Finding the Future (beginning with late 19th century - explores science fiction and utopian fiction, pulp magazines, futurism as linked to commodities, the rise of sci-fi tv and film); 2) The Community of Tomorrow (Progressive vision, "white city," City Beautiful, Garden City, 1939 World's Fair, FLW, Greenbelt Cities, Buckminster Fuller[city of the future as requiring blank slate]); 3) The Home of Tomorrow (rise of apartment homes yet obsession with futuristic single family homes, the rising appeal of mass-produced housing, streamlined style, high-tech kitchens); 4) Transportation of Tomorrow (rise of transportation innovation from 1880-1905, cars and planes, hopes and fears of nuclear power); 5) Weapons and Warfare of Tomorrow (WWI = weapons and electricity, 1920-30s = airplanes and war, WWII = massively destructive potential of weaponry). Authors argue that the future in the U.S. has increasingly moved from communitarian/spiritual utopias of the early days, to a "secular city of the capitalist future" in which most of the emphasis fell on the look of the future rather than the social plan. Argues also that American have long held a strong belief in "technological utopianism" - that "material means can ameliorate social problems and even perfect society" (xii). "The belief that machines, not politics, produce beneficial social change diverts people from initiating reforms that would truly distinguish the future from the present or the past" (xiii).

Interesting Specifics:

Utopian fiction was hugely popular in U.S. from 1880-90s.

We generally look at the future in terms of commodities (11).

1929 = Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House.

1938 = Orson Wells' War of the Worlds radio show.

1952 = First Hydrogen Bomb

1957 = First nuclear power plant in the U.S.; Shippingport, PA.

Interacts With:

Maybe other books about World's Fairs or different vision of the future.
David Wojcik
Rem Koolhaas (for the different proposals for future cities).