Title Yesterday's tomorrows : past visions of the American future / Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan ; edited by Katherine Chambers

Edition Johns Hopkins paperbacks edition Published Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996 Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996

Copies

Location	Call no.	Vol.	Availability
W'PONDS	306.0973 Cor/Ytp		AVAILABLE

Description xvii, 157 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 20 x 26 cm Summary 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 this century expected it to happen. Filled with vivid color images and lively text, the book is an 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 Analysis Popular culture History United States Notes Originally published: New York : Summit Books ; Washington : Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, c1984 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-149) and index Notes Originally published New York : Summit Books, ©1984 Originslly published Washington : Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, ©1984 Fisher Library Rare Books and Special Collections materials are available for use in the Fisher Library Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room. Copying allowed with permission. NU Subject Future, The, in popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century. Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century. Author Chambers, Katherine. Horrigan, Brian. LC no. 95051964 ISBN 0801853990 (paperback: alk paper)

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