From eerily prescient to wildly incorrect, 100-year-old predictions about 2024

Well, we’re finally here. Is this the future that you envisioned?

Nearly 100 years ago, a group of visionaries dared to imagine what life would be like in 2024. Some of their prophecies fell woefully short while others proved to be strangely accurate. 

Join us now as we gaze into that crystal ball from 1924.

A new era of peace

Thank you, Hollywood, for ending all war.

Movie mogul D.W. Griffith, the director of “Birth of a Nation,” believed that motion pictures would help usher in a new era of peace.

“In the year 2024, the most important single thing which the cinema will have helped in a large way to accomplish will be that of eliminating from the face of the civilized world all armed conflict,” Griffith predicted. “Pictures will be the most powerful factor in bringing about this condition. With the use of the universal language of motion pictures, the true meaning of the brotherhood of man will have been established throughout the earth.”

Through the magic of movies, British citizens would learn that Japanese people were kindred souls, and French nationals would discover that Americans shared their values and ideals.

“It is not to be presumed that I believe one hundred years from now the pictures will have had time to educate the masses away from discord and unharmony,” he wrote. “What I do mean to say is, by that time, war, if there is such a thing, will be waged on a strictly scientific basis, with the element of physical destruction done away with entirely.”

The horror of conflict

At the other extreme, Professor Leo H. Baekeland, president of the American Chemical Society, worried that futuristic weaponry could obliterate humanity in the blink of an eye.

“The largest and best protected cities, irrespective of their size or distance, will be continuously exposed to destruction and mutilation,” he said. “Death and torture of the inhabitants will occur whether they are slumbering in their beds at night or whether they are reading their newspapers in their comfortable clubs, or saying their prayers in church. There will be no way of safeguarding women or children, the old or the infirm.”

A growing problem

Arthur Dean, whose parental advice column appeared in newspapers across the country, expressed concerns about American dietary habits.

“I sometimes wonder what our stomachs will look like and be like 100 years from now,” he wrote. “Will we have any teeth at all? Will there be any color on our face except paint? Will the men have any height to speak of or will they be all girth? Will people have mostly an east and west appearance — all latitude and lassitude and no longitude?”

All that jazz

While some U.S. religious leaders blamed jazz for promoting immorality among youths, Russian classical violinist Paul Kochanski defended the syncopated music.

“Jazz music is a powerful force for development of music in America, and in a hundred years will be accepted as classical,” he said. “I cannot imagine how anyone can say that your American jazz music is a destructive force. I consider such a statement as being wholly ridiculous.”

Urban renewal ahead

Swedish architect Ben Bjorkson predicted that U.S. metropolises would demolish giant swaths of cities “to alter the architectural plans of towns originally built by men to whom the automobile was only a fantastic dream.”

“In the city of a hundred years from now, I see three-deck roads, speedways through the heart of town, skyscrapers with entrances for automobiles as high as 15 stories, monorail expresses to the suburbs replacing streetcars and motor-omnibuses, ever-moving sidewalks and underground freight carriers which will go in all directions, serving all railway stations and business districts, and which will replace to a large extent the heavy trucks and wagons of today,” Bjorkson noted.

A horse isn’t a horse

Professor E.L. Furlong, curator of the vertebrate collection at the University of Southern California, worried that horses — yes, horses — might be on the brink of extinction by 2024.

“Daily the tractor and the automobile are taking the place of the horse in rural life,” he told an interviewer. “As the usefulness of the horse passes, so will the necessity for his existence.

“Before many years, the use of a horse for the purposes with which he has been identified since time immemorial will be a curiosity. In another hundred years, you may find horses in zoos. I am sure you will not find them anywhere else.”

Women take charge

Perhaps he was being facetious, but Frank L. Ferraro mapped out a clear vision of the future in a 1924 letter to the New York Daily News.

“Has anyone ever stopped to think how this country will be a hundred years from now? Just imagine: We will have a woman president, woman politicians and police,” Ferraro wrote. “As women will occupy all the highest positions, naturally men will be compelled to do all the labor; those who are not physically fit for such arduous jobs will have to stay home and wait on the babies (or mind the pets).

“Then we will have an army entirely of women, so that in case of war, women will do all the fighting (Believe me, they can fight, too).”

The girl of tomorrow

R.B. von KleinSmid, president of the University of Southern California, imagined “the girl of tomorrow” would be a goddess who likes to dance.

“She will be physically strong, vital and alert, loving the out-of-doors and rejoicing in its lure; active in sports, engaging by choice in those to which a bit of risk adds the spice of danger. She will be beautiful, enhancing the qualities of inheritance through habits of temperance,” he said.

“Dancing will continue in its rush toward the exotic, and Terpsichore will be wild and full of animation. Mentally, she will be no sluggard — quick at wit and keen of judgment. Spiritually, she will radiate love and goodwill. In trust of her fellow men and with faith in God, it will be easy for her to be kind and a joy for her to serve. Of creation, she will be the crowning glory — a benediction on earth and a hymn of praise to heaven.”

Too much extravagance

U.S. Sen. William E. Borah, a Republican from Idaho, blamed “extravagance in government” for oppressive taxes on Americans.

“Unless the people see the need of simplifying government, we shall be unable to meet the problem and in 100 years from now we shall be in no better condition than the nations that have perished in the past,” he said.

A young man of 75

Sir Kingsley Wood, a British politician speaking at a 1924 dinner in London, told his audience that “there was no doubt that by 2024 the average expectation of life would be at least 100 years old, and a person at 75 would be a comparatively young man.”

He expected the rapid advance of science would ensure that the future grandchildren of those at the dinner would live many years longer than those present. He declined to speculate whether that future generation would be happier than the previous ones.

Working from home

Archibald M. Low, a British scientist, imagined something that sounded eerily like the internet in his 1924 book “Wireless Possibilities.”

“Doubtless in the future we shall be able to sign our checks by the rapid transmission of motion; we shall be able to trace criminals, send out their fingerprints, and carry on very many classes of business which, at present, require our bodily attention,” Low wrote.

“What a help to the man who objects to a large city! Why could he not conduct his business from his house in comfort instead of having his spats washed every week in order to maintain his financial reputation.”

The daily commute

New York City real estate mogul Joseph P. Day expected the daily commute to work would be a lot different in 2024.

“The dirigible and the airplane promise to be the most important factors in the transformation of the suburbs, and in bringing the outlying sections of the city as close to the heart of things as the nearby boroughs are today,” he told a radio audience.

“The airplane is in its infancy, but its development as a commercial proposition will move rapidly from now on. When this method of transportation is perfected and the sky is black with aerial flivvers, it will be the everyday occurrence for the businessman to fly from home to office and back home again.”

A flight of fancy

Lt. Russell Maughan’s dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight of 1924 was a national triumph.

“What can there be left to conquer by 2024?” the Burlington Free Press wondered. “Will some daring American 100 years hence, traveling in a machine we would think impossible, race the daylight hours around this globe and win? Who shall say?”

Maughan’s flight would have seemed impossible a century earlier to pioneers in covered wagons.

“Perhaps by 2024 we shall be in direct communication with other worlds making arrangements through signals to conduct an expedition thither. But we dare not predict that in seriousness.”

Muff-toting men

The Fresno Bee of California predicted “The Styles of Year 2024” in a satirical piece published nearly a century ago. Some excerpts:

• “The bootlegging influence is shown in great fullness about the hips to the garments of both sexes. A new and very popular touch also is the combination pocket which provides spaces for flask, bottle of synthetic fruit juice, cocktail shaker and two glasses.”
• “Since the anti-cigarette legislation spread from Utah and Indiana over the whole country, many shops have been showing garments with police-proof pockets.”
• “Jeweled garters and bracelet watches decorated with bangles, or with small vanity case attached, remain in vogue. Men are also to be seen on Fifth Avenue carrying muffs of swansdown trimmed with peacock feathers and bird of paradise plumes.”

A need for birth limits

Dr. Leland Ossian Howard, leader of the bureau of entomology in Washington, D.C., warned that the world of 2024 would be overpopulated and hungry unless drastic action was taken.

“At the present rate, the world will be decidedly overpopulated 100 years from today,” he explained. “Something will have to be done to care for this population. Births will have to be limited in some manner for the earth cannot supply food for an excess population.”

Food of the future

Col. William Boyce Thompson, a millionaire copper magnate, established the Institute of Plant Research near Yonkers, New York, “to counteract the food shortage which is predicted for 2024.”

The facility was dedicated to the study of more scientific methods of vegetable production.

“What I have in mind is that in a few hundred years this country will have half a billion population,” Thompson explained. “I want to help it get ready to feed that population.”

Knee-slappers from 1924

• In a sketch titled “The High Cost of Living 100 Years From Now,” theater performer Malcolm Fassett predicted that “milk will be served with a medicine dropper and an egg will be the price of a woman’s love.”
• “A Columbia University professor says the problem of 100 years hence will be keeping warm, but most of us will have solved it by that time.”
• “Will some kind doctor kindly provide us with a prescription that will insure our being on earth by 2024 A.D.? We want to be up and stepping around at that time — just to see what’s going to become of the ladies’ bathing suit styles.”
• "One of the professors says women will dress like men a hundred years from now. Evidently he hasn’t attended a horse show lately.”
• “It is said that a radical of today may be called a reactionary 100 years hence.”
• It is a mistake to say that the people who live a hundred years from now will have nothing to laugh at. They can laugh at us.”
• “You are certain,” asked the elderly lady of the florist, “that this young century plant will bloom in 100 years from now?” “Positive," said the florist. “If it doesn’t — bring it back.”

Mark J. Price can be reached at  [email protected].

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