What People In 1899 Thought The Year 2000 Would Look Like



If you asked me back in the year 2000, what 2012 was going to be like, I’m not sure I could have given you a good answer. So you could imagine how wrong people back in 1899 were about the year 2000. They thought there were going to be flying firemen!

It’s funny to see people’s vision of the future mostly because it’s ridiculous but also because it’s constrained by the reality of their present. People in 1899 didn’t know that touch screens and tablets would be a thing, the just imagined more complicated and automated versions of what they already had. They weren’t completely wrong though, they knew we would figure out a way to find an electric floor scrubber and invent awesome bathtubs.

The pictures were made by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. The first series of these pictures were produced for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. [Public Domain Review via Explore]