Boston Globe 1900 looks forward to the year 2000.

1900 65438+On February 24th, The Boston Globe published an article to imagine what Boston was like in 2000. The author of this article is Thomas F. Anderson, and the title is Boston at the end of the 20th century. Anderson imagined a city with moving sidewalks, pneumatic pipes to transport food to newspapers, and airships soaring over the city. On the whole, Anderson's prediction is quite optimistic. He predicted that Boston at the turn of 2 1 century would be so beautiful that the word "slum" would not even appear in the local dictionary.

And all the incredible futuristic predictions in the article, it is interesting that the strangest idea in the whole article is that Boston will have both morning and evening newspapers in the future. Of course, this kind of future newspaper is transmitted through a strange pneumatic pipeline, but it is difficult to find a young man in 2000 who even knows that such a thing as newspaper evening paper once existed. From radio to television to the Internet, the rapid and revolutionary changes in American news consumption patterns in the 20th century are fascinating.

This article, like most previous predictions, gives us some wonderful insights into the hopes and fears of Bostonians at the turn of the 20th century. Some key points of this article are as follows:

Boston in 2000

In the golden age of Boston, when the population of the United States will be between 35 million and 50 million, when the tides in the harbor will provide heat, light and electricity, when everyone will have his own car, when people learn how to live longer and suffer less from diseases, when sewage and garbage pollution no longer exist, when the new Franklin Institute will engage in its beneficial cause for a long time, and when the Boston World Expo will become a beautiful memory of the past, this is imagination.

The three most important issues related to the future development of cities are those related to population growth, the development of American commodity exchanges and the improvement of transportation facilities.

Boston Globe (1900 65438+February 24th)

traffic

There is no mention of big excavation in the article, but Anderson envisions a world in which everyone in Boston has a car. Airships sail over the city, and moving sidewalks make walking much easier.

If we say that we will walk on the steps of Santa Claus in Boston in a century, it may be easy to ignore the traffic problem, but even airships can't solve the traffic problem in a city like Boston, no matter how practical they are that day.

Anderson talked with Dana J.Flanders, the general passenger transport agent of Boston and Maine Railway, and quoted a lot about the future railway from him:

"As far as Boston is concerned, the traffic conditions will definitely change a lot. First of all, it is conceivable that after 100 years, all the railways in New England may be under the management of one person, perhaps controlled by * * *, although I don't believe this will be a good thing.

"We may have a great pier. All the railways entering the city and the so-called railway "suburbs" currently extend about 12 miles outside the city, and then may extend for 25 or 30 miles, or even more.

Baseball can be played at night,

There seems to be no reason to believe that future Bostonians will be less interested in sports and entertainment than their predecessors in the19th century. Indeed, with gre, if he can enjoy more leisure time that day, his interest in these things should increase.

Most of today's baseball geeks believe that the national ball will continue to maintain its prestige throughout the century, and it is likely to be played during the day and at night, because its inspiring future method is quite certain and can actually drive darkness out of our city.

Other forms of outdoor sports will undoubtedly be invented, but the "root" of baseball will never lose its feelings for the people.

Cars and moving sidewalks in Boston 2000

Human population

1900 Boston has a population of only 560892. Although Anderson's article predicts that the population of Boston will exceed 5 million by 2000, the actual population of Boston in 2000 is 3.4 million 589 14 1. They predict that there will be 8 million people in Boston (Boston and its surrounding suburbs) by the year 2000, but in the 2000 census, the population in this area was only 4.4 million. First of all,

At dawn in 2000, there will be no more idle land in Boston, only reserved for public parks and playgrounds. In the meantime, the only "open spaces" will be those where old buildings are demolished to make room for new buildings.

education

Anderson and Edwin P. Seaver, the headmaster of Boston School, talked about the future of education in Boston:

In short, there is every reason to believe that the principle of universal education, rather than the so-called art education, will be more and more widely used; Besides, it should not only discover talents, but also cultivate talents from our people, but also talents.

There are encouraging signs that the public has realized the urgent need to save our school from the current unfortunate environment. I can't think that the future is destined to bring better things to our school management. With the continuous improvement of the knowledge level of the whole society in China,

"Kashima will be an open door"

emigrant

During the potato famine in Ireland in the 1940s, more than 1 10,000 Irish immigrants came here through Kashima. 1900, Kashima in Boston Harbor was used to deal with immigrants, and Anderson's article predicted that by 2000, a large receiving station would be built there.

This unfinished East Boston waterfront pier that people have been talking about for a long time will be used for a long time, and other docks will be extended beyond Kashima, which may establish a great receiving station for immigrants and commodities.

public building

On that day, men or women overlooking Boston from the National Dome will see many excellent public buildings that don't exist now, including a new city hall and public library, and many attractive school buildings. In these school buildings, scholars will neither be blind because of lack of light nor get sick because of poor drainage.

radiophone

This article is somewhat similar to an article published by John Herfray Watkins Jr last February,No. 1900 of Women's Family Magazine. Through the efforts of Lee De Forest and Guillermo Marconi, wireless telegraphy showed the almost inevitable hope of wireless telephone communication in the early 20th century.

The telephone will become a relic of the past, and citizens can communicate with any city or town on land by wireless telegraph.

"Every house in Boston has its own electrical switch."

"pneumatic pipeline"

Although 20 1 1 most Americans only interacted with pneumatic tubes in 2000? "China merchants bank

When answering this question, Mr. A.P.Weeks said: "There is no doubt that the operation mode of the banking industry will undergo great changes in this century, but the basic principle of using credit instead of real money in business affairs will remain unchanged.

Of course, all this is speculation, but it is conceivable that the current merger trend in Boston may continue. Until a few years later, there will be only one big bank in Boston with branches all over the community. Compared with new york,

It may lose a little position as a financial center instead of gaining prestige, but in this respect, Boston will always be a very important city, judging from its commercial and industrial status.

weather

Most cities in the United States like to declare, "We have an old saying in it, if you don't like the weather, just wait 10 minutes ..." This article ends with a light-hearted weather joke, which seems a bit funny to local weather forecast officials and the difficulties in forecasting the weather.

There is one thing that the world has to "ignore" in the research of the 20th century, and that is the theme of Boston weather in the progressive period.

Sir Smith, our kind and educated local forecaster, is the source of information about the weather in the past 25 years and the "probability" in the next 24 hours. He must raise his hand to vote on the possible climate conditions in Boston in 2000.

He did make a serious decision to help the earth solve this important problem, but after spending a whole week immersed in a lot of theories and barometric calculations, celestial charts, hydrological reports and humorous weather stories on the back of Boston newspapers, Segert Smith had to give up this job and rest for two days.

He tends to think, however, there may still be a day in Boston in 2000, during which rain, sunshine, snow, heat wave, cold wave, lightning, hail, fog, east wind, west wind and south wind will all play their unique roles in the 24-hour weather drama. In this respect, at least Boston will be the old Boston.