1931

Writing from an imagined 1931, an observer records changes in government, public life and everyday technology. Henry Hartshorne presents his forecast as a diary, with entries that treat an enlarged United States and a republican Britain as recent history. Congress meets in St. Louis, Mexico is considered for statehood, and the diarist notes changes in who holds public office. Political institutions receive as much attention as machinery.

The inventions reach into domestic life: heat supplied through street mains, warmed floors and walls, and seawater carried from Atlantic City for Philadelphia baths. News appears in illuminated letters on a public tower, while a worldwide weather service distributes forecasts. Printed in 1881, this short work lets readers examine how one nineteenth-century writer pictured the coming century. Its mix of political predictions and household improvements shows what the diarist regards as progress, from public administration to the comforts of city life.