Just when you thought it was a new year, a new me etc, historians have dug up predictions about the Ins and Outs of 2023 from 1923 newspapers and while some were fkn wacky, others were pretty spot on. I guess nothing is truly new.
Researcher and historical newspaper expert at the University of Calgary Paul Fairie tweeted photos of predictions from a bunch of 1923 newspapers on Monday. At the dawn of that new year, futurists and columnists in the United States penned predictions for what the world would look like 100 years on.
Did they guess we’d all be addicted to flicking our fingers across glowing bits of glass and sucking down lolly-flavoured air? No, but they did suppose electricity was the Next Big Thing.
Let’s get into these 2023 predictions.
One German-born American mathematician and electrical engineer, Dr Charles Proteus Steinmetz, wrote a few predictions for newspapers worldwide about how the birth of electricity could affect our lives. He was the successor to Thomas A. Edison — whom you’ll all remember invented the lightbulb in 1879 — at the General Electric Company and he had some big (albeit incorrect) ideas about 2023.
Steinmetz predicted that by 2023 the working day would be just four hours long because people wouldn’t have to do any more than that to keep the world running. “Electricity or other forces will do the rest,” the article in The Bundaberg Mail, dated December 22, 1923, read. Sigh, if only.
Steinmetz was reportedly criticised though because apparently Americans wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t slave away all day!
“[People will] turn to jazz and work harder on a ballroom floor than in their offices, in a whirling effort to forget that they have a little idleness to dissipate,” one criticism printed in the same paper read.
“It has already become the classic thing for elderly American businessmen to die as soon as possible after their energetic sons succeed to the business.”
Ah yes, work is the meaning of life and without it, we die immediately.
Moving on: Steinmetz also said every city would be a “spotless town” thanks to electricity.
Again, if only.
In terms of fashion, the article cited predictions that by 2023 women could be shaving their heads — wait what? — and men could have long curls???? Can you imagine?!
“Women will probably be shaving their heads! And the men will be wearing curls,” it read.
Lol ok, one prediction realised.
But it also said black teeth would be in, and yeah, nah.
“The maidens may pronounce it the height of style in personal primping to blacken their teeth. Won’t we be pretty?”
Women will blacken their teeth and shave their heads pic.twitter.com/nyvMFJBXiz
— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) January 1, 2023
Another newspaper clipping from a piece titled Fewer Doctors and Present Diseases Unknown; All People Beautiful, predicted everyone in 2023 would be hot. And yes, that one’s obviously true.
“Beauty contests will be unnecessary as there will be so many beautiful people that it will be almost impossible to select winners,” it said.
CORRECT.
Other articles said by 2023 the average life expectancy would be at least 100 years.
“By 2023, the average life of man could be increased to 100 years. In individual cases, it could be increased to 150, perhaps 200 years,” one read.
Ok so the global life expectancy is 72.75 years and Australia’s is 83.2 years. But the oldest person in the world — Japanese woman Kane Tanaka — died in April at 119.
Perhaps the most accurate prediction Fairie shared was about population growth.
One guessed the US population would grow from 111 million in 1923 to 300 million by 2023. It’s actually currently 330 million.
Another also correctly predicted podcasts.
“[In 2023] we do not begin the day by reading the world’s news, but by listening to it for the newspaper has gone out of business more than half a century before,” it surmised.
Another also basically predicted Apple Watches and said we would all be communicating through watch-sized telephones.
“Watch-size radio telephones will keep everybody in communication with the ends of the earth.”
People will communicate using watch-size radio telephones pic.twitter.com/YZPRBmnyRv
— Paul Fairie (@paulisci) January 1, 2023
But other predictions were pretty out there.
The Minneapolis Journal said “radio” would replace gasoline.
“Glenn Curtiss of the Airplane Authority … predicts that by the year 2023, gasoline as a motive power will have been replaced by radio and that the skies will be filled with myriad craft sailing over well-defined routes.”
I guess the last bit is true, but fossil fuels are still very much IN this year.
And last but not least: kidney cosies!
“Kidney cosies” will be worn to protect the kidneys on chilly days, just the same as a teapot in the north is kept warm by a “tea cosy,” one article read.
……….? Sure.
