While steampunkers imagine that Edwardian technology could achieve improbable feats, Edwardians themselves often did the same. These turn of the century postcards depict a glorious future where phenomenal technologies are powered by electricity and steam.
“In Jahre 2000,” a series of postcards curiously released by Hildebrands, a German chocolate company, around 1900, posit a wide range of technological and cultural changes, from moving sidewalks and televised broadcasts to personal flying devices and weather control machines. What’s perhaps most fascinating is that the artist who created these images conceived of advanced technologies but not changing aesthetics. The fashions of 2000 are utterly the same as those from 1900 and machines like the weather control machine and the combination boat and train look like mutant versions of the series’ contemporary technology. But perhaps it was Hildebrands’ intention to let their clients imagine themselves in such a marvelous and far-flung future.
[Paleo-Future via Morlet’s Blog]
Personal Flying Machines
Locomotive/Train Hybrid
Moving Pavement
Underwater Tourist Boats
Summer Holidays to the North Pole
Personal Airships
Weather Control Machine
Televised Broadcasts
Moving Buildings by Train
A Stroll on the Water
Roofed Cities
Police Surveillance X-Ray Device
