1920s

Astrologers Predict 1929 Will Be Year of Prosperity

1929 is a rather infamous year in American history. It was the year that the first science fiction comic strip was introduced; Babe Ruth became the first major league baseball player to hit 500 home runs; and the first Academy Awards ceremony was held in Hollywood. But you’ll be forgiven if you only remember 1929…

Tech News Matt Novak Apr 5

Telemedicine Was Predicted in 1925

The 1920s was an incredible decade of advancement for communications technology. Radio was finally being realized as a broadcast medium, talkies were transforming the film industry, and inventors were tinkering with the earliest forms of television. People of the 1920s recognized that big changes were ahead, and no one relished in guessing what those changes…

Tech News Matt Novak Mar 14

The World’s First “Carphone”

As I noted last week, the term “wireless telephone” in the early 1920s didn’t necessarily mean a device that could both transmit and receive messages. In fact, most radio devices during this time were simply either a transmitter or a receiver. However, some inventors were having a lot of fun tinkering with what was essentially…

Tech News Matt Novak Jan 25

A Mobile Phone From 1922? Not Quite

I recently came across a short, silent film from 1922 called Eve’s Wireless. Distributed by the British Pathe company, the film supposedly shows two women using a wireless phone. Apparently this video has been making the rounds for the past few years. Could it be an early demonstration of some futuristic technology? I hate to…

Tech News Matt Novak Jan 17

A Whole Town Under One Roof

The January 18, 1925, Zanesville Times Signal (Zanesville, Ohio) ran an article about a proposed 88 story skyscraper in New York. Titled “How We Will Live Tomorrow,” the article imagined how New Yorkers and other city-dwellers might eventually live in skyscrapers of the future. The article talks about the amazing height of the proposed structure,…

Tech News Matt Novak Nov 18

First Phone Was Used By Women Way Back in 1922

And you know what? They spent the whole conversation talking about Gossip Girl. Well, they would’ve done—had the super-rare, never-seen-before footage not been filmed in 1922. British Pathé dug up the footage, and is on the look-out for anyone who might have some information about who the women are (or were), or those who might…

Tech News Kat Hannaford May 26

10 Scariest Eco-Catastrophes from Early Science Fiction

These days, SF thrillers in which natural disasters end human life as we know it are mainstream fare. But long before M. Night Shyamalan and J.G. Ballard flirted with disaster, the authors of SF’s Pre-Golden Age (1904-33) speculated wildly, and sometimes presciently, about the possible causes of dire biospheric transformations. During science fiction’s Golden Age…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn May 26

The Mad Mentalists of Pre-Golden-Age SF

Paving the way for Vulcans, Slan, Espers, Professor X and Babylon 5’s Lyta Alexander, SF writers of the Pre-Golden Age (1904-33) dared to imagine how normal people might react if telepaths were discovered among us. In the late 19th century, scholars and scientists in Europe and America turned their collective attention not only to the…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn Apr 15

The Super-est Supermen of Pre-Golden Age SF

Long before Alan Moore asked “Who will watch the Watchmen?” science fiction writers of the Pre-Golden Age (1904-33) worried whether supermen would rescue us ordinary mortals – or try to dominate us. https://gizmodo.com/science-fictions-pre-golden-age-1904-33-an-introduct-5099771 Dreamed up by American and European SF writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – at a time when Lamarckian-Bergsonian…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn Feb 16

The Coolest Robots of Pre-Golden Age SF

During science fiction’s Pre-Golden Age (1904-33), writers dreamed up mechanical and quasi-organic humanoids so compelling that they continue to haunt today’s scifi, forcing us to ask what it means to be human. https://gizmodo.com/science-fictions-pre-golden-age-1904-33-an-introduct-5099771 Forget WALL-E and GORT. Forget sexy Summer Glau and Tricia Helfer in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Battlestar Galactica. OK, don’t…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn Jan 12

The Most Amazing Book Covers from Pre-Golden Age SF

Click to viewSome of the most gorgeous, evocative, and strange science fiction art you’ve ever seen comes from the covers of novels written between 1904-33, in SF’s “pre-Golden Age.” Readers, here is the long-awaited second installment in my Pre-Golden Age SF series. I can’t afford first editions of PGA SF novels, but I’ve managed to…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn Dec 15

The 10 Best Apocalypse Novels of Pre-Golden Age SF (1904-33)

With Wall-E director Andrew Stanton working on a film based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’s 1917 novel A Princess of Mars, you need a crash course in books from this seminal era in science fiction. Hollywood adaptations of Brave New World and When Worlds Collide, based on books released at roughly the same time as Princess…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn Nov 29

Science Fiction’s Pre-Golden Age (1904-33), an Introduction

Earlier this year, I formulated an eccentric but strict periodization scheme, in which the Nineteen-Oughts (not to be confused with the 1900s), for example, run from 1904 through 1913; the Teens (not to be confused with the ’10s) from 1914-23; and the Twenties (not to be confused with the ’20s) from 1924-33. And so forth.…

Books & Comics Joshua Glenn Nov 29

Astrologers Predict 1929 Will Be Year of Prosperity

Telemedicine Was Predicted in 1925

The World’s First “Carphone”

A Mobile Phone From 1922? Not Quite

A Whole Town Under One Roof

First Phone Was Used By Women Way Back in 1922

10 Scariest Eco-Catastrophes from Early Science Fiction

The Mad Mentalists of Pre-Golden-Age SF

The Super-est Supermen of Pre-Golden Age SF

The Coolest Robots of Pre-Golden Age SF

The Most Amazing Book Covers from Pre-Golden Age SF

The 10 Best Apocalypse Novels of Pre-Golden Age SF (1904-33)

Science Fiction’s Pre-Golden Age (1904-33), an Introduction

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