Ahead Of Its Time: Yesterdays Tomorrow Today Pt. 2

The last thread I made (part one) did unfortunately not garner much attention, to my dismay, as I made quite a bit of effort putting it together. But I realise it was my own fault, as I didn’t really incite much interest or room for discussion about what I presented. Hopefully, this time around, what’s presented will encourage and stimulate some debate/discussions.

The post will encompass things ranging from the extremely crazy, to some of the most prescient reading I’ve come across (except the article about Bacon’s book, The New Atlantis, which was featured in pt. 1). It’s based on articles from modern mechanics from the 30’s through the 60’s. I think you’ll be amazed, and I hope you will be. As last time, I encourage you to take a look at the source provided, as there are a lot of interesting material for future threads, and it can’t all be covered in this one.

I figured we’d start with the extremely crazy today.

The showcase baby (March, 1947)

LITTLE John Gray Jr., three months old when these pictures were taken, has seldom been outside of this glass house in which he lives. His showcase home is temperature and humidity controlled, dirt-free and has a built-in air filter. It is partially sound-proof-he can bellow without straining the family nerves. He doesn’t catch cold, visitors can’t pass their germs through the glass and the house’s temperature never varies from 84 degrees.

Source

An interesting invention? Yes. Crazy...? Maybe not, back in ’95 a researcher from SDSU tracked down 50 people that had been raised in one of these ’aircribs’, and surprisingly, there was nothing but positive results. As you can read here. But it certainly seems like taking shortcuts that may lead to a dead end, at least in respects of parenting.

Safety belt moors baby in the bathtub (Oct, 1939)

It’s dangerous to leave a small baby unattended in the bathtub, and yet, when the telephone rings or the doorbell must be answered, it is sometimes inconvenient not to be able to do so. Carl H. Fischer, a Council Bluffs, Iowa, engineer and father of three youngsters, solved this problem with the ingenious device pictured at the left. The baby is strapped in a harness that is attached to a metal bar. When the bar is turned, rubber pads threaded to the ends press tightly against the sides of the tub and hold the safety bar firmly in place.

Source

No safety concerns here, it’s probably more important to answer the door or the telephone and leave you helpless chils unattended? Sometimes it’s comforting to know that some inventions doesn’t break through. It’s also disturbing they use the words ”ingenious device” when labelling this invention. What if you didn’t remember to turn off the faucet?

THE COMPUTER DATA BANK: WILL IT KILL YOUR FREEDOM? (Jun, 1968)

Did your sister have an illegitimate baby when she was 15? Did you fail math in junior high? Are you divorced or living in a common-law relationship? Do you pay your bills promptly? Are you willing to talk to salesmen? Have you been treated for a venereal disease? Are you visiting a psychiatrist? Were you ever arrested? Have you taken an airplane trip in the past 90 days; with whom: and in which hotels did you stay?
The answers to these intimate questions and hundreds more like them have always been available to a persistent investigator with enough time and money to sift the paper trail we leave behind in file cabinets around the country. But now, for the first time, in this age of computers, it is becoming possible for any snooper to get such information quickly and cheaply, without leaving his office chair.

Source

This article is amazingly prescient, and it talks of much of what we’re worrying about today. Take facebook for example, isn’t it likely that information about the users are sold to the highest bidder? And it’s a bit ambiguous about who’s privvy to the information about the users who inhabits the social networking site. This is one of the more interesting articles that raises questions and worries that we’re still struggling with today. Read it, I think you’ll find it familiar, and yourself quite intrigued.

Hoodlike Gas Mask Protects Babies (Aug, 1939)

Three years of research have solved the grim problem of fitting babies with gas masks, according to the British designer of the model illustrated in use below. Rubberized gasproof fabric completely incloses an infant from the waist up in a capacious hood with a large cellulose acetate window. A hand bellows operated by the parent supplies pure filtered air for the baby to breathe.

Source

A scary remembrance of a time where this invention was made for situations that were tragically real. I don’t have much to say about it really, it’s sad it even had to be invented.

Machinery to Eliminate Humans (Dec, 1930)

The last word in the elimination of the human factor in the manufacture of machinery is represented in the erection of the new A. C. Smith research engineering plant in Milwaukee which will house the laboratories of a staff of highly trained research engineers whose efforts will be directed along the lines of creating a 100% automatic frame plant, that is, a machine-perfect factory.

Source

Considering the title; ’ Machinery to Eliminate Humans’ and the word ”erection” used in the article, I found this to be amusingly ironic, and a worthy addition. I couldn’t find much on this article itself by a quick google search, but perhaps it’s the latter day version of cyberdyne.

MACHINE MEASURES BEAUTY OF FACE (Feb, 1933)

Even beauty may now be reduced to cold, hard figures, according to the inventors of a device that is said to record the contours of a face with thousandth-of-an-inch accuracy. Beauty shops might use the device, the inventors say, to learn how to change their customers’ features. In the inventors’ opinion, the following measurements are ideal: nose, same length as the height of forehead; eyes, separated by a space the width of one eye.

Source

Who wouldn’t be suspicious of this device, even in the 30’s? You might end up looking like pinhead.. for the ones that takes the reference.

There's alot more to bring up, if no one else decide to take the torch, I will try to continue these additions if there's any interest. However pretentious that may sound. Anyway, I hope you found this to be interesting, and your comments will always be appreciated with a star.

Love this stuff. Thanks Droogie. I'ma dig around the source and read up on the babies that were raised in the artificial environment.

And. yeah, they nailed it on the data mining thing. Unfortunately yuk-yuk.

Originally posted by The GUT
Love this stuff. Thanks Droogie.

Thanks for the reply!

I'ma dig around the source and read up on the babies that were raised in the artificial environment.

Please do, hopefully the link I provided will help. If you find anything interesting, I would love to hear it!

And. yeah, they nailed it on the data mining thing. Unfortunately yuk-yuk.

It's eerily similar to what's talked about today. It's somewhat strange that the same concerns we raised decades ago are still asked today. Didn't we learn from history, or didn't history learn from us?

reply to post by Droogie

Droogie, this is a great thread, and better than a lot of stuff that gets posted in this forum! S&F! I also missed part 1 somehow, thanks for providing the link to that so I can go back and check that one out too!

Regarding the baby "incubator", one concern I'd have is the adverse effects of lack of human touch, holding, cuddling, and so on. But it looks like it could reduce exposure to germs as claimed, however I'm not sure that's entirely healthy either...we NEED to be exposed to some germs to build up our immune system, or so I thought.

The computer databank story was a look into the future, and even though the future is now here, I think some folks still haven't realized the importance of this.

The machinery to eliminate humans resonates with me as I've worked in some completely automated factories, where the only human jobs left were loading and unloading the trucks that transported the factory input/output, and a few people to maintain and repair the machinery. Once upon a time such a factory would have had people working there.

Regarding the beauty measuring device, I suspect it was probably hard to envision at that time that we'd have computerized 3-D tech to show plastic surgery clients their before and after pictures of what they could expect to look like after the surgery was done, just from a computer model that had their face scanned in, so that one wasn't quite as prescient as some of the others, but they are all interesting...thanks for sharing!

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I'm glad you're one of the people commenting as I've noticed you being a high quality contributor for several years!

Regarding the baby "incubator", one concern I'd have is the adverse effects of lack of human touch, holding, cuddling, and so on. But it looks like it could reduce exposure to germs as claimed, however I'm not sure that's entirely healthy either...we NEED to be exposed to some germs to build up our immune system, or so I thought.

That was what gave an impact when I first read it too. It kind of dehumanizes the whole aspect of being parents, a mother should be around its child and hold it in her arms, as well as the father. And as you mention, the child needs exposure to germs in order to build up its immune system. I don't know, but this may have become a sort of hysteria among parents in modern times. Who knows, this "innovation" may find new merit in todays society.

The computer databank story was a look into the future, and even though the future is now here, I think some folks still haven't realized the importance of this.

This article hit home with me, because it's so relevant today. Most people on social networking sites, or on the internet in general, are still ignoring the personal privacy aspects, or even the safety concerns involved with the current technology we have in our daily lives. It's interesting to ponder that the questions raised in the 60's are still talked about today.

The machinery to eliminate humans resonates with me as I've worked in some completely automated factories, where the only human jobs left were loading and unloading the trucks that transported the factory input/output, and a few people to maintain and repair the machinery. Once upon a time such a factory would have had people working there.

I've been there too. Now, my former workplace is almost entirely automated. And all of the workforce has been replaced with much cheaper foreign workers, in the places where humans are still needed. They work with fewer and worse rights than I did, though, and with worse pay.

Thanks for showing interest, and not to mention responding to what's presented. Your input is valued!

reply to post by Droogie


Great post, Droogie. In fact, I find myself often looking through the old magazines and newspaper digital archives for stuff like this.

Keep posting...and thanks for the hard work this takes! I will check out your original post. S&F to you.

great post
go to any news of the day say all the way to 1800 and its doom and gloom
end of the world as we know it simply amazing
we learn very slowly as a being to all our detriment

Keep up the good work! this stuff is fascinating.

reply to post by phantomjack


Thanks! You do? That's great! It's a good thing to spend some time on. It's a neat way of getting a picture of how the 'modern' world was back then. Also, it's nice to bring up as a topic of conversation now and again.

It's not really hard work, but it's a hassle putting a thread together, considering the aesthetics and the general flow of the text. I'm glad you appreciate it, nonetheless.