Visions of tomorrow: How a 1900 prediction astonished us today

In December 1900, an article by J.E. Watkins appeared in the magazine "Ladies Home Journal", describing how he thought the world might look in the next 100 years. Watkins gathered opinions from the most learned people in America to create forecasts that he believed had a high chance of being realized. Interestingly, many of these visions have become a reality, which speaks to this American engineer's incredible imagination and insight.

John Elfreth Watkins, an American engineer, published an article titled "What May Happen in the Next 100 Years" in the December 1900 edition of "Ladies Home Journal". In his publication, he presented a series of visions of the future, which, although they sounded like science fiction at the time, turned out to be surprisingly accurate in large part.

Watkins emphasized that he consulted with the best scientists and visionaries of his time to present the most probable scenarios for the development of technology and society. It is worth noting that many of his predictions have come true, making this article an exceptionally interesting example of visionary thinking from over 100 years ago.

John Elfreth Watkins demonstrated incredible precision in many of his predictions. One of his most important visions was the forecast regarding digital photography. Watkins wrote that photos would be able to be transmitted telegraphically over great distances, and photographs from events on the other side of the world would be published almost immediately after being taken.

Photos will be transmitted telegraphically from any distance. If in 100 years a battle takes place in China, snapshots of the most striking events will be published in the newspaper an hour later. Even today, photos are transmitted over short distances. Photographs will capture all the colours of nature – wrote Watkins.

Today, photos are not only transmitted instantly but also reflect all the colours of nature, which the engineer predicted at the beginning of the 20th century when colour photography was still in its infancy.

Watkins also accurately predicted the development of wireless telephony. He described how, in the future, it would be possible to make a call from the USA to China without any obstacles, which was unimaginable at that time. The vision of mobile phones has become a reality, and the global telecommunications network indeed covers the entire world today.

The engineer also predicted the development of the takeout food market. He described a system where ready-made meals would be available in special establishments similar to today's bakeries. Although he was wrong about the method of delivering meals (he predicted they would be served on returnable plates), his vision of the growth of gastronomy has certainly come to fruition.