MoThoughts
Planning & Forecasting I
July 9th, 2025
Forecasts that became reality
‘What may happen in the Next Hundred Years’ was an article written by John Elfreth Watkins Jr. in the December 1900 Ladies Home Journal. The article contained a descriptive list of predictions varying from technological to agricultural innovations and were given to Mr. Watkins by a cadre of interviewed contemporaries (Novak, 2020, Ladies Home Journal predictions in 1900, 2012).
This discussion will showcase three of the predictions noted in this article using the anticipated ‘predicted-by’ year of 2000. Next a look at the solutions or innovations that made this forecast a reality and finally I will mention the forces that influenced the success of the predictions.
Three of the following predictions in
this referenced article were intriguing to me.
1. “The American will be taller by from one to two
inches. His increase of stature will
result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food
and athletics. He will live fifty years
instead of thirty-five as at present…” (Novak, 2020).
2. “Man will see around the world. Persons and things of
all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with
screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span” (Novak,
2020).
3. “Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If
there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots for its most
striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later…Photographs
will reproduce all of Nature’s colors” (Novak, 2020).
Picture Perfect: The Evolution of the Camera
Tangible solutions to predictions
Looking back from 2025 these three predictions
among several others in this article would have become true by the year 2000.
1. In 1900 the average height of American men was 66.9
inches and women 62.5 inches (Our World in Data, n.d.). In 2000 the average
height of American men- 69 inches and women- 64 inches (Ogden, 2004). Roser et.
al., confirms that nutritional deficiencies and illness in childhood limits
human growth, this links this prediction to the medicine, sanitation and food
factors mentioned in the year 1900 statement. In 2000 the life expectancy was 76.9
years (Arias, 2002) This prediction came true.
2. Beating the year 2000 deadline was the monitoring
camera set up in the Trojan room at University of Cambridge in 1993. Kesby (2012)
recalls how Dr. Stafford-Fraser and Dr. Jardetsky set up a camera to monitor a
coffee pot to ensure that they had a drink when going on research breaks. In November 1993 Dr. Johnson wrote the script
around that code. This action allowed computer enthusiasts from all over the
world to watch a coffee pot go from full to mid-level to empty. This was the
first time man ‘saw pictures’ around the world. This prediction came true.
3. In the 1500s cameras were being used as drawing aids,
throughout the following centuries a
long complicated story involving a major
struggle to find an efficient method to create a chemically stable photograph
and one that held colors ensued. As early as 1907 the photography industry saw
the advent of a near stable camera -The Autochrome camera. This remained the basic design until the
innovations of the1930s, which saw the invention of color films (Tom Patton,
2020). By November 1993 photographs were
able to be broadcast around the world.
This prediction came true.
Contributing forces impacting predictions
This fascinating post held several predictions which we commonly enjoy in 2025 and several that came true by 2000, - the predicted-by date. Primary forces contributing to the three cases above were, Cultural, Technological, Material Innovations, Environmental, Social and Medical Innovations.
The average height of Americans was the result of cultural, social, environmental and medical innovations. Without the social and cultural acceptance of medical innovations and improvements to the medical environment, infancy and prenatal health improvements would not have contributed to the increased height of Americans.
The advent of the Internet and Digital photography brought the ability to allow cameras to ‘see’ and transmit photos globally in near real time and with accuracy. The last two predictions were heavily influenced by technological, material innovations, social and even cultural forces (Larkin, 2022, Jenkins, 2024).
References
Arias, E. (2002, December 19). United States
Life Tables, 2000. CDC. National vital statistics reports. Vol 51, No 3. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr51/nvsr51_03.pdf
Jenkins, P. (2024, April 6). 1930s Camera Evolution: A snapshot of
vintage photography advances. Brilliantio. https://brilliantio.com/1930s-camera/
Kesby, R. (2012, November 22). How the world’s first webcam made a
coffee pot famous. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20439301
Ladies Home Journal predictions in 1900. (2012, January 17). Couriermail. https://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/ladies-home-journal-predictions-in-1900/news-story/c1d49ed5ee4c80457b24b06b050e1f6d
Larkin, B. (2022, July 25). 30 predictions in
history that came true. Best Life. https://bestlifeonline.com/historical-predictions/
Novak, M. (2020, January 6). What may happen
in the next hundred years. Ladies Home Journal, 1900 Paleofuture. https://paleofuture.com/blog/2007/4/17/what-may-happen-in-the-next-hundred-years-ladies-home-journa.html
Ogden, C., Fryar, C., Carroll, M., Flegal, K.
(2004). Mean body weight, height, and body mass index, United States, 1960-2002.
CDC. Advance data from vital and health statistics. No. 347, 1-18. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf
Our World in Data. (n.d.). Average height of
women by year of birth. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-height-of-women?tab=line&country=~USA&mapSelect=~USA
Picture Perfect (2019, June 24,): The
Evolution of the camera [Digital image]. https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18488.jpeg
Roser, M., Appel, C., &
Ritchie, H. (2021, May 1). Human height. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/human-height
Tom Patton. (2020, May 30).
19 In Color - A brief history of color photography [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR3rSXGKM4s
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