These artist's drawings from 1899, depicting France in the year 2000, make me happy because they are so imaginative, but they also make me sad because I am forced to face the harsh reality that my mailman doesn't fly up to my window to deliver packages from a tiny aircraft, and I can't play tennis in the sky.
I like the cleaning machine, which isn't too far off from the concept of a modern-day Roomba vacuum. All of these imaginary inventions are so much fun. I'd like to live in the world shown in the drawings instead of this one, please.
From The Public Domain Review:
What did the year 2000 look like in 1900? Originally commissioned by Armand Gervais, a French toy manufacturer in Lyon, for the 1900 World exhibition in Paris, the first fifty of these paper cards were produced by Jean-Marc Côté, designed to be enclosed in cigarette boxes and, later, sent as postcards. All in all, at least seventy-eight cards were made by Côté and other artists, although the exact number is not known, and some may still remain undiscovered. Each tries to imagine what it would be like to live in the then-distant year of 2000.
See also: Weird and wonderful vintage snapshots from Christmas past
