From September 4, 1910

WHERE NEW YORKS POPULATION IS GROWING MOST RAPIDLY: Manhattan Is Moving North, With Its Most Congested Block Above 100th Street — Upper Harlem and Washington Heights Show Biggest Percentage of Gain — Nationalities Shifting From Lower East Side (PDF)

It’s interesting to see where the city’s population was moving to and from 100 years ago. If you download the pdf, be sure to check out page two, which compares the “to-day” skyline of 1910 with the city skyline as it looked in 1816.

For a modern look at Manhattanites’ urban migration, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show recently asked its listeners to map their own moves within the city over the past ten years. After compiling all the answers, they made the data set public and invited any data visualization graphic designers who wanted to take on the challenge of presenting the information graphically. Take a look at the submissions and see how they compare to the New York Times map above.

From August 7, 1910

GRAFTING ON THE INDIANS AND HOW IT IS DONE: How Our “Century of Dishonor” Has Been Replaced by an Era of Plain Swindling (PDF)

This is a somewhat depressing and startlingly frank look at how Americans were swindling native tribes out of their land. It is nice to know that even in 1910 people already realized that the Native Americans were not treated fairly. For some reason I had a notion that this sort of guilt was a more modern perspective on history. It turns out that a lot of eye-opening was due to a woman named Helen Hunt Jackson, whose book A Century of Dishonor, published 30 years earlier, brought a lot of moral injustice to light.

The article uses her book as a jumping off point and brings readers up to date on how the Native Americans were still being taken advantage of:

When the Five Nations were moved westward-ho, to make room for a civilization that had no particular use for them, they were paid for their lands and were given over 19,000,000 acres in what is now Oklahoma. Here they were to live as they wanted to live, and hunt or farm just as they liked, unmolested by the white man. It was a good theory, but it did not work. It was, in fact, about the most conspicuous failure the Nation ever made.

As we grew and waxed fat we extended anxious eyes toward Oklahoma. The Indian land was, unfortunately for them, very good land. No sooner did we grasp this fact than we felt we must take up the white man’s burden.

Should that land be unopened merely because the owners preferred it that way? Never. The march of civilization cannot be stopped. The Indian must be civilized, which meant he must let in the white man. It is a great saving of time to belong to a race made exactly right; whenever we meet people made differently it is proved, without any argument, that whatever they like or do is wrong. It was very simple in the case of the Indian.

It was done in this fashion. Beginning in 1887 certain severalty acts were passed conferring citizenship on any Indian who would give up tribal life and take up land individually. In 1891 this offer was extended to the Five Nations in Oklahoma…

It is not to be supposed that the Indians had anything to do with this arrangement. The white man took, along with his other burdens, that of deciding that the Indian should sell his land.

So it was sold.

It gets worse, detailing individual stories of Native Americans being taken advantage of. It’s probably an important read, but it might not leave you in the best mood. If you’re interested in reading more, you can find free eBook editions of A Century of Dishonor here

From July 31, 1910

FREAK PATENTS THAT HAVE COME IN WITH THE AEROPLANE: Would-Be Inventors Keep the Department at Washington Busy With Schemes That Sound Flighty. (PDF)

The illustrations and descriptions of crazy flying contraptions that people applied for patents on (sometimes successfully) are fantastic. I managed to find one of the actual patents for a machine mentioned in the article that’s powered by birds. I think the technical drawings in the patent are even better than the illustrations shown here. Check it out. It’s powered by eagles!

Here’s how the article describes that invention:

From gay Paree comes Edouard Wulff, with a patented scheme for flying by means of “eagles, vultures, or condors.” True to the instincts of his native city, he fits out his birds with “corsets,” the specifications of which as to trimmings, binding, etc., are carefully set out.

By a strange oversight for one bred in the city of fashions, he fails to state what is the latest mode of wearing the feathers on his motors. With wise foresight he has provided for two aeronauts, one on top among the birds and the other below to steer the craft. This is sensible; a man busy prodding up a dozen uncouth and bewildered condors wouldn’t have much time for steering.

Not all of the inventions are outrageous in hindsight. The article takes a mocking tone at a proposed airship so big it has several floors and resembles a hotel, but of course we have multilevel jumbo jets today, some with luxury approaching that of hotels, so it wasn’t so far fetched.

Most of the invention descriptions in the article are too vague for me to find the original patents (if they truly even reached the application stage), but you can find a lot of this kind of thing using Google’s patent search engine. Here is a link to search “flying machine” or “airship” with results displayed visually in chronological order.

From July 31, 1910

“THE COUNTRY NEEDS A PERIOD OF REST AND READJUSTMENT” This Is the View of Roger W. Babson, Expert Economist, Who Thinks This Is a Time for “Cainting Ourselves to the Floor and Thinking” — A Careful Analysis of Financial Affairs (PDF)

The more I read about economist Roger Babson, the more I realize that he’s a hard guy to sum up in a blog entry. He was an economist who believed the business cycle followed the laws of nature. He thought that stocks were like gravity, so what goes up must come down. He didn’t just use gravity as a metaphor, but really believed the planet’s gravitational pull was a literal influence on business. He eventually founded the Gravity Research Foundation to study gravity (and the possibility of anti-gravity) in 1949.

Babson College, a business school he founded in Massachusetts, includes this note in their official biography of Babson:

His pseudoscientific notion, that the laws of physics account for every rise and ebb in the economy, had no more validity than the ancient beliefs that the stars govern the destinies of men or that base metals could be transmuted into gold or silver.

But it turns out that he did have some good ideas, and successfully predicted the crash of 1929 (I’m not sure how many crashes he may have predicted that didn’t come true, but that one he got right).

He was also the Prohibitionist Party’s candidate for President in 1940. I had no idea such a party still exists, but here is the tribute to him on their website.

Fun fact: The prohibitionist party mascot is a camel.

From July 31, 1910

EXPERTS FORETELL THE WONDERFUL FEATS OF SURGERY: View of Drs. Charles Mayo, John H. Gibbon, Edward Martin, John B. Murphy, Roswell Park, and Others. (PDF)

The doctors in this article give rather sensible and reasoned responses when asked to predict the near future of surgery. They look forward to better anesthesia, simplification of procedures, etc. But one doctor makes several references to a man named Dr. Carrel, whose work in the area of transplantation he feels has a lot of potential. This got me curious.

So I looked up this Dr. Carrel. What a guy. Dr. Alexis Carrel was the first person to successfully suture blood vessels together. He developed methods of preventing infection during surgery. He worked with Charles Lindbergh to build a machine that circulates blood through organs outside the body. In 1912, he won the Nobel Prize for his work. Sounds good so far.

But there’s a strange and dark side of Dr. Carrel. He kept a chicken heart alive in his office for decades (it even outlived him). His laboratory walls were all black, and he insisted that his staff wear black clothes. He promoted the idea that people can be preserved in suspended animation for hundreds of years. And he was denied tenure at the University of Lyon medical college after he told colleagues that he witnessed a woman miraculously cured by divine intervention.

But the most appalling thing is that Dr. Carrel promoted eugenics. He advocated that gas chambers be used to kill people who are genetically inferior, criminal, or insane. He wrote about this in his book Man, The Unknown, a later edition of which included a note in praise of the Nazis’ “energetic measures.”

In light of this, I was disturbed to come across a 1999 Mother’s Day speech by the late John Cardinal O’Connor of the New York Archdiocese in which he praises Carrel as a good Catholic for standing by his statement that he witnessed divine intervention. O’Connor states, “Dr. Alexis Carrel undoubtedly believed in the extraordinary statement from our Divine Lord in today’s Gospel [Jn. 14:15-21]. ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.’” I think the Cardinal did not do his homework on that one.

From July 24, 1910

WILL FUTURE GENERATIONS LOSE HISTORICAL RECORDS OF TO-DAY? Scientists Point Out the Probably Destruction of Newspaper Files in a Few Centuries — The Wood Pulp Problem (PDF)

In the late 1990s, I was a photographer for Christie’s auction house. I shot for every department, and even though the historic letters and documents were not a challenge to shoot, they were still among my favorite things to photograph. I felt privileged to handle (carefully) important documents from history, including one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence, letters from America’s founding fathers, the diary of a Civil War soldier, etc. Since many of today’s documents exist only digitally, our ancestors won’t have these kinds of physical objects hundreds of years from now. While looking at digital files can give me a similar feeling of connectedness with the past, there’s a feeling I get when I’m holding a piece of paper in my hand that was signed personally by George Washington that I just can’t get from a digital copy of the same document.

Preserving those kinds of historic documents has always been a challenge. This article mainly concerns newspapers and the switch from rag-based to wood-based paper in the late 1800s (wood-based paper being more difficult to preserve). Microfilm was already around in 1910, but the article does not discuss the possibility that newspaper copies could be preserved on film. Microfilm didn’t really become popular until the mid-1920s, and it wasn’t until 1935 that Kodak’s Recordak division began preserving the New York Times in that format.

Incidentally, if you do have a wood pulp newspaper you want to archive, the website historybuff.com has a pretty good overview of how historical newspapers can be preserved.

Today, newspapers are usually created digitally, and so are easy to preserve digitally. But even digital records can become impossible to retrieve as formats become obsolete. And the fluid nature of the internet, where most publishing takes place these days, makes it a difficult medium to preserve. But the non-profit Internet Archive is making a great effort.

I’m glad that people were thinking about preserving their archives 100 years ago. If they weren’t, I’d have a much harder time with this website.

Side note: As a photographer, I think a lot about future-proofing my digital archive. I began shooting digitally in 1997 — at Christie’s, where the studio was on the cutting edge of digital photography — and recently came across some old images in file formats that I couldn’t open. (It took some hunting but I finally found legacy software that allowed me to convert the images to a modern format.) If you save the raw files from your digital camera, chances are good that they are in a proprietary format that may one day be obsolete. Some of the best writing I’ve found about future-proofing your digital photo archives is by Peter Krogh. If these issues concern you, I recommend his book on Digital Asset Management for photographers.

From July 24, 1910

PERSONALLY DIRECTED SPORTS ARE POPULAR WITH CHILDREN: Park Commissioner Stover Finds that This Plan Makes Play More Attractive to the Youngsters of the Streets (PDF)

Around 1900, a group called the Playground Association organized sports for boys in some of the city playgrounds. It was going well until the city took over the playgrounds, and ended the supervised games. The city figured that “play was just play, and if the spaces were there the boys would go, whether an instructor presided or not.” But they didn’t. It turned out that streets were just as fun to play in, and had more shade to cool down in.

The article describes a movement under the new Park Commissioner to bring back directed sports in 1910. I especially like the dialogue here between a boy and a sports director:

The other day, when an instructor walked into a park to establish a new centre for games, the first thing every boy did was to take to his heels as hard as he could. The instructor was accompanied by the park guard, who was to show him the plot, and the boys knew him for a natural enemy. Only one boy stood, like Horatio, to keep the bridge — or maybe he was too lazy to run. The instructor beckoned to him, and the boy came, keeping a way eye out for an avenue of escape, but determined not to be bullied by any number of park guards.

“Look here, Johnny,” said the instructor easily, “we’re going to open a playground here, and we’re going to play baseball. Tell the rest of the boys to come back.”

“Huh?” said the boy.

The instructor repeated.

“They don’t let you play no baseball in the parks,” returned the boy scornfully, when the second explanation was finished.

“Yes, they’re going to let us. I’ve got a permit from the Park Department.”

“Park Department?” said the boy.

“Yes. Go call the boys.”

“Call ‘em back?”

“Yes. Run along.”

The boy eyed the young man dubiously. The child of the streets is slow to believe, and this particular specimen stood on one foot, rubbing the other against his leg, for fully half a minute while he decided whether this was a fair offer or a trap.

Then–

“All right. Gee!” he said, and he was off like a shot.

Some of the directed activities included baseball, basket weaving, and gymnastics. No word on tag.

From July 24, 1910

NEW YORK’S REAL BOHEMIA IS DEAD AND GONE (PDF)

If there’s one thing New Yorkers love to do, it’s reminisce about how great New York used to be. Apparently that was as true 100 years ago as it is today.

There was a time when New York held many haunts dear to the hearts of men whom the world called bohemians; now it holds places dear to the hearts of those who love to call themselves by that name — and have thereby made the title odious.

Many things and much genius have died as a result of overpopularity. At some time enthusiastic admirers scaled the walls of bohemia and proceeded to smother it within their embraces. For fear they could not succeed in completing the delightful task they sent word broadcast of their remarkable discovery.

Before that invasion, to be a bohemian was, and is yet when rightly interpreted, a state of mind. Dress, occupation, and mode of living have nothing to do with it — no more than a love of rare roast beef may be said to typify an Englishman. Today the popular conception of a bohemian is one who washes little and indifferently, and whose manner of dress is studiously freakish, rather than carelessly following the lines of least resistance, as one is apt to do in all incidental matters when the heart is set on great purpose.

And so with New York’s bohemian resorts. The places not killed by prosperity have been driven out by commerce.

Today commerce imitates bohemia. Look at the cartoon on the top right, the guy with a coffee cup, and newspapers and magazines scattered all around. The caption says, “With a Cup of Coffee He May Read Undisturbed as Long as Possible.” The article laments the loss of the old German cafe where this was possible. Now it might as well be a Starbucks.

From July 17, 1910

AN ELECTRIC FARM TO BE TRIED ON LONG ISLAND (PDF)

I expected this article to just be about a farm that’s run on electricity, which would have been a novelty in 1910. But it’s actually about a farm that electrocutes its crops to see what happens:

Plants have been compared growing under natural conditions and with the stimulant of the electric treatment, so that an exact measurement might be made. It has been found that after 104 hours of the electric current marked results were obtained. The tobacco plants increased 39 per cent. faster under the electric treatment, beets increased 12 per cent. faster, lima beans, 11 per cent., and carrots 8 per cent. faster.

The practice, known as electro-culture seems to have been unsuccessful in the long term. For more information, read this section of the book Questions of Power by Bill Luckin.

From July 10, 1910

FIFTY YEARS FIGHT TO KEEP CENTRAL PARK FROM INVASION: Since Back in 1859 Just After It Was Established Vigilance Has Been Necessary to Keep the Great Playbround from Being Used for Special Objects (PDF)

Believe it or not, sports were not permitted in Central Park when it opened. It was a place to stroll and relax, but but not to play. The website centralparkhistory.com explains:

The reasons why lay in the transformation of popular sports, particularly baseball, just at the moment the park was being built. In the 1850s New York and other large cities experienced an athletic boom; interest burgeoned in cricket, prizefighting, boating, ice skating, gymnastics, foot racing, horse racing, and especially baseball… The ball clubs saw the new park as the answer to their dreams, but Olmsted and the board began to wonder whether their presence might prove, instead, to be a nightmare. In May 1861 the commission rejected the applications of baseball clubs for use of the park.

If the park board would not allow baseball and cricket clubs, what was to be done with the playgrounds that had been in the plans from the start? After nine years of intensive discussion… the commissioners restricted the playgrounds to schoolboys who could produce a certificate of good attendance and character from a teacher. And even these exemplary lads found the fields open to them only three days of the week. Working-class youths were largely excluded, since relatively few of them went beyond elementary school in this period. A year after the commissioners opened the fields to schoolboys, they made a similar arrangement for girls. In 1867 they permitted schoolgirls to play croquet on the lawns three afternoons each week.

So kids were allowed to play on the lawns, but adults wouldn’t be permitted to play until the 1920s. Here in 1910, we can see a proposal for tennis courts, a bowling green, and football field in the North Meadow, plus a running track around the reservoir. The article explains that these are all contrary to the park’s purpose:

The Committee on Statuary, Fountains, and Architectural Structures… found that if any portion of the Park was set aside for such special purposes the ground that could be used by children for their general play would be curtailed, and it was decided that it was more important to provide wide open spaces than special playgrounds.

If you compare the proposed map with the North Meadow as it appears today, you can see that the western tennis courts are exactly where they were proposed. The meadow itself now has several baseball and soccer fields. The track around the reservoir is one of the most popular places for runners in the park. And kids can play whatever they want no matter how bad their school attendance may be.

From July 3, 1910

THE CITY IS THE LANDLORD OF THIS TENTED TOWN: A Rental of One Dollar a Week Is Asked, Which Is Really a Water Tax — 2,000 Persons in a Picturesque Community (PDF)

From the headline, I assumed the article was about a shanty town, perhaps a precursor to the shacks and tents in Central Park during the Great Depression, but I was dead wrong. This is more like a commune on a beach, paid for by the City of New York.

500 permits were available for families to live in tents on Orchard Beach in The Bronx. There was running water, beautiful views of the ocean, porches, social life, music, and festivities. And it was free! The tenants just had to pay one dollar for the running water.

This city on a beach flourished until Robert Moses ruined all the fun in 1934. Here is a bit of history from the website of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation:

By the time Moses was named Parks Commissioner in 1934, the campsite had become a well-established colony, complete with a city-like infrastructure. Campers enjoyed conveniences such as street cleaning, mail and fire service, ice delivery, and garbage hauling. Tents that Parks built in the early part of the century gave way to more stable structures with electricity, running water, and telephone service. After a lawsuit was filed in 1927, the city moved to officially endorse this arrangement. Moses remained wary of the encampment’s elite appearance, however, and devised a plan to create a facility that the entire city could use. In February 1934, he gave the campers a year to vacate the site.

Today, families can still sleep in a tent on Orchard Beach as part of the city’s weekly summer park campouts. They rotate between the city’s parks each weekend throughout the summer. The remaining dates for camping on Orchard Beach this year are July 30 and August 27. Registration is required.

From June 26, 1910

A PROPOSED PLAN FOR AN INVARIABLE CALENDAR: Prof. L. A. Grosclaude Offers an Interesting Suggestion to Solve the Troubles of the Present Division of Days (PDF)

By 1910, most of the world had adopted the Gregorian calendar that we use today, although several major nations still had not (including China, Russia, Greece, Turkey, and others). An international meeting was held in London to consider the possibility of a new calendar. It was meant to solve the problem of not easily knowing what day of the week a particular date falls on. Several proposals were put forth:

Prof. Grosclaude proposed that the quarters should be composed of ninety-one days each, as this number is divisible by seven, each quarter being thus composed of thirteen weeks exactly. The two first months of each quarter would have each thirty days and the third one thirty-one. This gives us in all for the year 364 days.

Prof. Grosclaude, however, proposed to intercalate between Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 a day to be called New Year’s Day, and for leap years he would place another day between June 31 and July 1, which he would call “Leap Day.”

Concerning the subdivision of the year into smaller unities various views had been put forward, according to the manner in which the number 364 could be decomposed.

Some had proposed thirteen months of four weeks; others would have preferred fifty-two weeks without reference to months. Prof. Grosclaude proposed, as indicated, four quarters of thirteen weeks each, as he believed that the other suggestions would cause even more inconvenience than those of the old calendar, introducing a “complete disarray of our habits,” and in the former case would necessitate new names for the months and would bring many complications into commercial calculations.

I kind of like Grosclaude’s idea. But it’s weird to think of New Year’s Day and Leap Day as being distinct from days of the week. That is, you wouldn’t say Leap Day falls on a Monday, but rather that it comes between Sunday and Monday.

From June 12, 1910

TRAGEDIES OF OUR INEXORABLE IMMIGRATION LAWS: How They Sunder Families and Wreck Hard-Saved Fortunes — A False Cablegram from Anybody Will Detain a Traveler (PDF)

Open any newspaper today and you’ll see that we still have problems with immigration law. But in 1910, when immigrants came through Ellis Island, the problems were of a different sort. People were turned away, and families were even separated, when someone was even suspected of carrying a disease, or being an undesirable person who might become a burdon to the state.

This article gives several examples of people wrongfully turned away, people of status being given preferential treatment, and legal loopholes used to deport immigrants even after they’ve been admitted to the country and lived here more than three years (the window of time during which the government could legally deport someone). Here is one such story:

Four years ago a lawyer’s clerk came over here, leaving behind him a not very savory reputation. In this country, too, he did not distinguish himself, and when word came across the water as to his past career then the authorities were glad to fall upon him and arrange for his deportation.

How did they do it, you ask, seeing that the three-year limit had been well passed? By this ingenious device.

It seems that once upon a time, when prosperity beamed, he had given way to a natural desire to look on the scenic beauties of Niagara. Not only that, but when there he took a carriage, the better to see the country side.

And in that carriage he crossed the bridge and spent about ten minutes in Canada. At this time he had been in America two years and ten months.

So when the authorities learned that the man was an undesirable citizen they pointed out that his residence in this country dated not from the time he landed at New York, but from the moment when he drove into it over the bridge after his ten-minute trip through Canada. They said he had left the United States and made a re-entry, and the fact that all this was done in the course of an hour’s drive did not alter the validity of their claim.

From June 12, 1910

EX-SLAVES DREAM OF A MODEL NEGRO COLONY COMES TRUE: Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in the Heart of the Fertile “Delta” Is a Community of 8,000 Where No White Man Can Own a Square Foot of Property (PDF)

The 13th amendment ended slavery in the United States when it was ratified in 1865. In 1887, Isaiah Montgomery founded Mound Bayou as an independent black community of freed slaves. Slightly smaller than one square mile, Mound Bayou today has a population of just over 2,000 people, 98.43% of whom are African American (as of the 2000 census), which is one of the largest black populations by percentage in the U.S.

The article is a fascinating look at race relations in 1910. I found the article’s account of what happens when white visitors come to Mound Bayou to be especially interesting:

It might be supposed that the white visitor to a community composed entirely of blacks would be expected to put himself on a plane with them, and if he sought their hospitality he must break bread with them on terms of perfect equality. But such is far from the case.

If a white man desires to spend the night in Mound Bayou he finds that certain rooms in the hotel are reserved exclusively for white visitors. They are neat and cleanly to a degree of nicety, far in advance of what is found in the average country hotel, and instead of being asked to eat at the table, or even in the same dining room with the colored boarders, the white sojourner’s meals are served in his own room in a most appetizing manner.

For more distinguished white visitors a pretty, cheerful room is set aside in the home of Isaiah Montgomery, the hospitality accorded being probably best expressed in the language of a Memphis newspaper writer, who was one of the first white men to spend a night in the colony.

“When I realized,” he said, “that we would be compelled to remain over night in Mound Bayou I began to wonder what treatment we, the only two white people in the place, would receive. I asked Montgomery about some place to eat and sleep, and he replied that there was a room at his home that had never been occupied excepting by white people. To his house my companion and myself were taken. We were met in the hall by Montgomery’s wife and two daughters, neatly dressed and with a manner and refinement that were a revelation. They had prepared for us a savory supper, which we ate with much relish in the regular dining room all by ourselves.

“Our bedroom was neat, clean, and as nicely furnished as you will find in the average hotel. After some conversation with Montgomery concerning his colony and the general condition of the negro farmers of Mississippi we retired to our room. The thought occurred to us, while the storm was raging outside, what a difference between our position and the position of two negroes who might have strayed into a town populated entirely by whites, and in which negroes were not permitted to live. Here we were at Mount Bayou — two white men — among 7,000 negroes, and our treatment had been irreproachable.”

The whole article is very thought provoking.

From June 12, 1910

CHARLES K. HAMILTON TELLS HOW TO RUN AN AEROPLANE: The Intricate Mechanism of His Biplane Explained in Detail Showing the Uses of Every Part (PDF)

It had been 7 years since the Wright Brothers flew the first plane, and Charles Hamilton was about to make the first round trip flight from New York to Philadelphia. In this article, he provides a very plain-language explanation of exactly how his plane works.

Driving an aeroplane at the speed of 120 miles an hour is not nearly as difficult a task as driving an automobile sixty miles an hour…

In running the automobile at high speed the driver must be on the job every second. There are constant opportunities of encountering obstacles. For instance, a man can never tell at what moment he is to encounter some vehicle, perhaps traveling in the opposite direction. Nothing but untiring vigilance can protect him from this danger. Then there are turns in the road, bad stretches of pavement, and other like difficulties. All these require the same attention.

But in an aeroplane it is an entirely different proposition. Once a man becomes accustomed to aeroplaning, it becomes a matter of unconscious attention. For instance, let me give you as an example the bicycle. Nearly every one has at some time or other ridden one, and these can appreciate my point. They will remember how, when they first mounted the wheel, maintaining their equilibrium was a matter of nerve-racing vigilance. In their efforts to maintain it they would invariably put the wheel too far to the falling side. Whenever they saw an approaching vehicle they felt a moral certainty that they would be run down, and in order to avoid this catastrophe would make ridiculously wide detours, but a little practice and the equilibrium was unconsciously maintained. They were soon riding without the use of the handlebars maintaining their poise simply by an unconscious shift of the body. Approaching vehicles became an equally simple problem.

Now, that is exactly the situation with an experienced aviator.

He may have been an experienced aviator, but he wasn’t a good prognosticator. He says:

For my part, I do not believe that there will ever be an automatically controlled aeroplane. Such a contrivance would tend to drive an aeroplane through counter air currents, and the machine would be hopelessly ripped to pieces. They will get an automatic control for an aeroplane when they devise a pair of eyes for an automobile that will guide it down Broadway without collision.”

It actually didn’t take very long before autopilot was in common use. In 1931, an aviator set a record for flying around the world in just 8 days. He used autopilot to steer when he needed to rest.

From May 29, 1910

RUNNING TRAINS ON ONE RAIL (PDF)

Aw, it’s not for you. It’s more of a Shelbyville idea.

From May 29, 1910

ONE FAMILY HOMES TO SOLVE NEW YORK’S CONGESTION: Committee Seeking to Relieve Overcrowding Lays Plans Against Estimated Population of 19,000,000 in 1950 — Individual Homes the Keynote (PDF)

The article begins with the proclamation that “a prominent engineer and statistician recently estimated that by the year 1950 New York City’s population would exceed 19,000,000!”

It goes on to explain that businesses will displace residences in Manhattan, which will see a population decrease, but Queens and Brooklyn will blow up to 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 residents respectively. “How closely these figures will come to being correct only time will show, but the indications are that the estimate will not prove wild.”

Well, let’s see what time does show.

According to historic census data, the population of New York City in 1910 when this article was written was 4,766,883. Approximately half those people lived in Manhattan.

In 1950, the population of New York City was not 19 million, but 7,891,957. So that estimate was way off. But the projection that other boroughs would gain more residents than Manhattan was correct. In 1950, Brooklyn had almost a million more residents than Manhattan. And both Queens and The Bronx were quickly catching up.

Today, both Brooklyn and Queens have higher populations than Manhattan. The Bronx is not far behind. But the city’s entire population is still nowhere near 19 million. Growth has slowed down considerably, and in 2008 there were 8,363,710 people living in New York City.

From May 15, 1910

EDISON PLANS AN AUTOMATIC CLERKLESS SHOP: There Will Be No Waiting for Change, No Impolite Helpers, No Counters, but Customers Will Get What They Want on the Slot Machine Plan (PDF)

When I first read the headline, I thought “That sounds like an automat. I had no idea that Thomas Edison invented the automat!” But then I did some research and it turns out that Edison didn’t invent the automat. The first automat in the US had been in business for eight years before this article came out (it was Horn & Hardart in Philadelphia). The shop Edison describes in this article turns out to be slightly different than an automat, and still interesting.

In an automat, customers get food without interacting with the staff. In Edison’s planned shop, there is no staff. There’s just one person running the clockwork machinery that handles the real work. He extends the concept from a diner to a grocery, suggesting that it could be implemented and maintained very inexpensively.

“In the automatic shop of the future there will be no shopkeepers, no clerks, no boy to wrap up packages. On entering the shop, the intending purchaser will see no one, unless it be some other purchaser. There will be no counters, no scales, no shelves lined with goods, no showcases.

“In the walls of the shop there will be dozens and dozens of little openings. Above every opening there will be a small sign. This sign will tell in a half dozen different languages what particular article that particular opening will deliver.

“Suppose a patron wants beans. He will go to the series of openings that represent the vegetable department. He will look for the sign bearing the legend ‘Beans.’ He drops a nickel in the slot and a neatly tied package containing 5 cents worth of beans will drop through the opening…

“Only one man will be needed to tend this store. All that he will have to do is keep the bins filled and the machinery oiled, and all the rest will be done automatically. He and his machines will be doing the work that in a present-day grocery shop it requires fifty men to do.”

Edison is so excited about this idea that he even offers to do the engineering at no charge for anyone who wants to start such a business. And if nobody takes him up on this idea, then gosh darnit he’s just going to have to do it himself, just as soon as he finishes up some other ideas he’s working on, like a cheap house that can be built in less than a week.

“Then I’ll take up this automatic store,” he says. “I’ll build one in the tenement district of New York and I’ll call it The Samaritan Market. It will be for the poor man, selling goods in five-cent lots. This store will prove the feasibility of the scheme. How general these automatic stores will then become, it would be difficult to prophecy. But so far as an Automatic Age is concerned, I have no hesitancy in saying that it’s coming.”

Bonus quote: “I believe that the day is coming when it will only be necessary to heat a little water in order to prepare a meal.” I think he just predicted cup noodles.

From April 17, 1910

THE NEW TIMES SQUARE LOOKING TOWARD THE NORTH: View of This Section of the City as It Will Look After the New Buildings in Process of Construction or in the Hands of Architects Are Completed (PDF)

This lovely illustration projects what Times Square will look like once then-current construction is finished. It filled the entire front page of the Magazine Section. It really deserves to be viewed as a PDF zoomed larger than full screen to appreciate the amount of detail that’s in this image.

I couldn’t find a corresponding photo of Times Square in 1910 for comparison, but I did find one looking the other direction.