The Future Of The 1920s

[Music] before i let the slideshow run i thought i'd give a short introduction while doing research for my video about pulp magazines i became really interested in futurism in the 1920s in case you don't know what futurism is it's people's vision of what the future would look like from the perspective of their own time because we live in the time that we do this past futurism is called retro-futurism the 1920s style of futurism is interesting to me because it's right between the two most common forms of futurism we see today steampunk and adam punk i'm sure many of you already know what these are but i'll explain anyway steampunk is a retro futuristic style based on victorian futurism when people believe that machines would be operated with a complex series of mechanical gears there's no electricity everything is mechanical in some way adam punk on the other hand is based on 1950s and 1960s predictions everything is round sleek and powered by atomic energy so think of the jetsons or the fallout game series this gives the 1920s a rather unique position between these two but if you've watched my video on pulp magazines you'll know that science fiction definitely existed during the 20s and there were stories novels and films that use sci-fi elements being in the modern age futurism of the 1920s leans more towards atom punk but it also has a somewhat diesel punk flavor diesel punk by the way is a roughly 1940s retro futurism i know i've made this comparison before but i'll do it again in america the 1920s were similar to the 1950s and that they took place in the immediate aftermath of a massive destructive war and both carried an arab optimism for the future the only difference is that science fiction was not as mainstream in the 20s as it was in the 50s so it didn't quite fully develop a unique look that permeated society but i found their ideas about the future to be fascinating especially how they thought that dirigibles also known as zeppelins were the air travel of the future this is a pretty unique characteristic of futurism in this period because they had only rose to prominence after the victorian era and their popularity ended in the 1930s so for the following photos i scoured a magazine called science and invention that was published throughout the 1920s this magazine predictably focused on the latest developments in science as well as the most recent patents and inventions but it also occasionally delved into futurism this was largely due to the input of its editor hugo guernsbach who is also the first editor of the science fiction pulp magazine amazing stories which i talked about in my earlier video gernsback was also helped by illustrator frank r paul who created the most memorable science fiction covers in pop art of that time and i will definitely make another video just for his illustrations while browsing the issues of this magazine i thought many of the pictures were interesting so i thought i'd just make a short little video with him if you're interested in this kind of thing i got these from digital copies online at americanradiohistory.com which has a huge selection of various vintage magazines freely available to view i'll leave a link in the description so do do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: The1920sChannel

Views: 3,116,747

Keywords: 1920s futurism, retrofuturism, atompunk, steampunk, 1920s sci fi, vintage science fiction, 1920s science fiction, steampunk drawings, atom punk drawings, dieselpunk, 1920s documentary, 1920s pulp magazines, pulp magazine covers, pulp fiction covers, 1920s magazines, 1920s illustrations, retrofuturism art, steampunk art, atompunk art, retrofuturism documentary, steampunk documentary, atompunk documentary, 1920s future, 1920s sci fi film, vintage sci fi films, sci fi documentary

Id: tL47-RIyj8E

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020