In 1900, Smithsonian Institution curator John Elfreth Watkins wrote an article for The Ladies’ Home Journal, entitled “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years,” filled with predictions that many of his readers probably scoffed at as ridiculously improbable. Indeed, Watkins was pretty far off about some things. He predicted, for example, that the letters ‘C,’ ‘X’ and ‘Q’ would vanish from the alphabet, streets would be relocated underground, and farms would grow strawberries as large as apples. But what’s more impressive is the extent to which Watkins’ vision of the future actually has come to pass — wireless phone networks on which a person in New York could talk to another in China, live TV images being transmitted around the globe, MRI machines, aerial warfare, and high-speed trains traveling between cities at 150 miles per hour. Watkins even predicted the food trucks that have become a fad worldwide.

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WHAT MAY HAPPEN IN THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS
By JOHN ELFRETH WATKINS, JR.
The Ladies' Home Journal (1889-1907); Dec 1900; Vol. XVIII,, No. 1; APS Online
pg. 8