Riding on the Futurama

“I Have Seen the Future”

Whoever controls the territory possesses it. Possession of territory is not primarily about laws and contracts, but first and foremost a matter of movement and circulation. —Interview with Paul Virilio, CTheory (2000).

In 1939, the people of America saw the future. The 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair, which had as its opening slogan “The Dawn of a New Day,” was held in New York’s Flushing Meadows, a swampy area in the borough of Queens formerly used as an ash dump. Reborn from long- polluted marshlands and boasting parking for 35,000 cars, the fair attracted over forty-four million visitors in its two- season run before it closed down and many of its displays were scrapped for use in the war effort.

As in previous fairs (notably the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair during which electricity made its public debut), the New York World’s Fair foregrounded a distinctly American combination of technological innovation, futuristic design, and natural beauty in the form of technology pavilions, artistic displays, manicured gardensm, and ebullient fountains. At the fair’s center stood two grand hollow monuments, the Trylon and Perisphere, abstract forms representing a clean, modernistic future. Housed within the Perisphere was a diorama called the Democracity—a utopian city of the future. The technology pavilions featured innovations in telecommunications (Bell Labs’ popular keyboard-driven speech synthesizer known as the “Voder”), lighting (General Electric introduced the fluorescent light), and gimmicky “technologies” such as Westinghouse’s seven-foot-tall humanoid robot, Elektro the Moto-Man. In the first season, before it was changed to respond to the war in Europe, the fair’s official theme was “Building the World of Tomorrow.”

Nowhere was this vision of “tomorrow” made more apparent than in the transportation pavilions. By far, the most popular exhibit at the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair was General Motors’ “Futurama,” industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes’ vision of America’s transportation future. The Futurama consisted of a scale-model America, including a “City of Tomorrow” and a network of interconnecting fourteen-lane superhighways. The ride carried visitors in plush wingback chairs through a 35,000-square-foot diorama featuring the “highways of tomorrow.” These highways carried ten thousand scale-model cars that traveled ceaselessly around the diorama, pulled along by an intricate mechanism of moving chains.

The Futurama ride exemplifies many popular trends and ideas of the 1930s: the rise of urbanism and the promise of technology, the stitching together of pastoral and urban landscapes, and an optimistic vision of a future world brought about through both infrastructural and economic development.

Geddes planned out the highway of the future in exquisite detail with an eye to its later implementation in the real world. The highway system that Geddes imagined in his meticulous diorama, with its sweeping interchanges and wide, fast-moving lanes, had already been described in considerable detail by government engineers tasked by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1938 to study the feasibility of a system of six transcontinental superhighways. The resulting Bureau of Public Roads report, “Toll Roads and Free Roads” (1939), forecasted an Interstate Highway System much like the one that appears in Geddes’ model. Unlike the Futurama, however, the BPR’s report was generally focused on the legislative and economic obstacles that confronted state and federal governments in making the superhighways a reality: an unjustifiably high cost, the legal challenges of acquiring rights-of-way in urban areas, and the unlikelihood that toll-charges on drivers, who were still too few in number, could recuperate the three-billion-dollar expense. Despite these obstacles, the report still “urge[d] against delay” and advocated for revisions of existing city and state legislation to make land-seizures through eminent domain easier and more affordable (“Toll Roads” 94). This preemptive approach, the report implies, would also serve as an effective tool to combat urban decay through slum clearance.

In contrast to the BPR’s pessimistic study, Geddes’ Futurama ride cleverly bypassed the legislative and political tangles of engineering a transcontinental superhighway—tangles that would ultimately delay the creation of the Interstate Highway System for nearly two decades—and instead presented the American public with a landscape that had already been fully transformed and perfected. The slums were gone, and the highways were already built and paid for in this utopian Tomorrowland. In fact, the popular success of Futurama prompted FDR to invite Geddes to display a model of the diorama at a White House dinner (Rose 11).

Futurama’s highways consisted of four outer lanes with speeds limited to 50 mph. These lanes were bordered by a three-foot divider, with an eighteen-inch barrier between each lane. This was abutted by a green median, then another three-foot divider with two 70-mph lanes separated by another eighteen-inch barrier. Next came another grass median and then a single 100-mph lane.

Among Geddes’ papers is a breakdown of the scale used to determine the relative speed of model cars traveling through the Futurama exhibit. In the diorama, the speed and ease of the motorway was designed to be visually juxtaposed to the moving model trains in order to suggest to visitors that traveling by car could be as fast and convenient as traveling by rail. In 1941, Geddes recalled,

A question was raised in regard to the superspeed highways: on that scale it was felt that it would be impossible to create the illusion of speed. It was suggested that a railway train be included, with an amplifier to point out that the train was traveling at 50mph., and the cars whizzing past it. (Prod. Min., 381, 2/14/38) (“Case History” 14)

Likewise, the model cars traveling along the superhighway were shown to be moving at faster speeds relative to cars traveling on older (and by contrast lesser) highways. In his description of the conveyor ride models, Geddes wrote, “Attention is directed to a comparison of the winding, twisting ordinary highways in this heavily-wooded locality, with the direct route of the new Motorway” (“Description” 11).

There were regular breaks in the lane dividers to allow transition from one to another; at “transition points” a lane would appear in the grass strip so the driver could cross from one speed zone to another. In Geddes’ proposed plan, the driver would be “advised by dashboard signal” when he was able to change lanes. If the lanes were crowded the driver was directed to a lane inside the grass strip that would act as a kind of wait-point until the “clear” signal was given. These strips were to be used for accelerating or decelerating. To further ensure safety, cars would be separated by a minimum spacing that was to be maintained by “radio-activated beams sent from the rear of the cars to the instrument panel of the cars following” (Correspondence).

Geddes’ proposed interstate highway system was imagined as the perfect technological fix to provide a safe environment for the burgeoning traffic on American roads.

The Futurama was a vision of the American landscape as it was imagined to look in 1960, this being the furthest into “the future” that Geddes was willing to speculate. In a revealing conversation with then director of Yale University’s Bureau for Street Traffic Research, Miller McClintock, Geddes explained the logic behind staging the Futurama in the not-so-distant future:

McClin: I foresee that this will be one of the most remarkable exhibits ever made at a World’s Fair.

Geddes: Dineen wants it toned down—brought a little closer to today. The further away it is, the safer it is to do something dramatic like this, and I want you to support me on it. When we talk of a 100-mile lane, that’s not stretching the imagination too much, is it?

McClin: You’ve got to stretch their imagination. But I think you should make it the year 2000 instead of 1960. After all, 1960 is only 20 years away.

Geddes: Oh no, I can’t make it so far ahead, because there won’t be any gasoline cars by then. I’m no Jules Verne. (Geddes and McClintock, “Minutes”)

As visitors exited the pavilion they were given a lapel pin that boldly declared, “I Have Seen the Future.”

The Futurama set the stage for a powerful vision of the future of transportation. Geddes’ model of 1960s America was immense, stretching over 35,000 square feet. The diorama was housed in the impressively modern General Motors Pavilion, itself a showcase for futuristic design with its streamlined, unornamented walls and sweeping highway-like entrance. The “Futurama ride” was the highlight of the fair, attracting up to 28,000 people a day over the two-year duration of the exhibit (Corn 49).

According to the accompanying guidebook, the diorama consisted of:

a half-million buildings and houses—thousands of miles of multi-lane highways—more than a million trees—rivers, lakes and streams—snow-capped mountains—rich, flowering countryside—industrial centers—college and resort towns—great, towering cities . . . (Futurama Tour Guide)

The Futurama exhibit employed the genre of “the amusement ride,” which was popular in other attractions at the fair: visitors were seated in a “carry-go-round” consisting of 552 plush blue mohair chairs that moved slowly around the sides of the diorama as simulated night fell and the sun rose again. In a description of the ride, Geddes outlined the spectator’s experience:

The spectator is seated in a comfortable chair on the conveyor platform and is moved through semi-darkness while a quiet authoritative voice at his shoulder explains what he is about to see.

At the end of this twenty-second period the spectator is suddenly confronted with a breath-taking model of rolling farm country in the springtime. Afternoon sunlight floods the pink and white orchards, the woods, the farms with their plowed fields of alfalfa, barley and wheat. All this is seen, complete in every detail. Cattle graze in green pastures and goats nibble on the rocky ledges. Fresh-leaved trees by the streams reflect themselves in clear water. In the pattern of spring colors the forests tie the whole scheme together. This is the setting at the start of a trip that the visitor will take through varied and spectacular terrain. It will be viewed through a continuous window directly before him and the voice at his shoulder will personally bring to his attention and describe to him the various features and points of interest which he is to see.

As soon as the spectator becomes accustomed to the model and its scale and adjusts himself to the window, he takes in the beauty and completeness of the detail—the houses, barns, highways, a town, its airport, a railroad, and all the minor but characteristic elements which are typical of the country-side, such as filling stations, telephone poles, signal lights, deserted houses. He notices the people and their activity. About the farms men and women are seen in gardens and barnyards. Others are going to the nearby town and golf course. On the outskirts of the town a traveling street carnival is preparing for the crowds that will come later to enjoy its bright pavilions and rides. Actually, the spectator is being transported to an early afternoon in the spring of 1960, and for the entire ride he will live in that future—but a future which retains enough of 1939 to keep it from being fantastic.

. . . As night gives way to early light, the various modern cars can be studied . . . The spectator is now traveling in the soft light of early morning high above mountain foothills. (Geddes, “Description” 1, 10-11)

As this description suggests, the ride was designed to take visitors from afternoon, through night, and into sunrise, signifying a “new dawn.” In this way, the ride would imply that the interstate highway system of 1960 would not only compress space but also time—acceleration through technology.

The tour was narrated by a voice issuing from a speaker box embedded in each pair of chairs; the soundtrack was controlled and coordinated by a centralized machine called “the Polyrhetor.” Near the end of the ride visitors were taken over an intersection featuring elevated sidewalks that overlooked approximately sixty finely detailed GM cars and trucks simulating city traffic flow.

Finally, riders were deposited into a full-scale version of the same street, the GM Intersection, where they were invited into the “Preview of Progress” Auditorium to view an exhibit of GM cars.

The Futurama was part of a larger exhibition offered by General Motors called “Highways and Horizons.” Its purpose was twofold: offer a model of improved highways of the future (thereby clinching the sale of more cars), and spike consumer confidence more broadly in goods, cars, and appliances of the future. The issue of America’s reluctance to be involved in the rapidly escalating war in Europe was temporarily quashed by visions of a grand, utopian future of spectacular superhighways, in eerie parallel to Hitler’s propaganda campaign for the Reichsautobahnen.

To sell its dream of a mechano-utopian future, General Motors enlisted the popular modern narrative of progress, which asserted that “history shows that the progress of civilization has run parallel to advancement in transportation” (Futurama Tour Guide). Even the General Motors Pavilion itself, a giant silver deco-curved complex, featured superhighway-inspired ramps to allow public entrance, a design also used to great effect in the Ford pavilion, where show cars traveled outside on sweeping spiral ramps. Superhighways were clearly intended to be regarded as a symbol of progress, in this case presented as a road leading toward a better, brighter future.

Filming the Future

Surviving documentation of the fair provides a treasure-trove of cultural material, ranging from the representation of nations and nation-building (both Poland and Nazi Germany were present in the first summer of the fair but not the second) to the developing power of large manufacturing corporations—notably General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Westinghouse Corporation—and their highly successful advertising strategies for stimulating consumer desire. Numerous documentary films of the fair exist, some taken by amateur filmmakers, and others sponsored by corporations. A noteworthy example is Westinghouse’s The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair (1939, Audio Productions Inc.). This film, which chronicles the adventures of a middle-class family (The Middletons) from middle America (Indiana) as they visit various Westinghouse exhibits at the fair, is a mixture of corporate spin and political propaganda.

The film’s plot revolves around a romantic triangle between the Middletons’ college-age daughter, Babs, and the two men vying for her affections. Jim Treadway, an “all-American” engineer working for Westinghouse, is initially spurned by Babs, who prefers the smooth-talking European art professor, Nicholas Makaroff. Treadway clearly stands, in the film, for American corporate capitalism and the promise of American progress through technology. Makaroff, who snidely refers to the Westinghouse Exhibit as a “temple of capitalism,” represents the threat of communism. His bohemian dress and his penchant for peppering conversations with French accentuates Makaroff’s un-Americanness. His interest in abstract art further alienates him from the Middletons’ wholesome middle-class American optimism, represented most clearly through the character of Bud, Babs’ teenage brother. Though Babs is initially enamored by Makaroff’s passionate speeches on Marxism and his esoteric lectures on abstract art, order is eventually restored in the Middleton household when, through an elaborate practical joke, Makaroff is exposed as a hypocritical, cowardly, and all-around ne’er-do-well. This was clearly Westinghouse’s version of capitalism triumphing over the threat of communism.

The film also enlists a kind of pseudo-feminism in the service of its corporate campaign, arguing that social improvement will finally come through more and better consumer products. Observing an electrically powered loom, Makaroff complains, “Machines like this destroy jobs. Think of the number of people who would be working if we didn’t have these power looms.” His comment, conspicuous for its appeal to a vulgar form of Marxism, is summarily dismissed by Treadway: “Yes, I guess every woman in America would be weaving, and every home would be a sweatshop producing clothes for the family.” The message is clear: technology makes progress possible, and with progress comes the end of drudgery, especially for women.

This claim is reinforced in the film through the Westinghouse “Battle of the Centuries” where “Mrs. Drudge” faces off against “Mrs. Modern” in a dishwashing competition.

While the former frantically scours and stacks dishes by hand, the latter casually reads the newspaper while the Westinghouse automatic dishwasher does the work. Later, Grandma cements the connection between new consumer products and women’s liberation: “That’s why I like Electrical Engineers. They signed our Emancipation Proclamation!”

General Motors commissioned its own film for the fair, Leave It to Roll-Oh (1940), featuring a domestic robot designed to showcase how Chevrolet switches and relays work in a modern car.

Showcased at the fair in 1940, the short film begins with a fantasy scenario in which a humanoid robot, Roll-Oh, responds to the whims of a young woman: he answers the door (frightening the delivery man), cleans, and cooks. Though Roll-Oh turns out to be “just a daydream after all,” the film praises Roll-Oh’s “little brother and sister robots, the millions of small mechanical servants that never ask for afternoons off.”

The film moves from highlights of domestic “thinking machines” like toasters, coffee makers, and the “fido-feeder” electric dog bowl to the “phantom crew of intelligent robots” living in our automobiles, forging an unmistakable link between automobiles and America’s future. Ending rather ominously with an army of tiny Roll-Ohs marching toward the screen, the film’s narrator bombastically announces, “Every day in our homes and offices, as well as in our motorcars, hundreds of these little robots are doing more things for us than we realize, taking care of the routine tasks, and leaving us free to live and work and play in greater ease and comfort and safety.”

The Futurama exhibit itself was officially documented in the GM-sponsored film, To New Horizons (1940). In To New Horizons the diorama is depicted in slowly panning shots that sweep smoothly above the exhibit—an impressive aerial view that mirrored the experience of ride-goers.

The film itself is a masterpiece of propaganda. In a montage of stock images, the film announces the coming of the world of tomorrow.

To New Horizons begins with stirring music and black-and-white footage of the ocean as the camera pans slowly onto the shore. Showing gradual changes in living, transportation, and the availability of commercial goods, this opening montage establishes “progress” as a desirable historical development. “New Horizons,” the narrator proclaims. “In a restless search for new opportunities, the mystery and promise of distant horizons have always called men forward . . . [O]ld horizons open the way to new horizons.” Key in this montage scene are images of roads and highways, segueing from small paths to bridges to roadways, and finally giving way to highways, accompanied by an excerpt from Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.” This mixture of road metaphor and progress narrative—“New horizons: roads for men to go places!”—is compounded with the implicit narrative of manifest destiny. The film goes on to showcase the Futurama, showing close-ups of the diorama in action, and ending with shots of the popular exhibition building itself, replacing the familiar “the end” with “Without End” to signify that the future is something to strive toward indefinitely.

Other industrial films of the era commonly feature this same destiny narrative, transitioning from horse paths to rutted roads to smooth highways. An earlier film produced for the Bureau of Public Roads, Wheels of Progress (1927), showed a transition taking place in the landscape as automotive vehicles had become more widely available, shifting the idea of expansion and exploration from the American West to the condition of the roads themselves. Similarly, Chevrolet’s Conquering Roads (1937) suggests that just as wagons no longer work in an automotive world, so too roads must adapt to the increasing power and sophistication of cars.

As these earlier films suggest, by the time the Futurama ride was introduced at the fair, the idea of highways as part of the technological (rather than geographical) expansion of the nation was well grounded. To New Horizons builds on this narrative, showing how technological improvements are paralleled with the metaphorical movement “forward” into the future; the narrator suggests that travel is indicated in time as well as space:

The accelerating rate of man’s progress in all fields of endeavor has paralleled closely our progress in the freedom of movement from place to place. New things to do, and new ways to do them; telephone, electric lights, automobiles, aircraft—all are symbols of better living. New places to go, and new means of getting there.

As roadways are shown in montage we see images of covered wagons moving across the landscape followed by pictures of a woman first pumping water from a well, then calling children in to a rural schoolhouse, then baking bread in an old stove. Pioneer images shift into “progress” images as the woman gets a better stove, running hot water, a new lamp, and a phonograph. This sequence suggests that, just as Americans traversed the unexplored landscape to conquer space so scientists are helping to reveal “new horizons” in the form of consumer products and modern conveniences.

To New Horizons’ narration extends the highway metaphor still further to encompass scientific and capitalist expansion:

The highways of social and commercial development are widening without end or limit except the imagination, vision of men who do new things. Today, engineers are always leading us higher, widening the trails, while our men of science are broadening all our mental avenues with new activities.

These mental avenues are signified by point-of-view shots from a car as it moves up the side of a mountain, taking in a viewscape of a controlled wilderness on the outside and a groomed highway ahead. Nature, the scene suggests, is best experienced from the interior of a car.

As the black and white montage ends, however, the narrator suggests that time, not space, is the new frontier:

Our greatest drives in providing more things for more people have been made at a time when the influence of new geographical frontiers was about over. Mentally and physically, we are progressing toward new horizons.

As these words are spoken, the film moves away from its stock city-and-highway footage, coming to rest on the latest new horizon: the GM Pavilion at the World’s Fair and the fair’s concrete symbol, the massive white Trylon and Perisphere. These abstract sculptures of a sphere and elongated pyramid suggest that it is time to abstract our thoughts as well, looking with our imaginations into the “new horizons” of the future. At the same time, the film changes from black and white to Technicolor, signifying the move from the present into a more glorious and colorful future. Queues of people are shown milling around outside the pavilion, waiting to “travel into the future” they have been promised.

The second part of the film, which we will examine more closely in the Chronotope thread of this chapter (1.2), closely documents Geddes’ diorama, using a camera sweeping over the scale model and zooming in for close-ups to replicate the experience of the Futurama visitors as they passed through the “ride” portion of the exhibit. Chief among these scenes are the “highways of tomorrow” featuring the Futurama diorama’s tiny cars—lovingly crafted, bulbous, streamlined, and brightly colored—unlike the bland black cars that filled the parking lots outside the fair.

The magnificent overpasses and sweeping curves of the Futurama, which, the film announces, represent “highway engineering at its most spectacular,” act as monuments to the conquest of space and stand in for more general scientific and social change that awaited Americans in the future:

This 1960 drama of transportation progress is but a symbol of future progress in every activity, made possible by constant striving toward new and better horizons.

The film’s final animations of highways and the streamlined abstract curves so prevalent in graphic design of the time suggest a continuous movement toward the future, motivated by the metaphor of the superhighway.