Hildebrands Chocolate – 1900’s predictions for 2000.

Utterly perfect – Paleo-Future has a simply amazing post of a collection of promotional chocolate cards made in Germany by the cocoa company Hildebrand. Created in the 1900’s, they predict life as they imagine it in the year 2000 – and there’s wonderful scenes both all too familiar and dissapointingly absent from our lives today. From moving pavements and house pulled along on by a train, to weather machines, roofed cities and personal airships (oh, if that could just ‘take off’ I’d be inordinately pleased).
There’s really not much more I can add, except that it’s a perfect example of Steampunk – Victorian/Georgian era science predictions, where the technology changes but the society is unchanged. I mean, simply the act of a stroll across the lake surface above, wishing others a good day, and even the horse has a balloon attached. Perfectly implausible and wonderful at the same time. Thanks to BoingBoing, Mr Hildebrandt (not directly related to the chocolate company in question, I assume) and Ms Nicole for pointing it out. Just delightful.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Lovely. I decided to download the images in order to make a slideshow on my screen. The accompanying music? Kraftwerk’s “Expo 2000″ of course!
Some lovely German compound coinages there also in the blackletter captions:
“Schönwettermaschine”
“Schiffeisenbahn”
“Wasserspazierung”
April 24th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Pardon my deutsch. Two of those captions actually read “Wasserspaziergang” and “Schiffseisenbahn.” I think maybe my head needs to be examined by some of those “Röntgenstrahlen.”
April 25th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Actually, from talking to my dad, it sounds as though we may indeed be the same Hildebrand(t)s! Never been prouder of my name
April 25th, 2007 at 11:44 am
“Summer Holidays at the North Pole” … heh heh heh … who knew they understood the concept of global warming so long ago?
October 8th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
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