If American inventors, writers and artists of the last hundred years had been right about their visions of the future, we’d be living with kitchen robots, ray guns, nuclear-powered cars and vacations to the moon.
Some of their theories didn’t pan out. Others, such as the microwave oven, which is similar to Jane Jetson’s push-of-a-button meal cooker, have become staples in our lives.
Those visions and futuristic renditions of today’s world are scheduled to be on display starting Oct. 22 at the Museum of Snohomish County History, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Everett museum has never hosted a Smithsonian display before.
“We don’t have to go to Washington, D.C., to see this collection,” museum director Eric Taylor said. “It’s an incredible privilege that we were selected as the final destination for the exhibit.”
The traveling 600-square-foot display is scheduled to make Everett its last stop after touring 20 states in the last four years. It includes about 25 objects from the 19th and 20th centuries that depict the future, including toys, books, movie stills, World’s Fair memorabilia, car designs, advertisements and architectural designs.
“It’s kind of fun, kind of wacky,” said Ellen Terry, a project coordinator for Humanities Washington, a nonprofit organization providing cultural and educational programs to state residents. The group helped bring the exhibit to Everett. “It’s amazing what people thought cities would look like.”
An 1894 depiction of the future called “The Human Drift,” for example, envisions collections of 40,000 skyscrapers clustered together in one giant metropolis near Niagara Falls. Surrounded with glass atriums, the steel-framed buildings were supposed to house most North Americans.
Although museum director Taylor calls the exhibit’s upcoming six-week stay an honor, he’s got one kink to work out before the Smithsonian’s “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” display can settle in: He needs $20,000.
In order to remodel and expand the exhibition space in the 1900 block of Hewitt Avenue, add more lighting and exhibit cases, the museum says, it needs the extra funds by Sept. 5. Taylor is asking locals to pitch in.
“It’s an honor to host this Smithsonian exhibit, and it’s my feeling that we need to do it right,” he said.
Complementing the exhibit will be a display on historic local visions for the future of Snohomish County. Titled “Back to the Future of Snohomish County,” the exhibit will feature past plans, schemes and dreams for the region.
The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services, which brings top-notch exhibits to rural or small museums, worked with Humanities Washington to bring the exhibit to Everett. The Smithsonian organization hopes its famous name will attract people to local museums and increase their attendance in the future.
“It’s really a capacity-building project,” Terry said. “People think, ‘Oh, great, the Smithsonian, I should go to this.’ This helps build connections in the community that weren’t there before.”
Robbie Davis, a project director with Washington, D.C.-based Museums on Main Street, which cooperates with the Smithsonian to bring exhibits to local museums, said “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” has helped other small museums raise money for their projects.
Even though the objects in the exhibit aren’t originals – because of security and upkeep concerns – the display “always gets a wonderful reaction,” Davis said.
“The whole notion is to get people thinking in a fun way about what the future’s going to be like,” he said.
Reporter Chris Collins: 425-339-3436 or ccollins@ heraldnet.com.
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