Flying cars, robots, and futuristic city images are hanging around Utah this summer.
The latest traveling exhibit of the Smithsonian Institute launched its current tour in Brigham City in March 2001.
The exhibit entitled “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future,” will last five years, visiting five Utahan cities before moving on to tour approximately 150 small towns in 24 other states.
Currently stationed in Payson at the Peteetneet Academy, the exhibit portrays the ideas and dreams that artists, inventors, scientists and architects had envisioned for the 21st century.
“‘Yesterday’s Tomorrows’ helps us understand the values and hopes Americans hold and have held about the years to come,” according to the Michigan Humanities Council.
Four themes make up the exhibit, including ‘Imagining the Future’, ‘Home of Tomorrow’, ‘Transportation of Tomorrow’, and ‘Community of Tomorrow’.
‘Imagining the Future’ displays ideas presented in the twentieth century expressed in books, movies, magazines, television, radio, toys, and advertising.
“The future presented in these media ranges from cheerful utopias of technological wizardry to dark visions of societal disfunction,” according to the website www.yesterdaystomorrows.org.
‘Home of Tomorrow’, shows the evolution of the idea of futuristic homes. The home, in theory, became a “machine for living” and modern architecture, mass production, and increased automation within the home took precedence over real human and societal needs.
From the Geodesic Dome invented by Buckminster Fuller, to the mass production “K2H40” plan of Howard Fisher, the evolution of home ideas throughout the century are charted and displayed in this exhibit.
‘Transportation of Tomorrow’ visualizes what the Smithsonian Institute calls “uniquely American ways of imagining tomorrow, reflecting our faith in progress and technology.”
“The Fulton Airphibin”, a vehicle that promised to convert easily from car to plane, and the “Moonport”, transportation for weekend moon visits, are among the ideas displayed in this exhibit.
An ideal American community was a common vision for early 20th century idealists, according to the exhibit, reflecting hopes, excitement, and fears about the reality of an increasingly urban society.
‘Community of Tomorrow’ reflects strategies for future communities including communitarianism, individualism, image, social reality, urban chaos and utopia.
According to Verdine Page, a member of the Board of Trustees and Hostess of the Peteetneet Academy, the exhibit has been popular, visited by guests as well as many schools because of its educational value.
The “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” exhibit will be in Payson through June 15 at the Peteetneet Academy and may be visited 10 am to 4 pm free of charge.
The exhibit will then be moved to the Hyrum City Elite Hall from June 30 through August 19, Washington City Historical Society from September 1 through October 28, and will finish its Utah appearance at the University of Utah November 10 through February 28, 2002.
The exhibit is free to the public. For more information call the Utah Humanities Council at (801) 359-9670 or visit www.utahhumanities.org.
