1. During World War I, New York City audiences (if they knew the language of the performance) could attend patriotic musicals with titles like ____ War Brides and ____ Martyrs of America. What ethnic group fills in the blanks?

a. Jewish

From the late 1880s to around 1940, Yiddish-language theatre found a home in New York City—as did the wave of Jewish immigrants who brought the performance form to the U.S. Fleeing persecution in Russia, these immigrants, whether they chose to be performing artists or audience members, developed a unique theatre culture. Unlike the short variety acts of contemporary vaudeville, Yiddish theatre presented full-evening-length plays, accompanied by music or broken up with song-and-dance numbers. Plays adapted popular works by authors like Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov, drew from folklore and folk customs, and/or commented on recent events in the U.S. and abroad. Some addressed issues of assimilation, such as intermarriage and generational gaps, while others praised the virtues of the immigrants' adopted country—as did the musicals mentioned above.

2. In 1852, a 42-member opera troupe arrived in the U.S. After giving successful performances to immigrants from its country of origin, it traveled to New York City, where non-immigrants panned its performances. Where did the troupe come from?

d. China

In 1852, the Tong Hook Tong Dramatic Company arrived in California, following the stream of Chinese immigrants who had come to the state with the 1848 gold rush. Greeted warmly by immigrant audiences, they accepted a contract to perform in New York City. In New York, they discovered the contract was a scam, and secured their own theatre space, performing for New Yorkers independently. Chinese opera bears little resemblance to European opera, and even less to the "Oriental" image of China then popular on the mainstream stage. Confused by what they were seeing, New Yorkers rejected genuine Chinese theatre that did not match up with contemporary media stereotypes.

3. In the 1960s and 1970s, a grassroots theatre movement, beginning in efforts to educate migrant farmers and encourage them to form unions, took off, spreading across the United States. Which minority group did this movement represent?

c. Chicanos

In 1965, Luis Valdez, the son of Chicano migrant farm workers, founded the theatrical company El Teatro Campesino. El Teatro Campesino took theatrical performances—often without props, sets, or written scripts—directly to the camps of migrant farm workers. In its performances, the company sought to inspire farm workers to form a farm workers' union, but it also performed pieces based on Mexican popular theatre: corridas (dramatized ballads), peladitos (comic skits with an underdog protagonist), and religious pageants.

El Teatro Campesino's success led to the growth of a national Chicano theatre movement, which peaked in the 1970s.

4. In the late 1910s and the 1920s, record companies including Okeh, Paramount, Vocalion, and Columbia began releasing records by performers from which minority group?

c. African Americans

Prior to the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when African Americans came north in search of a better life, major record companies released African American music, but only as performed by white performers. Sensing the potential for a new market, the companies began to record African American performers and release their music on special labels targeted at African American audiences. Called "race records," these records were later marketed to white audiences as well. African Americans also established their own companies to distribute records—the first African American owned label, Black Swan, was established in 1921. Many styles of music associated with race records would later be recategorized as "rhythm and blues."

1. [The American] will live 50 years instead of 35 as at present—for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.

True. In the 20th century, transportation and sanitation advances led to the rise of developments around cities. Streetcars, trains, and, later, highways made it possible for workers to commute to urban centers for work and to travel outside of the city for their home life. Suburb development grew exponentially after World War II with the rapid spread of mass-produced housing such as Levittown.

2. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides.

True. Several aspects of this prediction came true, including the move to aircraft as a central defensive and offensive weapon. Later in the 20th century, the U.S. government spent significant resources on the research and development of a national missile defense system under the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), established in 1984.

3. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient although they will not hear the crowds cheer or the guns of a distant battle as they boom.

False. In its actual form, this prediction foresaw the ability to see "live" events across the globe and also predicted the ability to hear events as they happened: "The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move".

4. The owner of a [flying] machine, or even the man who did not own one, by patronizing the express lines, could live 50 miles away and yet do business in the city day by day, going by air line to his home each night.

False. Theodore Waters of the New York Herald actually predicted that workers could easily commute 500 miles to work each day, flying home each night, a further visualization of transportation innovation as well as of the relationship between work and home as the notion of suburbs emerged.

5. Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth's hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper.

True. Well into the 1800s, Americans met their needs by harvesting energy and materials from plants, animals, rivers, and wind. By the 1830s, though, large-scale coal extraction had begun in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and beyond. By the 1910s, more than 750,000 coal miners dug and blasted upwards of 550 million tons of coal a year. Fossil fuels changed daily life in America, from travel to shopping, daily life to leisure. America's industrial ascendancy, however, caused problems for humans and the environment and in 2009, the threat of diminishing supplies is a serious concern.

6. Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed.

True. In the early 20th century, new household technology was both accomplished and inspired by the tremendous increase in American industrial production. As in industry, mechanization and scientific management were part of a larger reorganization of work. And as in industry, efficient housekeeping was partially a response to labor unrest—both the "servant problem" and the growing disquiet of middle-class wives. A major proponent of the new housekeeping, Christine Frederick published books, articles, and pamphlets on scientific management in the home with a focus on greater efficiency, from cooking to washing dishes. This plan, in some ways predictive of the late 20th-century shift to pre-cooked meals in stores and restaurants, likely drew on this emerging ideology.

7. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it.

True. X-rays were first identified in the late 19th century, but were not widely used for medical research and treatment in 1900 when this prediction was written. Since 2005, X-rays were listed as a carcinogenic by the U.S. government. The author likely would not have envisioned the 21st-century field of endoscopy that allows medical professionals to see and photograph many parts of the body through a small tube.

1.
1941: Pan American Airways began in 1927 with a single engine aircraft and a single route between Key West and Havana. By 1941, the airline flew to 55 different countries, between North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Airline ads in the late 1930s advertised air travel similar to train travel, with sleeping berths and dining cars. When the U.S. entered World War II, the world’s only aircraft that could carry payloads across an ocean were nine Pan Am Boeing 314 flying Clippers, and three that Pan Am had sold to Britain. The U.S. government took over all of Pan Am’s over-ocean aircraft, crews, and operations. Pan American airplanes were used in overt operations by the War Department, and in 1942, 1,445 war planes were delivered to the British army. [1]

2.
1938: Hormel developed canned ham in 1926, and eleven years later produced the first canned meat product that did not require refrigeration, a distinctive chopped ham and pork shoulder mixture, marketed as “spiced ham.” A major advertising campaign started in mid-1937, promoting the product as “miracle meat” and “anytime meat.” SPAM proved effective for the military and because it wasn’t rationed like beef was, it became a major staple for American families during the war. [2]

3.
1956: While passenger service on the Union Pacific Railroad started in 1866, early accommodations were rough and often uncomfortable. The 1890 Overland Limited, a luxury train, ran between Omaha and San Francisco, and by 1921, passenger revenues reached an all-time high. As the Twenties progressed, the automobile became more accessible and necessary, and Union Pacific took some drastic marketing steps to increase business. Luxurious Steamliner passenger trains began operating in the 1930s with opulent furnishings, impeccable service, and total comfort, developing over the next decades with sleeping cars, coaches, diners and lounges, dome coaches, and dome diners, unique to Union Pacific. [3]

4.
1959: Pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton produced the syrup for Coca Cola in Atlanta in 1886. Marketing for the drink began immediately with coupons and souvenir fans, calendars, clocks, urns, and other novelties depicting the trademark. Coca Cola’s first advertisement appeared in 1895, featuring Boston actress Hilda Clark. By World War II, Coke was bottled in 44 countries on both sides of the conflict. From the mid-1940s through 1960, the number of countries with bottling operations nearly doubled. In 1955, the company introduced varying sizes of bottles. Metal cans were not available until after 1960. Campaign slogans include the 1929 “Pause that Refreshes,” “It’s the Refreshing Thing to Do” in 1936, and 1944’s “Global High Sign.” The 1950s produced “Sign of Good Taste,” “Be Really Refreshed,” and “Go Better Refreshed.” [3]

5.
1969: Panasonic was founded in 1918, selling duplex lamp sockets in Japan, expanding rapidly to other areas. By 1961 the company began producing televisions for an American market. In 1962, television started transmitting via satellite, allowing for real-time images changing the industry. In the mid-1960s, television manufacturers competed to make the smallest set.

6.
1932: Parents started giving children pacifiers around 1800. Concern for the way thumbsucking and other such activities impacted physical and social development prompted adults to use such contraptions as the Baby Alice Thumb Guard.