1896 marked a major anniversary for the city of Cambridge. Fifty years before, in 1846, Cantabrigians had decided to incorporate as a city rather than a town, and in 1896 residents were taking stock of the past 50 years and anticipating what the next 50 might bring. Anniversaries are often a time to look backward and forward, and the people of Cambridge took its opportunities at the 50th, 100th and 150th anniversaries of incorporation.
A Cambridge Tribune article recounts an 1896 speech by local business owner Charles D. Rice to the Cambridge Economy Club women’s night on “Cambridge in 1950.” Forecasting just over 50 years into the future, Rice predicted that Cambridge would be a place where municipal government worked for the populace, but also “where the people will enjoy an individualism which will guard that cornerstone of all American institutions – personal liberty.” This emphasis on personal freedom and what Rice called “the individual uplift of the population” reflects the late 19th century emphasis on rugged individualism and the connection between one’s economic success and personal character, morality and work ethic.
At the tail end of the Gilded Age, when robber barons made their fortunes by exploiting workers and creating a system of vast economic inequality, Rice described the Cambridge of 1950 as one in which “the solution of the labor problem … will be in the establishment of fairness and recognition in dealing with the workman. A degree of profit sharing will be in vogue and men will be recognized for intrinsic value not pecuniary worth.” Rice also predicted that “Cambridge, in the next fifty years will have discovered the proper method of dealing with pauperism and destitution.”
Rice also believed that mid-20th century Cambridge would continue to be a beacon of educational excellence at the university level and in its public schools, which he saw as the means of ensuring opportunities for those born here as well as immigrants from abroad. The city itself would be an oasis of green, with “many parks, riverways, and shaded streets,” and workers in 1950, freed from the oppression of thankless industrial labor, would be able to enjoy these open spaces with their families and communities.
As Rice was speaking at the Economy Club’s women’s night, he had some specific predictions about the Cambridge woman in 1950:
“She will be a student of the household, creating a perfected inner life whose potent influence will be reflected in public affairs. She will not be a bloomer girl, but a girl blooming with health. Not mannish but mannerly. She will be a creature of skirtly grace and draped modesty. In fact the woman of Cambridge in 1950 will be the instigator of the city’s progress, the guardian of its goodness, the trustee of its happiness.”
Rice’s predictions about Cambridge women of the future reflect his society’s growing concerns about the muddying of gender roles and the dangers of women becoming too “mannish.” The Industrial Revolution had greatly affected the work and home lives of American women as well as men, and the kinds of labor that late 19th century women either wanted to or needed to perform gave rise to fear that women’s perceived ability to provide a moral compass through their activities with the home and family would be compromised. Unlike the “bloomer girls” whose attire allowed them to ride bikes and engage in other leisure activities without restriction, the Cambridge woman of the future would understand that the special role assigned to her by her gender would enable her to protect the morality and the progress of the city.
The view from 1946
If Rice’s predictions in 1896 reflect his society’s preoccupation with industrialization and its affects, those forecast by the Cambridge Chronicle at the city’s centennial illustrate just how much the World Wars shaped residents’ hopes for progress over the second half of the 20th century. In an article published in 1946, the Chronicle’s editors begin by stating confidently that “no worldwide conflict will take place during the next two generations. If such an assumption is not justified by events, it is more than likely that any people interested in celebrating Cambridge’s sesquicentennial [150th anniversary, in 1996] would have to carry on their celebrations among the city’s blackened ruins.” Written just a year after the end of World War II and its culmination in the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this account reflects a desire to eliminate international conflict and an optimism that the scientific and humanitarian advances of the war era would be put to use in the betterment of humanity in Cambridge and beyond.
According to the Chronicle, the Cambridge of 1996 would be greatly improved by a shift to a metropolitan model of government in which the city would share resources and responsibilities with other cities and towns in Greater Boston. A more equitable tax system would spread the cost of services over the region and take the tax burden off of urban areas such as Cambridge for “the costs of education, health, and welfare.” The benefits of a regional government laid out in this account would have been greatly influenced by the realignment of national and international systems in the postwar period, as well as the creation of international organizations such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
The Chronicle also predicted that advances in transportation in the second half of the 20th century would be even greater than those that took place during the first half of the century. “Helicopter bus services [will] bring industrial and office workers into the central portion of the Boston region from cities as far away as Worcester in a matter of minutes,” and in 1996, “it is now possible to connect by air shuttle with transoceanic superliners and ramjets within a short walk of one’s own home.”
In fact, the Chronicle was sure that both streamlined transportation to other parts of the region and a return to hyperlocality would occur by 1996. A visitor to the Cambridge of the future “would find that it is now possible to walk to work at one of the new atomic factories, to do all of one’s shopping at the shopping center a few blocks distant, and to find play facilities for children in all parts of the city.” The equitable distribution of resources for work, commerce and recreation would mean that residents in all areas could enjoy more leisure time with much less of their days devoted to long-distance travel. And with the streamlining of transportation and the implementation of a regional form of government, Cambridge’s population was predicted to decrease dramatically – from 100,000 in 1946 to just 60,000 in 1996 – as residents moved to the suburbs. This shrinking population would alleviate overcrowding and eliminate the push to convert all of the city’s green spaces into industrial or residential developments.
In the minds of the Chronicle editors in 1946, “living is more leisurely, thoughtful, and pleasurable [in the Cambridge of 1996] than it could possibly have been in the middle of the century.” The city, like the world at large, had learned from its involvement in the global conflicts of the past several decades, and was now entering a new era in which a restored sense of humanity – aided by scientific advancements – would reinvent systems of work, leisure and government.
The view from 1996
Although the actual Cambridge of 1996 looked different in many ways from the predictions made in 1946, the Chronicle editors nonetheless issued their own forecast about what the city would look like at its 200th anniversary in 2046. Taken from “Toward a Sustainable Future,” a report by the Cambridge Planning Board and Community Development Department, the Chronicle’s predictions hinge on the idea that Cambridge of the future will be “a vibrant, stable population of diverse races, cultures, and viewpoints [with] strengthened and stabilized neighborhoods which retain their distinctive flavor.”
Similar to 1946’s prediction, the forecast for 2046 puts advances in transportation among the most significant trends of the first half of the 21st century. In theory, the creation of an MBTA Circumferential Ring line would connect the “spokes” of multiple rail lines, greatly decreasing travel time and lessening the population pressures on cities such as Cambridge as locations farther afield became more accessible to commuters. The Chronicle was more realistic in its predictions for car culture in 1996 than it had been a half-century earlier, however: “Cambridge in 2046 may be more walkable and pedestrian-friendly than it is today,” with more room and safety for cyclists with expansion of bicycle lanes, but “cars will remain an integral part of city life.”
Of course, 2046 has not yet arrived, and there are still two decades for the predictions of 1996 to come to fruition. On one count, however, the Chronicle was wrong. Citing the emerging idea of “home-based companies and ‘telecommuting’ to the office via computer and modem,” the Chronicle predicted that “getting out and exchanging ideas with other people is a major basis of this community,” and that “people will get bored working at home very quickly.” The ability to exchange ideas, whether around work or in other areas, remains a core aspect of Cambridge’s identity, but advances in technology and communications have enabled these exchanges to take place in the virtual as well as the physical realm.
What, then, should we take from these predictions about future Cambridge? Although the articles of 1896, 1946 and 1996 forecast different advancements and priorities for the city, each is rooted in the immediate past experiences of their time, and tell us much more about the hopes and aspirations of those making the predictions than about what the city might actually be like 50 years in the future. In projecting an image of Cambridge as they hope it might be, those forecasting its future are, in reality, exposing important truths about the Cambridge of the present.
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