Will the year 2000 be filled with wing railroad car or polluted air ? Push - push button lunches or the outset of World War III ? These were just some of the predictions made by fourth grade kids in 1976 , who had trouble decide if the future was going to be satiate with gamey - tech gadget or nuclear war . Or maybe both .
The July 4 , 1976 edition of the Grand Prairie Daily News in Texas published letter written by fourth course child that were addressed to the twelvemonth 2000 . Getting American kids to writeletters to the futurein the mid-1970s was an unbelievably democratic practice session . These exercise give us a peek at not only the technical school - satiate dreams of tomorrow , but a country shin with unemployment , pollution , and political corruption .
https://gizmodo.com/a-new-great-depression-and-ladies-on-the-moon-1970s-mi-512621236
Below are eighteen letters written by those fourth grader in Texas . All spelling errors have been hold back due to adorability .
Coming Soon : World War III
I am in th forth degree at Lamar Elementary .
Our homes have electricity now . Airplanes are coming by the week .
Our communicating is getting good every sidereal day . Satilites are put to work fine . Pictures in color or shameful and lily-white look fine with these thing in space .
Our space and areo - place divisions are ready for World War III coming soon .
unfeignedly ,
Billy McPherson
Shortages , Pollution , and Trash Everywhere
I do n’t know how it will be in twenty - four age , so I ’ll just opine .
There will probably be a shortage of everything , pollution in the air , codswallop on the streets and in K by curbs everywhere . I trust not . I trust we all get together and clean up the world .
Darla Moore
Meal Pills and “ Lazor ” Guns
In the twelvemonth 2000 I think thay kids will be instruct at home on their T.V. The regular army will be using lazor guns . auto will be like spaceship and the strreetlights will be on foresightful tall poles . Another means of conveyance will be push buttons . Select where you want to go , promote a clit , pace through a doorway , and you ’ll be where you desire to be .
Food will be in tablet form , put on weewee on the tablet and your solid food will be on your plate .
Sincerely yours ,
R.C. Brown
Push - Button Meals and Snap - Finger Transportation
In the year 2000 , when you go on a vacation , hoi polloi will be going to all the planets . you could push a button and you ’ve had your luncheon . Same with breakfast and supper . alternatively of walk people will be fly . you may also snap your fingers and be somewhere . Instead of small fry going to school day , at home in your way , there is a tumid loudspeaker system to separate you your lesson . It ’s sport .
Sincereluy ,
Lisa Angell
“ Even 6 Year Olds Can Drive ”
The class 2000 is going to be like this peradventure — alternatively of having cars , everybody will push weapons platform called a aero - phonograph recording with with push clit controls . Even 6 year olds can drive . When you desire to run through agitate a button labeling what you want to eat . There will be no teachers , but we will still have to come to class . We will have TV ’s for teacher . A human instructor will be in a another room saying the words . And when we are bad out instructor psushes a trivial button and tells us to bend over and a arm with a plug-in spank us .
Judy Touts
New Things , Different Things
It is the class 1976 . In the retiring four years we have formulate novel things . We have style of getting communicatio by what we call radios . Our radio send us news from other ciities . We also have a tv set that also turn over us news .
We have many other things like newspapers , aeroplane , vigil , drill , hammers , saws , wrenches and other thing .
In your years , you ’ll likely make inventions and have different thing than we have .
Your friend ,
Dennis Norrod
inhabit on Pluto
Its a right class for everybody in 1976 . I wonder if its a good twelvemonth in 2000 . 1976 is America ’s 200th birthday .
Here in Texas there is crazy conditions so if you want to go crazy live in Texas . I ’d like to know where you know because I ’ll never know now . Our schools are O.K. I imagine . I wish well I new how yours is . Oh and about where where you live you may even live on Pluto for all I roll in the hay . Well have to be saying so long now . Goodbye .
Bret Mullins
Spaceships Instead of cable car
I remember 1976 was a good yr . I wish you could live in that time . I wish I could live on in your metre right now . I question what it is like to go in the year 2000 ? I enquire if there is spaceships instead of cars ? I wonder if you’re able to be able to populate in space ?
Brian McRay
Bionic limb and No Gas
May I think at what your life is like ? In the year 2000 , your doctors might discover a direction to make bionic arms and legs so that if you have an fortuity and you recede an branch , or a pegleg the doctors can replace it with a new one .
There might not be any gasoline leave in the world the way people are using it now . The only room to go somewhere would be to walk or rag a bike .
multitude will look different than we do now , and they will discover a way to live on the moon . There wo n’t be any defilement . The globe will be a beautiful home to live , then everyone will be felicitous and go to churches and no one will be bad .
Cindy Wade
journey to School by Rocketship
I trust you are savour your new menage on Satrun . I am wondering what is it is like in the year 2000 . But I ’ve given it a lot of opinion . I cogitate they will go to school and everywhere in a rcocket ship . They wo n’t eat nutrient like we do . You will toast your food . You will live on the moon . There will be no fierceness , smoking and cars .
Well goodbye .
Stan Tallent
football game on Rocket Sleds
I would like to hold up in the year 2000 with you . I bet you play football on rocket sleigh with bumper . I look auto can go at higher speeds and are ascertain remotely so masses can relax and jaunt at the same clip . car will not run on flatulence but on air . you could plausibly live on Mercury , Pluto , Mars and Jupiter I play efore you go to sleep you pinch up to a machine and learn while you sleep . Well . I wish I could live with you in the twelvemonth 2000 .
Brian Lewis
schooling ’s Out Forever
I conceive that in the twelvemonth 2000 children wo n’t have to go to school . I think that they will have computers with a program for someone to stand on so when you abuse in it and maltreat out you acknowledge everything your suppose to learn in schooling . If this is so you must be lucky . I call up instead of cycle that they will have machines so that when you crowd a clit you go somewhere and all you have to do is direct . I recall that we will probably exist on the lunar month , venus , mars , etc . You must have a lot of play , but I care get the manner I do now with the people I love .
Darla Duncan
Nuclear Power Instead of Gas
I call back in the twelvemonth 2000 stacks of problems we ’ve had in the past will have been figure out . I think that in the year 2000 instead of gas being used we ’ll probly be using nueclear power .
I hope that it will be just will be a best populace .
Elvira Guerra
Hydro - Cars
I think in the yr 2000 cars will be able to run into body of water and blow like a gravy holder . gravy boat , carpenter’s plane , cars and trains will operate on melodic phrase and we will heat rest home with lignite coal . machine will black market on atomic fuel . You will be able to push a button and you threshold will open up and your piece of work will be done for you .
Dennis Greening
act Sidewalks and Houses in the Sky
In the twelvemonth 2000 1 call up thai automobile can fly in the line as fast as they require to without using gas . you could get whatever you require , include candy . house will be way up in the sky . you’re able to have robot to do the housekeeping for the mother . rather of walking , the the pavement will move for you .
Laurie Smith
Guaranteed Income From the authorities
I think in the year 2000 the earth will be much more polluted than it is . I also think that we will have no more shoal , and cars can go as fast as they desire without get a ticket .
The government will pay every mortal as much as they desire without them having to sour . I also retrieve that we will be out of energy for memory or anything that use fuel in the year 2000 .
Yolanda Tejeda
Living Under the sea
How are you ? Fine ? 2000 might be inhabit under the sea . What might be happen in the yr of 2000.Maybe they have cavalry instead of car , truck and plane .
They might tantalize horses to the grocery and by me food for them . They might have spaceships over there . What else might be happening in the twelvemonth 2000 . There is something else happening there than that . They might ride sawhorse to lick and go to restaurant over there when they are at . They might even have go-cart to go with horses .
Elida Buenrosta
“ I Just check You Out On My New Computer ”
How are you ? Well that ’s a silly interrogative because I just check you out on my raw computing machine . It say you are feeling O.K. It works almost as dads , and we have a translatable computer .
I push one clitoris and my bath is ready . You should see our robot . He works on the computer and makes certain everything is blend in suave have my own space coupe that go at the speed of light . My daddy has an electric boat paddle . All he has to do is agitate a clit and I ’ve had it . To make a tenacious story scant , living here is far out !
Ronny McCoy
Being an American fourth grader in 1976 must ’ve been unearthly . President Nixon had resigned just two years to begin with , the horrors of the Vietnam War were still fresh in everyone ’s mind , and the environs was inreally direful bod .
All the while , people were trying to get excited for the American Bicentennial — a solemnisation done through gritted teeth by many people who were disillusion with the direction of the nation .
American kidskin historically have tended to be passably affirmative . But when everything around you is turning to shit , it ’s hard not to feel like America ’s best days are behind us . Many of these Kyd were clearly endeavor to bet on the promising side , but it ’s easy to see why their letters featured as much pessimism about the future of the nation as they did skyrocket and lazors .
example : by fourth grad educatee Lisa Gilvar in 1976 and scanned from theTricentennial Report
1970spaleofuture
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