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The Drift of Things: David Goodman Croly's Glimpses of the Future (1888)
A work of futurology intended to be read in 1888 and judged in 2000.
The book takes the form of dialog, a Q and A between a statesman, publicist, voter, churchman, social reformer, ethnologist, linguist, economist, merchant, trader, journalist, Nevadian (who speaks of irrigation), and Sir Oracle. He augurs that the jet-setting age will soon be upon us: “If the aerostat should become as cheap for travellers as the sailing vessel, why may not man become migratory, like the birds, occupying the more mountainous regions and sea-coast in summer and more tropical climes in winter.” On the relation of the sexes, he laments — despite the civilizational benefits of monogamous marriage — that “we have promiscuity, polyandry, and polygamy right here in New York”, and suspects that these practices may one day become more socially tolerated. The text initially appears to be “one of the most fearless documents in the archive of nineteenth century abolitionist writing”, claims Mark Sussman, for it argued that multiracial people can be “superior, mentally, physically, and morally, to those pure or unmixed”.
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