This is an entertaining and fairly level headed “what the future will bring” piece. It covers the promise and perils of a pretty diverse set of topics: nuclear power, space travel, power transmission, aviation, food production, urban growth, race relations and even (sort-of) outsourcing.

Science Never Stops

The world has made vast strides in the last 75 years; even greater triumphs lie ahead if mankind has the courage to go on with the job.

By Harland Manchester

Illustrations by John Gaydos

MAN, standing upon the eminence of 1947 and gazing into the future, may well be dazzled and also perplexed by the promise of science to redeem his world. New discoveries and improved techniques on a hundred fronts present golden chances for a richer and fairer existence—if man has the sense, the honesty and the guts to seize and exploit them for the good of all.

Science is a blank check, and this is no time to be niggardly in filling it out. There are, of course, the doubters, like the 19th-century patent commissioner who wanted to close his office because nothing remained to be invented. If these timid souls look about them, they will see men and women who were living when there were no telephones, electric lights, automobiles, airplanes, radios, motion pictures, antitoxin serums or antiseptic surgery, to mention a few advances of the last 75 years.

This is pretty awesome. In the 30’s the citizens of Gainesville Texas decided to put on an all volunteer community circus. Hundreds of average citizens spent all year training for various very elaborate and skillful acts. It looks like it was amazing. According to this site, the circus had it’s ups and downs and but lasted in one form or another until 1958.

World’s Strangest Circus PRODUCED BY AMATEURS

By A. Morton Smith

LEARNING to turn somersaults from the back of a cantering horse, to hang by one’s teeth high in the air, or to run and dance on a tight wire after the manner of circus performers, is not necessarily limited to those who have spent their lives under the big tops, or those possessed of physical development and endurance particularly fitting them to excel in this field. That the many and varied arts of the circus may be mastered by any normal person who has the will to engage in extensive practice, has been conclusively demonstrated by a unique organization in the little city of Gainesville, Texas.