18. A Gilded Age novel predicted American society in the 21st century somewhat inaccurately
In 1888 a journalist in Massachusetts published a science fiction novel entitled Looking Backward: 2000 – 1887, which was based in the year 2000. It became to its time the third best-selling novel of novel of American history, surpassing the works of Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and others. Only Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, sold more copies of the works which had preceded it. It presented American history by looking backwards from the year in which it was set, 2000, using a protagonist who fell asleep in 1887 and awoke over a century later, in an America which had become a socialist utopia. Over 150 Bellamy clubs – named for the book’s author, Edward Bellamy – formed to discuss the significance of the book.
In Bellamy’s utopia, America’s cities and towns are sprinkled with public kitchens where anyone can eat whenever they wished, gratis. Rather than money, everyone is provided with an equal amount of credit, used to obtain goods and services. Private property is non-existent, all property being nationalized. Criminals are treated medically rather than jailed. The only employer is the nation itself, and those employed in dangerous positions work less hours for the same pay. Bellamy used the word Nationalism to refer to socialism, and the clubs which formed to discuss and implement his views were known as Nationalist clubs. As an aside, Bellamy’s cousin and fellow socialist Francis Bellamy was the author of the Pledge of Allegiance.