entertainment

THE YEAR 2000 PREDICTED

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

What would the world be like in that far-distant year of 2000? Hard to believe, but apparently everything will be powered by electricity – which, of course, will be transmitted through air.

One of the more interesting evenings in early 1906 Santa Rosa was the presentation by “the Wizard of Electricity” Reno B. Welbourn, a popular science speaker on the Lyceum and Chautauqua lecture circuits. What he demonstrated were machines that are toys today and principles which now are shown at high school science fairs, but in 1906, this was all gee-whiz stuff.

The review that appeared in the Press Democrat was skimpy, but a fuller description of “In the Year 2000” appeared in the Aug. 6, 1910 Nebraska State Journal. Welbourn blew a whistle into a microphone to power a light bulb; used an early version of the fax machine to transmit a picture of the President; and what was probably the dramatic highlight of the show, used a magnesium flare to simulate the sun, powering a solar cell to drive a motor, likely similar to this model Stirling engine. Not that the future would be a utopia; Welbourn also demonstrated weaponry, including a noiseless gun equipped with a silencer, and showed how explosives could be detonated at a distance using a solar cell.

Little of this tech was cutting edge, even in 1906; some inventions were already a decade old or more, such as the photovoltaic selenium cell and the fax (which he probably called a “scanning phototelegraph“). What made the presentation unique was how he tied each demonstration into wireless technology, either radio or Nikola Tesla’s experimental near field power transmission.

The wireless electricity angle never came to pass because the effect didn’t really work beyond laboratory conditions (good demonstration video here) but that wouldn’t be known until years later, and Welbourn can’t be faulted for believing the kinks would be ironed out someday. And Tesla was eventually proven right, in a way; his predictions of a wireless global communications network sounds very much like the real world that came about in the 21st century.

But Welbourn did overreach in his predictions of how all this would be tied together. According to the Nebraska paper, “airships and trains might be driven with power generated miles away and sent through the air…in the future a traveler in the Andes, far away from home, might cook his supper over an electric stove deriving its heat from Niagara power.” The newspaper also reported, “Electricity was generated from sound and a light was made to glow with the force of sound. A motor was driven by the same force. The sound was made by a whistle and an acoustic engine which was in tune with the whistle made the wheels turn. ‘The time will come soon,’ the speaker declared, ‘when a man will play a fiddle on his back porch while the music saws wood.’ The light generated was shown in a small bulb.”

Welbourn was obviously a good speaker, a good scientist, and a man of wit. His lecture also included a demonstration of a water engine (probably an early version of Tesla’s bladeless turbine), and predicted it would be the power generator of the future. But, he reassured readers of the Santa Rosa Republican, “he did not want to create any uneasiness among the wood dealers in Santa Rosa at the present time.”

WIZARD OF ELECTRICITY
Reno B. Welbourn Will Speak Here on Thursday Night

“In the Year 2000” is to be the topic of the lecture in this city on Thursday evening by Reno B. Welbourn. Mr. Welbourn is familiarly known as the “Wizard of Electricity,” and it is said that this effort will be one that will be very attractive and instructive for old and young. It is one of the attractions of the Lyceum course. The lecture will be delivered in the Athenaeum.

“In the Year 2000” is Mr. Welbourn’s greatest work. It was prepared at the request of hundreds of people from all parts of the country. The invariable questions brought forth by the previous efforts, night after night, were: “Why not give is a bit of prophecy, and show us what scientists are doing for the future[?] Why not let us into the secrets of the laboratory that we may cross the borderland of discovery and see in the experimental stage the wonderful things which future generations will be most likely to make practical?” The American people have always craved prophecy. The magazines are full of it. They recognize that all progress depends upon the ability of the people to look ahead and see what is coming. And so it came about that “In the Year 2000” was produced; but it required five years of unremitting labor to do it.

During these five years Mr. Welbourn enlisted the attention of some of the greatest men of science in the world, and was fortunate enough to secure the personal assistance of Nikola Tesla, Lord Kelvin, Sir William Crookes, Signor Marconi, and many others both in this country and Europe. No better testimonial of Mr. Welbourn’s ability and standing could possibly be written. He prophesies that those things will be which must be. He meets the great problems of life face to face and shows, by the most wonderful experiments ever produced on the lyceum stage, how they are going to be solved.

– Press Democrat, January 2, 1906

“TWO WIZARDS IN ONE TOWN”
Welbourn Connects His Name with that of Burbank in Pleasant Manner

Reno B. Welbourn, the wizard of electricty, arrived in Santa Rosa this morning and is spending the afternoon seeing the city, and arranging his outfit for the entertainment this evening.

In speaking on various matters in his room today, he seemed pleased with the fact that he was in the city of Luther Burbank, and ended with the saying, “Two wizards in one town.” Welbourn is a very interesting person to talk with, and is full of the experiences he has had with meeting most of the great scientists of the world. Speaking of the entertainment he stated that since he started on this tour he has been compelled to eliminate many of the numbers of the program as at first announced, but that he has replaced them with numbers that are far superior to the others.

Considerable was said during the conversation about the statement that he would illustrate the burning of water, and he said that this feature of the program would be presented, and that whether it would be the coming fuel or not was not for him to say, though he firmly believes that it will be realized some day. However, he did not want to create any uneasiness among the wood dealers in Santa Rosa at the present time. He is a firm believer in the future of the electric energy and looks forward to the day when it will be the material used for the lights, cooking and heating purposes of the public.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 4, 1906

ELECTRICITY IN YEARS TO COME
An Instructive Lecture Delivered by Reno Welbourn Last Night

There was a large and appreciative audience present at the Athenaeum on Thursday evening when Reno B. Welbourn, “The Wizard of Electricity,” delivered his lecture “In the Year 2000.” The lecture was an illustration of the development of electricity. All of the various uses to which wireless electricity has already been put in the commercial world was shown. Wireless telegraph, telephone, fire and burglar alarms, automatic signals and lights, and the transmission of power were a few of the wonders demonstrated for the benefit of the audience.

The lecturer also explained sound, music, and light power which would run a motor, and numerous other marvels of present day knowledge of electricity which he declared would be worked into practical use in the years to come.

– Press Democrat, January 5, 1906

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WHEN WE ALL MET DOWNTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

This endearing vignette of Saturday nights in 1905 Santa Rosa is a treasure; our local history would be rich if only Press Democrat editor Ernest Finley had spent more time writing such lyric first-hand observations.

Every other year or so, the PD produced a promotional section designed to be mailed outside the area, describing all the wonders of Sonoma county in hopes of luring new residents and businesses. Wedged between crop reports, glowing descriptions of prosperous industries and praise for local churches (and pictures of the more popular saloons) were a few thumbnails of places and characters such as French Louie, the frog king, who lived near Sebastopol’s Lake Jonive (“strangers will take notice that it is pronounced ‘Ho-nee-va,'” the PD noted, adding a syllable lost today), and events like these weekly downtown shopping concerts.

For those not tempted merely by brass bands on the courthouse balcony, Finley offered another item revealing that local women and girls didn’t wear bonnets during these outings, which would’ve been considered scandalous elsewhere. “In their ‘summer-girl’ garments, and without hats or bonnets, your Santa Rosa women reveal the quintessence of feminine charm,” leered a visitor from the hinterlands.

OH! LISTEN TO THE BAND!
Summer Saturday Nights’ Diversion In Sonoma County’s Capital

Saturday evenings in Santa Rosa are bright and lively throughout the summer and the early autumn months. Five evenings each week the stores and markets close at 6 o’clock; but on Saturdays, the doors are open until midnight or thereabouts, and the town does its belated shopping.

Summer and autumn are the seasons when the population of the town is greatest. All the factories are busy; those in the fruit-packing business employ at least a thousand people at that time. Of Saturday evenings these draw their weekly wage, as likewise the employees of the tanneries, the woolen mills, the wineries and all the other factories. Most of them are relieved from duty an hour earlier than usual. Then working clothes are laid aside, and “Sunday best” is donned without waiting for Sunday to come. After the evening meal, it is the custom for all the family to go “down town” together. No matter if there is no need of shopping (although generally there is), the head of the household, “and the missus and the kids,” all want to go and listen to the band.

Each Saturday evening in the summer and the early fall, Parks’ band gives a concert on the north balcony of the Court House, which overlooks the junction of Fourth and Mendocino streets. These thoroughfares are thronged for several blocks and so is the Court House park; and around the square, on Exhange avenue and Hinton avenue to Third street, promenaders fill the sidewalks, the streets are blocked with vehicles, and the stores and markets busy with buyers.

The concert program is generally of ten numbers, varied to please a wide range of musical tastes. Always first there is a military march, frequently one of Sousa’s or Pettee’s. Next, a waltz and a polka, or sometimes a schottische. Then an old ballad tune, a fantasie, a medley or a potpourri; a solo for concert or trombone or piccolo, something classic from Wagner or Mozart or Mendelssohn, or perhaps the “Anvil Chorus” from “Il Trovatore”; then, by way of contrast a bit of rag-time. Always, at the end, a frisky galop, giving a homeward hurry to the heels of the multitude.

Parks’ band is one of the “institutions” of Santa Rosa. It was organized in the ’70s by S. L. Parks, who is still its leader. Few towns of Santa Rosa’s size have so good a band, or one so large. Besides the customary reeds and brasses of the ordinary town band, it musters a saxophone, a French horn, an oboe and bassoon, and kettledrums with all their accessories. Its players are all “readers at sight,” and most of them solo performers. This band is frequently called upon to play for parades and other events at a distance, and acquits itself creditably in comparison with musical organization from the great cities. The people at home appreciate Parks’ band and are proud of it.

The Saturday-evening concerts are given under the patronage of Santa Rosa merchants, and the courtesy is an acceptable one to the townspeople, who enjoy doing their shopping to music; also to the promenaders, and to the children who frisk and frolic and dance on the Court House lawns upon the only night when such trespass is permitted. But before the hands of the Court House clock in the dome have drawn together in token of midnight, the music ceases, the bright lights fade, and the shoppers, the promenaders and the children all go home, to sleep against the dawn of Sunday morning.

– Press Democrat promotional insert, November, 1905

Hatless Girls

“The prettiest sight imaginable, and one that I have seldom seen outside of California, is the promenade of your beautiful girls and young women on the streets of evenings without any sort of head covering,” said an Eastern visitor who was watching the throng and listening to the band concert one Saturday evening in this city. “To my mind it is one of the neatest, most picturesque and fascinating customs that the fair sex ever adopted, and it seems to have reached the acme of development right here in Santa Rosa. In their ‘summer-girl’ garments, and without hats or bonnets, your Santa Rosa women reveal the quintessence of feminine charm.”

– Press Democrat promotional insert, November, 1905

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BAN PENNY PALACE PORN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Sunday funnies weren’t the only entertainment threatening the morals of youth; penny arcade peep shows led directly to a life of crime and prison, according to this 1905 Santa Rosa Republican editorial.

It’s a strange commentary for a couple of reasons. There apparently were no peep shows in Santa Rosa at the time, so the issue was only of concern to small town moralists liking to tut-tut over big city vice. It was also old news; the Hearst papers had indeed made a stink about peep shows, but that was six years earlier. Was this cribbed from “The Big Book of Op/Eds” to fill a couple of column inches on a slow news day?

These peep shows are an interesting topic, however, and worth a digression, here. The images were viewed on a Mutoscope, where the customer turned a crank to rotate a Rolodex-like drum with flip-card photographs. (Those primitive machines are not to be confused with Edison’s Kinetoscope of the same 1890s vintage, which had the images on a loop of fragile 35mm film threaded through rollers.) Although Mutoscopes also served up minute-long vignettes of current news, comedy shtick, and sporting events from before the turn of the century, Mutoscopes were most often associated with saucy mini-dramas with titles such as, “The Way French Bathing Girls Bathe,” “The Dairy Maid’s Revenge,” and “How Bridget Served the Salad Undressed.”

The ongoing controversy about the Mutoscope content was perfectly captured in the 1905 etching, “Fun, One Cent” by artist John Sloan, seen at right (click to enlarge). Here young women, not boys, are gawking at titillating images; the Hearst papers also complained that even small children were able to watch the little movies, and as seen here, stepstools were available for those too short to reach the viewer. An excellent paper, “Children at the Mutoscope,” describes more about the scandalous scene portrayed:


“Another girl wears a look of mild shock, while three others peer into eyepieces. A predominant tone of amusement, however, is created by the broad smile worn by a laughing woman at the center of the image. She watches not the naughty peep-show but the face of her shocked companion. She appears to be an experienced older viewer introducing schoolgirls to the arcade. Sloan’s representation is not one of panic or indignation, but of almost-quaint celebration, relating a pedestrian pleasure gleaned from an entertainment that is only mildly risque. Fun for a penny is, if not altogether harmless, part of everyday urban life”

The rugged Mutoscope viewers remained popular at least until the WWII era, and were hauled around to even to the most rural parts the nation by carnivals and traveling shows, giving three generations of Americans their first peek at “dirty” moving pictures. Perhaps the occasional circus or fair that visited Santa Rosa had a sideshow tent with a few worn Mutoscopes, where the local boys and girls could pay a penny, crowd around the machine, and watch “The Corset Model.”

One of the San Francisco papers has started a crusade against the so-called “penny palaces” where indecent moving pictures are exhibited and children – boys and girls – are permitted to go unrestricted by their parents and drink the poison that starts young lives on the downward path of crime. The United States Government has some very strict laws about the use of the mails for questionable literature and pictures, and now and again some bold offender pays the penalty. There should be just as much and in fact more care exercised by the authorities in permitting such pictures to be exhibited in the arcades in the various cities of the State where such institutions seem to flourish. If restrictive laws are not made and enforced society will in the end pay the penalty, for every precaution taken in the interest of training the children of the land into clean, wholesome-minded, useful citizens is so much saved from the prison maintenance account.

– Santa Rosa Republican op/ed, May 11, 1905

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