Businesses Embrace Futurism
For the mid-twentieth century it is important to consider the changes science and production had on society and the average consumer. Streamlining of the assembly line, the introduction and maturation of plastics, the realization of previous theoretical technologies and the changes to the supply and demand equation allowed for unprecedented growth in manufacturing and the American economy. None of those would likely have been possible without the advancements in communications and transportation technologies.[1] Another aspect to consider along with the changes in advertising and industrial production is the effect of the post-war baby boom. The census data reports the United States population at 140 million in 1944 and increased to 200 million in 1969.[2] Not only did this shift give companies a constant stream of projected growth but it also provides a significant target audience in children, who were particularly susceptible to the flash of artistic futurist images during the height of the space race.[3]
Of the few significant scholarly works which consider visions of the future, the primary focus on futurist images is given to the interwar years because those visions represent the beginnings of new products, most particularly of vehicles, and marketing techniques which would later be instilled in the American experience.[4] However, those works focus on the initial change and not the reception of the citizenry which does little to characterize the sentiment of the age in regards to progress. Think tanks, such as the RAND Corporation and the Stanford Research Institute, attempted to tackle social issues by considering Cold War threats and the current state of technology.[5] Polls conducted by the RAND Corporation show attempts to evaluate and quantify the contemporary interest in new technologies such as home television. The evidence shows that despite the push in advertising many people brushed aside such gadgetry as a fleeting trend.[6] While many of the more recognizable images associated with Cold War futurism were created and marketed before Sputnik, the fervor of the space race encouraged businesses to push a marketable reality of aerospace science. This vision included distance travel, extraterrestrial settlement and large manned teams working on projects in space. Both the publicity surrounding the space race and the consumer marketing resulted in a significant increase in manufactured interest from the public.[7]
Public Relations efforts during the space race are largely responsible for the issues with historical memory of the period. The promotion of NASA's work, as well as the work of adjacent engineering, aerospace, and defense industries was misleading, as the reality of advanced mathematics and technical jargon was uninteresting from a promotional perspective. That is why it remains important to examine the marketing of consumer product businesses and forms of popular media which utilized futurism as a tool during the space age. The capability of increased production in addition to national goals set during the Cold War, prompted a push for consumers to constantly be buying new products. Advertisements encouraged people to embrace progress and their future selves through material goods and services. The 1940s saw a significant increase in the presentation of space as the next area to be explored. It was presented as adventure and an opportunity to bestow glory on oneself and the nation.[8] From the early days of the space program, scientists and engineers knew space travel would be very different from the fiction presented to the public, which promoted the potentiality of a future life of leisure, luxury, adventure and novelty. However, it is important to consider not only their recruitment ads and the imposition of the view of space research, exploration and colonization but how other businesses supported that effort and capitalized on the boom in that manufactured interest. Those other businesses using space as a theme for tomorrow affected the impact people believed space would have on their immediate future. The phrase “we were promised…” can be seen in countless iterations of scholarship, personal commentary, and articles in regards to the space race.[9]
Singular examples of advertisements which show a particular viewpoint are not enough to consider the impact of futurism, even when those examples result in patterns and trends. Many futurist designs presented in popular media from the middle of the twentieth century show concerns over safety, environment, consumerism and wastefulness.[10] The amount of advertising for companies and technology to entice new scientists and fiscal support were not enough even to make an overarching commentary on the era. If anything it gives more weight to the idea that the aerospace industry used marketing as a tool to manufacture support for technological advances because the facts of their profession could not actually gain enough support alone.[11]
Similar to present day entrepreneurs expressing their interest, both intellectually and with financial investment, in the potential of leisure space travel to Mars, significant public figures emerged whose connection to the space industry only came out of the mutual interest of technological progress. Walt Disney was one of the most prominent individuals who not only publicly supported the space program but made significant steps in directly marketing the real and fictionalized ideas of progress to the American public. In 1955, Disney partnered with German aerospace engineer, Werner Von Braun, to produce a televised docuseries, educating the public on space research.[12] Despite an elementary picture of the history of science relating to rocket technology, comical cartoons, and the typical futurist promises of adventure, the Disney-produced documentary, "Man in Space,” actually provides some hard science which remains the issue NASA’s engineers had when communicating with journalists.[13] However, due to the wide audience and clever framing of the programing the average viewer didn’t feel hindered the way they would have by reading the technical explanations of the typical NASA scientist. Von Braun concludes the first program with the hopeful message, “man has taken his first great stride forward in the conquest of space. His next goal will be the exploration of the Moon, then the planets, and the infinite universe beyond.”[14] While an objective viewer may consider the documentary dull in comparison to other examples of futurism in marketing it must be noted that Disneyland opened a few months after the premier of “Man in Space.” Tomorrowland, the ride Rocket to the Moon and Monsanto’s House of the Future which opened two years later, aided in altering the view of the synonymy of space and entertainment.[15] Businesses such as Monsanto, associated with the agricultural industry, used futurism to demonstrate how new plastics would be utilized in tomorrow’s communities.
Futurist visions in the 1950s and 1960s presented a false reality of what scientists already knew space exploration and research would look like. Businesses utilized imagery of workers in large teams conducting research experiments in colonies despite the knowledge that a consensus had long since been made that single manned missions or small teams were all that would have been feasible to send to space. Additionally, there were opponents of manned flights altogether. Lee DuBridge, the President of CalTech was highly critical of manned spaceflight arguing it to not be a justifiable expense when the effort should be on robotics missions.[16] Companies used artistic and exaggerated imagery of space to not only put their products in the context of tomorrow but to contribute to the interest of technology consumerism. Such companies include brands such as Van Norman industries, Thokol, Stafoam, Acronca, Melpar, Lockheed, Goodrich, and Hoffman electronics.
The 1962 and 1964 World’s Fairs, hosted in Seattle and then New York City, heavily focused on technology and consumer goods being marketed as necessities for the world of tomorrow. Along with Disney and Monsanto Company, other notable industry leads, such as General Electric, Ford, and Pepsi-Cola presented exhibits with futurism at its core.
Newness in technology and futurism are commonly marketed as a transformative force bringing, “freedom, democracy, and by implication, enlightenment.”[17] However, this message primarily came from technologists and innovators selling their brand of science before the Cold War. By the 1950s businesses regularly utilized futurism to sell their products. They were also investing in brand loyalty, future nostalgia, and consumer growth which would allow them to have stock in future endeavors if space colonization became a reality. The vision consisted of a utopian leisurely future where technology would one day take over contemporary daily struggles. After the Moon landing and the images of the earth from the outside were presented, the futurist images heavily turned back to earth showing concerns, above all, over how to make daily life better for American citizens. Government contracts were given to businesses with the hope of renovating public spaces and services to fit the image of the ideal society, and to encourage the general populace to look forward to tomorrow.[18]
[1] Communications was facilitated by in home marketing tools such as the radio and television. Additionally, changing concepts of space were facing exponential growth with communications speeds and the ability to physically move faster over distances with automobiles and other transportation innovations. Marita Sturken, “Mobilities of Time and Space;” and Lynn Spiegel, “Portable TV: Studies in Domestic Space Travels.”
[2] "Years of U.S. Consumer Spending," 21-25.
[2] "Years of U.S. Consumer Spending," 21-25.
[3] See Megan Prelinger, Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962, (New York: Blast Books, 2010) and others.
[4] Corn, Yesterday’s Tomorrows.
[5] Kaya Tolon, “Future Studies: A New Social Science Rooted in Cold War Strategic Thinking,” 45-62.
[6] Langdon Winner, “Sow’s Ears from Silk Purses: The Strange Alchemy of Technological Visionaries,” in Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies, ed. Marita Sturken, Douglas Thomas, and Sandra J. Bal-Rokeach (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) 35-38.
[7]David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek, Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014), 1-15.
[7]David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek, Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014), 1-15.
[8] For more see Youth section in Marketed Audiences Page.
[9] From 2003-2004, futurist Arthur Radebaugh's work, which is featured on this thesis, was exhibited in a traveling show entitled, "Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised."
[10] Joseph Corn and Brian Horrigan, Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 33-87. Corn and Horrigan’s work emphasizes 1930s and 1940s images of futurist city planning and streamline design for prosperous communities. However, they also provide examples of futurist images influenced by wartimes and atomic culture such as Popular Mechanics features of military transportation and Robert C. Scull and Jacques Martial’s atom bomb house.
[9] From 2003-2004, futurist Arthur Radebaugh's work, which is featured on this thesis, was exhibited in a traveling show entitled, "Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised."
[10] Joseph Corn and Brian Horrigan, Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 33-87. Corn and Horrigan’s work emphasizes 1930s and 1940s images of futurist city planning and streamline design for prosperous communities. However, they also provide examples of futurist images influenced by wartimes and atomic culture such as Popular Mechanics features of military transportation and Robert C. Scull and Jacques Martial’s atom bomb house.
[11] For more see Marketing and the Public Opinion page in NASA section.
[12] “Man in Space” from “Disneyland” series. Original airdate, March 9, 1955.
[13] Nelson, Rocket Men, 17-31.
[14] “Man in Space,” from "Disneyland series, 48:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFXza9RH7-E
[15] The additions of those physical spaces were highly anticipated due to the influence of Disney at the World’s Fairs.
[16] Megan Prelinger, Another Science Fiction. It should be noted that CalTech is the overseer of JPL in Pasadena by contract with NASA.
[17] Marita Sturken and Douglas Thomas, “Introduction: Technological Visions and the Rhetoric of the New,” 3.
[18] David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek, Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014), 34-53.
