AH Discussion in 1900

Adam Parsons · Mar 24, 2004

As many have noticed, alternate history does have a tendency to center around events that occured in the 20th century. This is fairly self-explanatory: most of what happened this century was written down, and a lot of it has exciting story possibilities (2 world wars, a prolonged cold war, numerous small wars, lots of very new technology, exciting personalities, numerous shifts in society, etc...).

So here, my question is simply: what would an AH discussion from 1900 look like, with the 20th century yet to come? What would be the big, worn-out PODs, the 'unconventional' ideas, and the events that don't "seem" to affect anything? Thoughts?

Doctor What · Mar 24, 2004

Wasn't there a 'science article' written around this time that predicted that --"at current rates, the streets of New York City will be filled with 14 feet of horse manure by 1950 and therefore street cleaning will play a major role in finances..." (damn--I wish I could remember the source of this!)

I can see this generating a few AHs....

Leo Caesius · Mar 24, 2004

Alasdair Czyrnyj said:
As many have noticed, alternate history does have a tendency to center around events that occured in the 20th century. This is fairly self-explanatory: most of what happened this century was written down, and a lot of it has exciting story possibilities (2 world wars, a prolonged cold war, numerous small wars, lots of very new technology, exciting personalities, numerous shifts in society, etc...).

So here, my question is simply: what would an AH discussion from 1900 look like, with the 20th century yet to come? What would be the big, worn-out PODs, the 'unconventional' ideas, and the events that don't "seem" to affect anything? Thoughts?

Have you ever read Fadei Bulgarin's "Plausible Futures"? He was a spy, IIRC, a Polish subject of the Czar who wrote early Sci-Fi in his spare time. He predicted that Arabic would replace French as the language of diplomacy, but that Russian would become the international standard for scientific publications. He also predicted the rising of a Trans-Arctic Eskimo Empire.

Tetsu · Mar 24, 2004

Leo Caesius said:
Have you ever read Fadei Bulgarin's "Plausible Futures"? He was a spy, IIRC, a Polish subject of the Czar who wrote early Sci-Fi in his spare time. He predicted that Arabic would replace French as the language of diplomacy, but that Russian would become the international standard for scientific publications. He also predicted the rising of a Trans-Arctic Eskimo Empire.

Seriously? Are there any links to his writings on the net? I could use a laugh. ^_^

I have read some things by some people around that time. One French scientist, I believe was quoted as saying, "The airplane is an interesting toy, but it has no military value." TONS of people predicted things like that back then.

zoomar · Mar 24, 2004

I thought this thread was about what people in 1900 would think were interesting POD's in their past, not their predictions of the future.

That said, some would remain the same: WI Boney wins, CSA wins, Americans lose AWR, Rome surviving, etc., although the statement of the POD's themselves might betray a different perspective than is common today ("WI the tolerent southern aristocrats who really liked their slaves and only wanted states rights had been given the time to voluntarily free them and ship them all to Haiti where they all really belong?)

Others might betray the state of science and general knowledge in 1900: (WI it was proven by Scaparelli that Mars did not have any canals?", or "WI aether did not exist as the unifying fluid in space?")

Others would betray widely held prejudices (as do ours but we just don't know it): )"What if American Indians had been capable of high culture?" or "What if Italian Immigrants were not slavish papists?")

Others would focus on big controversies or figures who are now largely forgotton.

Others would betray the much greater literalist religiosity of educated people: ("WI Cain did not kill Abel?", or "What if Moses refused to build the Ark?" would NOT be in the equivalent of the ASB board)

I also suspect that, given the fact that the general state of world knowledge, classics education, and literary knowledge among average literate people in 1900 was much higher than today, more WI's would involve literary figures, composers, philosophical/religious traditions, and graeco-roman culture. Less would be focused on technological innovations.

Faeelin · Mar 24, 2004

zoomar said:
I also suspect that, given the fact that the general state of world knowledge, classics education, and literary knowledge among average literate people in 1900 was much higher than today, more WI's would involve literary figures, composers, philosophical/religious traditions, and graeco-roman culture. Less would be focused on technological innovations.

Disagree 100% with this, incidentally.

zoomar · Mar 24, 2004

Faeelin said:
Disagree 100% with this, incidentally.

What part? The part about us not being as educated and literate as our educated ancestors 100 years ago or the part about what they would be more interested in? I might cede the second part, but the first is self evident - just read historcal letters and diaries written by normal people in 1900, childrens' text books from the period, and compare them to what passes for writing today.

Tetsu · Mar 24, 2004

zoomar said:
What part? The part about us not being as educated and literate as our educated ancestors 100 years ago or the part about what they would be more interested in? I might cede the second part, but the first is self evident - just read historcal letters and diaries written by normal people in 1900, childrens' text books from the period, and compare them to what passes for writing today.

I agree 100%. Read some letters that Civil War veterans wrote to their wives or girlfriends they left behind, or read the diary of Anne Frank, and then go and read some thirteen year old girl`s Xanga today.

Faeelin · Mar 24, 2004

zoomar said:
What part? The part about us not being as educated and literate as our educated ancestors 100 years ago or the part about what they would be more interested in? I might cede the second part, but the first is self evident - just read historcal letters and diaries written by normal people in 1900, childrens' text books from the period, and compare them to what passes for writing today.

Of course I disagree about who is more literate.

let's look at what people are saying. "Read some letters that Civil War veterans wrote to their wives or girlfriends they left behind, or read the diary of Anne Frank, and then go and read some thirteen year old girl`s Xanga today."

In other words, let's compare a random teenager to some one who was obviously a sharp kid. This is why her diary is so popular, after all. if she was "average", as people are claiming, for her time, then she wouldn't be remembered.

zoomar · Mar 25, 2004

Faeelin said:
Of course I disagree about who is more literate.

let's look at what people are saying. "Read some letters that Civil War veterans wrote to their wives or girlfriends they left behind, or read the diary of Anne Frank, and then go and read some thirteen year old girl`s Xanga today."

In other words, let's compare a random teenager to some one who was obviously a sharp kid. This is why her diary is so popular, after all. if she was "average", as people are claiming, for her time, then she wouldn't be remembered.

Regarding the Civil War letters, we are talking about literally thousands of individual pieces of personal informal,correspondence between ordinary people of ordinary intelligence. The same pattern even emerges when you look at personal correspondence written as late as WW2. Anne Frank's writing is not unusual for educated teens of her time. Average people prior to the 1950's were much more literate and more aware of their history than people of today. Have you ever had to grade college-level 4th year term papers at a mid-level state university or make sense of the prose composed by engineers and scientists at a state agency? Well, I have and do and take it from me, the average college-educated American today is less literate and knowledgeable about his/her culture's history than farmwives with a limited grammar school education in 1865. But we can put smileys in emails to convey al those complex emotions!

Faeelin · Mar 25, 2004

What do you mean by cultural history, and why do they need it?

zoomar · Mar 25, 2004

Faeelin said:
What do you mean by cultural history, and why do they need it?

Basic facts regarding the cultural, social, intellectual, and religious background of western civilization so when you use terms like "balkanization" or call something an "achilles' heel" they understand what you mean, both literally and figuratively. Not all of this is "needed" I suppose, but our modern culture is impoverished and illiterate without it.

Leo Caesius · Mar 25, 2004

zoomar said:
Have you ever had to grade college-level 4th year term papers at a mid-level state university or make sense of the prose composed by engineers and scientists at a state agency? Well, I have and do and take it from me, the average college-educated American today is less literate and knowledgeable about his/her culture's history than farmwives with a limited grammar school education in 1865. But we can put smileys in emails to convey al those complex emotions!

I can't speak for mid-level state universities, but having graded papers at two Ivy-League universities, I can certainly say that modern literacy isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Unfortunately, there's little to be done about this; children today are confronted with an information overload, and the amount of material to be assimilated is overwhelming even for an adult. The worst papers, in my experience, came from those in the sciences; this is only because a child that excels in the sciences and maths can be forgiven for deficiencies in the other areas of their education (or even poor social skills and personal hygiene

). How many times, growing up, have we heard someone explain, "I'm not good at X" (where X equals History, or Trig, or something of the sort) as if it was a fact of life? Nonetheless, I'm afraid it's a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul; educational standards in disciplines such as "proofreading" and "geography" may have fallen by the wayside, but I firmly believe that the average product of the American public educational system is more well-rounded than his antebellum counterpart.

If you were to put one of these fabled kids from the antebellum era in a Spelling Bee with modern American children, he would probably cream them. The same would go for geography. In any other discipline, however, he would be at a distinct disadvantage.

TV and radio have had a large role in the apparent decline in literacy, of course; they fill several universal human needs that, in previous times, were filled only by print (and the occasional theatrical performance). It pains me to say this, but they've made print media somewhat dated.

Oddly enough, I remember seeing a recent study which showed that internet users as a class were generally avid readers and spent less time watching TV than the average American. So perhaps a major change is in the offing.

zoomar · Mar 25, 2004

Leo Caesius said:
, but I firmly believe that the average product of the American public educational system is more well-rounded than his antebellum counterpart".

I agree with most of what you said except this. My observation would tend to be the opposite. Most modern kids I've taught (by which as an old guy I mean anyone under 25-30) may know a phenomenal amount about their own particular field of interest, or about what is "relevant" to them (grrrrrr I hate that relic word from the 60's college curricula reform movement), but be virtually incapable of performing at a 1950's junior high school level in other areas. On the other hand, before "relevance", became an issue and students had relatively few electives, people were forcefully exposed to things they might never have wanted to know about and graded (in a non-inflated way) on how much they learned. Things like French. Or geometry. Or English literature. You came out of college with your pre-existing general education refreshed, deepened, and expanded, with a preliminary start on a specialization for graduate school or entry level position in a business. Now, to pick just one example, a fifth-year engineering student graduates without learning much of anything new since 11th grade - and what they learned then was piss-poor, but they have a very high near-professional-level competence in one small part of one general discipline. They can step into a $50,000 job and not be able to write a clear and simple memo to order new widgets.
Sorry, ranting. I'll stop now.

Leo Caesius · Mar 25, 2004

That's true... higher education is pretty particular. I don't think that college education is very well rounded at all. On a personal note, I feel that education in the Classics is pretty much a lost art, which saddens me greatly; I feel like a fossil around many of my colleagues, among whom not a few feel that Greek and Latin are an affectation and a waste of time.

Adam Parsons · Mar 25, 2004

ANYWAY...back on topic.

In 1900, I figure that the 'classical' AH will probably Napoleanic-based. After all, the guy did try to counquer Europe, and was a flamboyant personality, both good ingredients in an AH. Also, there will be speculation on the ACW, but maybe not to the extent as of now. (Emotions would still be pretty raw). The Franco-Prussian War and the Crimean War might also be nice areas of speculation.

And, of course, you have a whole lot of you generic (failed) assassinations, technology, and so on.

NapoleonXIV · Mar 25, 2004

I would think that a whole class would be Arthurian (WI Guinevere wasn't attracted to Lancelot.) It wouldn't be trying to treat this a real history, more an "alternate literatures" thing (hmmm).
There would be a lot more medieval topics in general. The romantic era, which worshiped medievalism, was only recently ended and still had many influential followers in all the arts.

As to whether the board would be more literate I have to wonder. Even in letters there has been a selection process over the years. Those that were clear, survived. Those that fractured the language to incoherence, perhaps many more, who knows, did not.