Television 1954 A.D.



As I was browsing the Duke University site today, looking at the old ads, which I enjoy a lot, my eye was caught by a bit of time-traveling in 1944. That is, looking ten years into the future of television in 1954. Hang on, I'll play some dramatic music, and say it like this: Nineteen Fifty-Four!

Of course, it's an ad, and they're trying to convince you that this new piece of technology is going to be all the rage ten years from now, and that you'd be wise to invest in the future. The ad is written as if we're already in the future, in 1954. All straight? Let's go!


OK, let's be clear here, it's 1944, and we're reading about something that's fairly new, television, and whether or not you should invest in your own television station. Of course it really was a great idea, and people who got in "on the ground floor" did well. Television went from something people said, "What the heck is that?" to something that just about everyone had.

Looking into the past and thinking that you should have invested in something is a concept that fascinates me. In 1944, as today, people are skeptical about new things that are advertised as "the future" that may or may not be successful. Speaking for myself, I'm not a gambling man, and I wouldn't have invested. And please don't try to sell me real estate in the desert, either!

But this would have been a good investment - if you could see the future!


Images from the Duke University Library Digital Collections.
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