THE REPUBLIC OF THE FUTURE; OR, SOCIALISM A REALITY.

This attack on utopian socialism, feminism, and technology was written by Anna Bowman Dodd (1855–1929) in 1887. It is one of about 20 popular dystopias that appeared in the United States in the last two decades of the 19th century. The story takes place in New York City in 2050 and takes the form of letters from Wolfgang, a visitor from Sweden, to Hannewig, a friend at home. In the United States, Wolfgang relates, the state has eliminated the capitalist system and has made every one equal. The result is a deadening uniformity. Every house is the same, and men and women dress and even look the same, which has produced an eradication of erotic sentiment. In the name of utilitarianism, New Yorkers have built skyscrapers on the Hudson, done away with flowers and lawns, replaced food with bottled pellets, and abolished long meals as well as servants and even flirtation. People work only two hours a day as machinery has removed the drudgery of work (even cooking and all housework), but they are so bored they simply walk the streets with nothing to do, having “come to the end of things and … failed to find it amusing.” Wars have been declared illegal, and foreign difficulties are adjusted by arbitration. Religion has been voted out of existence as “immoral” because it brings about discussion; it has been replaced by a system of ethics featuring ethical temples of worship. In Dodd's portrayal of the future, the socialist-egalitarian-technological system into which the United States has evolved has made its citizens neither happy nor contented. This is perhaps, as the novel's narrator says,because “a [man] can't have his dream and dream it too.”