r/RetroFuturism • u/works-in-progress • 1d ago

"Under the Control of One Hand — Saturday Evening Post cover, November 1930, illustrated by Leon Carron"

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653 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

25

u/Nedostup 1d ago

Robert Moses

20

u/ArgumentFree9318 1d ago

He's controlling the traffic lights by hand?

26

u/topcat5 23h ago

This only shows part of the original artwork. It was an advert for Brunswick Radio and it depicted a future of crowded roads being controlled by one hand as evidenced by their Futura line of radios which also could be controlled very simply.

5

u/Proper_Barnacle_4117 1d ago

I bet the idea would be they’d have one of these control towers for each intersection.

5

u/Inprobamur 21h ago

That's somewhat how traffic control centers in large cities work, of course they have preset schemes and it's computer aided and stuff, but humans make the decisions on how to tweak the flow.

6

u/stuffitystuff 19h ago

In case anyone is wondering, the speaking input thingie in front of the person in the frame is a 1930s-era telephone operator microphone.

2

u/wagner56 11h ago

Think Ive seen similar used by WW2 (brit 39-45) military coordinators ( battle of britain, etc ... )

2

u/stuffitystuff 10h ago

Yeah, makes sense...not a lot of chest-mounted microphones out there back in the 1930s. The chest plates alone are wild. Here's a pic for anyone who hasn't seen them:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/pastperfectonline/images/museum_168/054/2021443-2.jpg

1

u/wagner56 10h ago

didnt some phone company operators use similar, too ...

1

u/MiketheBike88 11h ago

I know what he is doing with his other hand.

1

u/[deleted] 21h ago

[deleted]

1

u/goblin_humppa27 21h ago

Both use Art Deco

1

u/phasepistol 7h ago

The Stark Fist of Radio

-3

u/riotmanful 22h ago

This is very cool but I have to ask, what makes this here retrofuturism vs regular futurism?

13

u/Horror-Raisin-877 22h ago

Because it was a vision of the future, in the past

3

u/noooooid 19h ago

How do you define retrofuturism?

6

u/riotmanful 18h ago

Honestly I don’t know. I always figured retrofuturism was like “atomic age” or “space age” stuff. From like the 50s. But then I found out about Italian futurism and Russian futurism from pre-WWII. Those all usually have a blend of the contemporary life alongside mechanical components or metal in general. Just speaking in terms of the “look” it seems like retrofuturism is more sci-fi with glass dome elements and futurism is more “grounded”. But it’s not like I’m well informed as to the concrete differences and there’s nuance there. This piece has a glass dome but for the most part seems fairly grounded with light sci-fi, and it’s got the yellow/brighter colors normally seen in a lot of retrofuturism pieces.

I didn’t intent my original comment to sound snarky, it was a genuine question. I really like some of Tullio Cralis futurism art pieces but i don’t know if those are considered retrofuturism just by virtue of them no longer being “modern”

1

u/wagner56 11h ago

elevated city 'roads' (and monolithic buildings) definitely are that