"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word."
"Yes, sir."
"Are you listening?"
"Yes, I am."
"Plastics."
That's the famous advice given to young Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film classic "The Graduate." Today, plastics is a bad word -- many grocery stores won't give you bags made of them. But 50 years ago, the synthetic material represented a glorious future, even if it was already a little out of date by then.
Back in 1943, plastics were one of the innovations The Associated Press heralded as society-changing in the years ahead. American scientific and technological breakthroughs were coming at a furious pace, thanks to the pressure of all-out war against fascism.
"The reputed postwar Aladdin's lamp is plastics," AP science editor Howard Blakeslee wrote as the Allies began to turn the tide in World War II. The possibilities were endless, from "heavy-duty bearings [that] outlast metal" to unbreakable eyeglasses.
Illustrations by The Oregonian/1943
Plastics very much happened in postwar consumer America, but not all of the experts' visions for the future came about.
"The helicopter, it is predicted, will be the average man's flivver," stated the AP report. (A flivver, by the by, is an old-fashioned term for an inexpensive automobile.)
Another air-travel possibility, however, soon would be realized.
"A dazzling possibility almost immediately after the war," Blakeslee wrote, "is trans-Atlantic plane service with scores of flights daily, taking six to eight hours a trip, between Europe and America. Aviation, however, is not peddling many guesses on the future. The public hasn't flown enough to do much guessing."
Then there was the budding field of consumer electronics.
"Wartime electronics are mostly hush stuff," Blakeslee wrote. But, he added, soon it "will be possible to carry in one hand an object scarcely bulkier than a woman's handbag to talk to any friend within miles who has a similar bag. As at present used in the military forces, this device sprouts an antenna, to be raised at will, and about the dimensions of a small bass casting rod. Your wife could carry one to keep you informed on a shopping tour."
There was also the arrival of television, which would provide entertainment -- and be handy for a busy homemaker. "Radio television in colors," Blakeslee wrote, "is talked of for the housewife to order her groceries, meats and vegetables over a phone in which she can see the goods on the dealer's shelves."
Illustration by The Oregonian/1943
And there was a time-saving cooking appliance in the works: microwave ovens, which "induce intense heat, but only at the point where heat is wanted."
Plus there was the coming revolution in packaged, or "compressed," food: "Chemists are beginning to find anti-oxidants which are a good start toward preserving the fresh flavors whose loss hampers dehydration."
The future also promised, finally, to be cleaner.
"Dustless dusters are a real prospect," the reported stated. "They produce electrical fields which pick up dust like a magnet gathering bits of metal."
-- Douglas Perry
@douglasmperry
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