Raymond N.H. In The Future: Edwardian Retro-Futurist Fantasy Postcard c.1905
At the dawn of the aviation age, when automobiles were novelties and flight still seemed miraculous, this comic fantasy postcard captured small-town America's giddy optimism about tomorrow. A real photograph of Raymond, New Hampshire's main street has been whimsically overlaid with drawn fantasies: an elevated railway labeled 'Raymond to Boston,' dirigibles and early aeroplanes overhead, a winged angelic figure soaring past rooftops, and a subway entrance — all the infrastructure of a gleaming metropolitan future imposed on a sleepy New England village.
Charming rather than lurid, this novelty postcard lacks the dramatic menace of true pulp art but scores points for sheer imaginative density — cramming elevated trains, dirigibles, winged beings, and subway tunnels into one tiny New Hampshire street corner. It is folk retro-futurism at its most endearing.
“Raymond, N.H. in the future RAYMOND AND BOSTON RAYMOND TO BOSTON SUBW TO NO”
