Six years ago, I stumbled across “Thanksgiving in 1810,” a 1910 magazine article by author Clifford Howard, who looked back a century and remarked upon the great social and technological changes of the last century. “The world has changed more in the last 100 years than in any 100 years that have gone before,” he observed. Little did he know how much that change would accelerate in the ten decades which followed. He also speculated about the world of 2010, the year in which I found his article. “[W]hat will it be in 2010?” he asked. (Howard’s prose was accompanied by a series of wonderful illustrations by artist C.T. Hill, an example of which you can find above.). After chancing across Mr. Howard’s words, I wrote a blog post about my discovery. It became “Thanksgiving in 1810, 1910, and 2010,” and it is now one of my favorite posts that I’ve contributed to the Abnormal Use law blog. I like to think that Howard wondered if a writer from 2010 might somehow find his article and offer commentary on the progress society had made in the intervening century. I’m pleased that I could be that writer, and since 2010, I’ve revisited Howard’s article. You can read his piece here, and if you like, you can find my own work here.

Happy Thanksgiving.