1939/40 New York World's Fair (Futurama I)
Exposition Theme:
• “The World of Tomorrow”
• In 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, a group of New York City businessmen decided to create an international exposition to lift the city and the country out of depression
GM Messages and Pavilion:
• “Highway and Horizons”
• Futurama ride looked ahead to the "Wonder World of 1960"
• Vision of the world 20 years in the future, including automated highways and suburbs
--Consisted of 322 separate dioramas showing how the U.S. would appear when viewed from an airplane in 1960
--Largest and most realistic scale model ever constructed
--As visitors traveled through the ride, the dioramas grew larger until finally spectators exited the ride to see a full-size future world that they had just viewed in miniature
Significance for GM:
• Was the most popular exhibit
• Depicted the world 20 years in the future, including automated highways and suburbs
• Considered the model for the modern interstate highway system
• Presented the first X-ray car in the U.S.
