Before the Jetsons, Arthur Radebaugh Illustrated the Future
In the 1950s and '60s, the newspaper cartoonist dreamed up a madcap American utopia, filled with flying cars and fantastical skyscrapers
- By Matt Novak
- Art By Arthur Radebaugh
- Smithsonian magazine, April 2012, Subscribe
In the late 1950s and early ’60s, no one shaped Americans’ expectations of the future quite like Arthur Radebaugh, the illustrator of the popular newspaper comic “Closer Than We Think” as well as countless advertisements and magazine covers.
“We all dream of a better, brighter, more exciting future where the wonders of technology are there to serve and entertain us,” and Radebaugh “made that fabulous world of tomorrow seem practically at our fingertips,” says Todd Kimmell, the director of the Lost Highways Archives and Research Library, which is dedicated to American road culture.
An exhibition that Kimmell co-curated in 2003 traveled from Philadelphia to France to Detroit and won Radebaugh a new generation of fans. “The Da Vinci of retro-futurism,” a Wired magazine blog called him.
Radebaugh was a commercial illustrator in Detroit when he began experimenting with imagery—fantastical skyscrapers and futuristic, streamlined cars—that he later described as “halfway between science fiction and designs for modern living.” Radebaugh’s career took a downward turn in the mid-1950s, as photography began to usurp illustrations in the advertising world. But he found a new outlet for his visions when he began illustrating a syndicated Sunday comic strip, “Closer Than We Think,” which debuted on January 12, 1958—just months after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik—with a portrayal of a “Satellite Space Station.”
Week after week, he enthralled readers with depictions of daily life enhanced by futuristic technology: mailmen making their daily rounds via jet packs, schoolrooms with push-button desks, tireless robots working in warehouses. “Closer Than We Think” ran for five years in newspapers across the United States and Canada, reaching about 19 million readers at its peak.
When Radebaugh died in a veterans hospital in 1974, his work had been largely forgotten—eclipsed by the techno-utopian spectacles of “The Jetsons” and Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland. But more than two decades later, Kimmell acquired photos of Radebaugh’s portfolio that had been stashed in the collection of a retiring photographer and began reviving interest in his work.
“The future caught up with him several times,” says Kimmell, “yet he managed to change and readdress it in a different way.”
Next in Futurism: Dear Science Fiction Writers: Stop Being So Pessimistic! »
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Comments (13)
I joke frequently with faraway friends that if only I had my personal jet pack, which I remember reading speculations about over 50 years ago. In 1928 there's even one on the cover of AMAZING magazine. Popular Mechanics often showed interesting sounding inventions which hadn't come true yet, like moving sidewalks, cars that would not be driven, just put on a moving highway. $$ must not have been an object in those days!
Posted by Linda Franklin on December 7,2012 | 12:57 PM
Matt I found your Paleo-future/Smithsonian site's use of Arthur Radebaugh 's “Closer Than We Think” and wonder if you can give my e-mail to Tom Z., the one you said alerted you to Radebaugh 's comic feature. I actually kept many of the originals in a scrap book that I never threw away. So I spent the last weeks attempting to complie a complete list of the features and the correct dates. (It is driving me crazy that so many links show "Hospitals in the sky" as being published on May 11, 1958 when I am fairly certain that "Flapwing Flycar " was published. We need to have a concise listing and you wonder why someone hasn'r even put all the illustrations in a volume. I have mannge to catalogue name and dates of 99 of the comic strip and have the names of another 15 but no dates! Until I found the "Closer" you put up, I would just occasionally review the ones I had cut out and scrapbooked. I even brought them out to show folks. Never did think I would taking on this task. Maybe the Chicago Public Library microfiche is my target destination if I cannot get help elsewhere.
Posted by Bill Placzek on August 30,2012 | 05:01 PM
Frank Lloyd covered all this about 30 years earlier.
Posted by Refondata on April 17,2012 | 09:24 PM
Todd Kimmel, I am not too good on facebook so what do I do. I am hunting for my pictures of Major Radebaugh. I would love to see the big picture.
Posted by Betty Fanckboner on April 13,2012 | 11:48 PM
I did have long hair and sometimes wore it in pigtails. Gosh does it bring back memories. He also taught me how to drink so I came to work every day. We did work hard and many times into the night. Mr. Novar could you call me one of these days.
Posted by Betty Fanckboner on April 9,2012 | 12:21 AM
It was Mr. Radebaugh who did Closer than You Think not Norman Rockwell. Mr. Rockwell had a different style. Betty Fanckboner on April 7/12\10:10 P.M.
Posted by Betty Fanckboner on April 7,2012 | 03:12 PM
Wow! Betty Fanckboner, we have large format negs of the Ordnance Department that came from the same source as all the lost Radebaugh portfolio images that originally inspired the exhibit and website. Some show Mr. Radebaugh's military specific work blown up huge on the wall, perhaps to set a forward thinking mood all around? Some of the negs show gals in the office... maybe you! Please reach out to us via the Facebook page already posted. We would love to interview you properly as part of the long, fun road this project has been
Posted by Todd Kimmell on April 6,2012 | 07:43 AM
Howdy, Radebaugh fans! To stay tuned as we rethink the now much expanded Radebaugh exhibit and prepare it to tour, please keep in touch on Facebook... http://www.facebook.com/TheGrandReview all the best, Todd Kimmell
Posted by Todd Kimmell on April 5,2012 | 03:57 PM
I knew Major Radebaugh in 1942 when I was his secretary. We worked in the Pentagon then. I do have a couple photos of him. He was a very smart man, and Closer Then You Think was always with him. I do have several of the pictures from the newspaper, and hoped someday to live in the glass house in the sky.
Posted by Betty Fanckboner on April 2,2012 | 06:36 PM
I read everything in the Smithsonian avidly-My two sons in Baltimore Md. and Cheasapeake, Va. also are devoted readers of your magazine-guests of mine.
Posted by fred a. roscher,jr. on April 2,2012 | 05:11 PM
I never heard of Art Radebaugh and his "closer than we think"-My loss however-I have been reading the comic pages all my life and I'm 89!! But Mr. Radebaugh was really decades ahead of his time--Nowadays, we are using computers at home -while traveling , most all pupils have them at school-furnished BY the School-automobile and trucks are built by mostly ROBOTS! OH-yes He was way ahead of his time!!
Posted by Fred A. Roscher,Jr. on April 2,2012 | 05:06 PM
I remember "They're Working on It". I thought I remember Norman Rockwell was the artist... Maybe not. Wake me in time for my nap..
Posted by frank hidalgo on March 29,2012 | 12:34 PM
"Closer Than We Think" reminds me of the slightly later "They're Working on It" by an unknown artist: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2440/3821015352_f188494a40_o.jpg
Posted by dan otoro on March 18,2012 | 01:14 AM