How has the future been discussed back in the day, in the 19th and 20th century? Based on a quick word frequency chart, it seems that the peak has been in the early 20th century, increasing as also the pages of the newspapers of the time.
Occurrences of ‘tulevaisuus’ (future) in the Finnish newspapers (1850-1920)
Actually first mention for the future was already in 1774, in a book review and few individual mentions until roughly around year 1870 the term started to appear more.
Within the wake of the World Science Fiction convention in Helsinki on 9.8.-13.8.2017 we also checked how the science fiction or future topics have appeared in the user-collected clippings. It is not the largest collection of themes, but anyhow contains various topics of interest. In newspapers there are 90 clippings with regard future or scifi and user found items in the journals is 11 with ‘tulevaisuus’ or 18 with ‘tuleva*’ search word , so there would be lots more to be found.
Especially in journals there are more longer articles, and e.g. this one particular which looks at the future where newspapers and even milk is delivered to home via air transport is quite accurate.
Newspaper boy arrives flying and enters the newspaper to the subscribers via the newspaper opening.
also National Library is among the displayers in the Worldcon, aiming to give a glimpse to a convention to the collections also from the science fiction perspective. Science fiction (or future) themes can be found from books, digitized newspapers, and even in other collections. Via Finna search service you can find naturally science fiction books, where we made a listing from throughout the years. There are even some newer Finland of Books items listed, which are freely available for read until end of the year. List includes also firsts science fiction book, “Gulliverin matka Fantomimian mantereelle” by Volter Kilpi or and K.A. Tavastjärna’s “Finska vikens hemlighet”. If you have your own favorite science fiction list, please feel free to create your own list in Finna. At http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi , there you can do your own searches regarding future or any other topic of interest, from the digitized newspapers. All searches can be used without logging in, but if you want to create clippings then login with your social media account and create clippings of the area of your interest.
In the Worldcon75 there is also academic track, where there are literature discussion and e.g. viewing how science fiction is in China. Within selection of 20 talks, there is lots of options choose on different days, session details online.
P.S. do remember that summer school of Digitalia is on 16.8.-18.8, more about that later on.