The Republic of the Future; or, Socialism a Reality

by Anna Bowman Dodd

"The Republic of the Future; or, Socialism a Reality" by Anna Bowman Dodd is a novella published in 1887. Written as a conservative response to utopian literature, this dystopian tale follows a Swedish aristocrat visiting New York Socialist City in 2050. Through letters home, he describes a dreary conformist society where technological progress, feminism, and socialism have created identical homes, enforced mediocrity, and vacuous lives. The inhabitants look like "people who have come to the end of things and have failed to find it amusing."