On September 10, 1913, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, M.D., F.R.S.M., of Battle Creek, Michigan, made a bold declaration during an address before the American Public Health Association in Colorado Springs: The last baby would be born in 2012.
As we know, he was wrong.
So far, he’s fourteen years off and I’d be willing to bet babies will be born for years to come. Regardless, here’s Kellogg’s reasoning:
Two-fifths of the women of this country of marriageable age are unmarried. Two-fifths of the men of this country of marriageable age are unmarried. The birth rate is decreasing in the United States at the rate of 21 per cent. If things keep on as they are going; if the capacity for motherhood continues to diminish as rapidly as at present, the last child will be born before 2012, and in the year 2017 there will be a world in which there will be no babies to ‘coo’ and to ‘agoo,’ since the youngest child will be five years old. Also a neuter type, consisting of women set apart to do the world’s work outside the home, will be evolved.
He was, however, accurate in predicting women working outside the home—even without being the “neuter type.”
Piling onto the discourse was Professor Louis Delanne, who, as the Kansas City Post described, “declared the human race within two centuries would be hairless, chinless, bat-eared, four-toed, long-armed, and duck-legged.” We’ve got less than a century left to see if his prediction fares any better.
