Fessenden, Laura Dayton
Entry updated 22 September 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1851-1924) US author of romances and other works, among which a tale for younger children, Moon Children (1902), is of modest interest for its depiction of an inhabited Moon, though the story soon turns on figures from Mother Goose. Of much greater interest is "2002": Childlife One Hundred Years from Now (1902), which describes inventively, for children, a Utopia containing a wide range of innovations in Technology, including Flying with strap-on wings, Videophones, electronic voting machines, devices that closely resemble microwave ovens, worldwide Transportation by Balloon or submarine, moving sidewalks, Weather Control, and chimpanzee servants (see Apes as Human) who perform any necessary manual labour. As in Samuel Butler's Erewhon, or Over the Range (1872; rev 1872; rev 1901), kleptomania is regarded as a treatable disease rather than a crime. Since 1980 there has been world peace; America has a woman president; the inhabitants of Mars, which will soon be visited, have been contacted by radio. [JC]
Laura Canfield Spencer Dayton Fessenden
born New York: 29 December 1851
died 1924
works
- Moon Children (Chicago, Illinois: Jamieson-Higgins Company, 1902) [illus/hb/Robert J Campbell]
- "2002": Childlife One Hundred Years from Now (Chicago, Illinois: Jamieson-Higgins Company, 1902) [illus/hb/Robert J Campbell]
links
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