Vachel Lindsay's The Golden Book of Springfield (1920) presents itself as a review of a book that will appear in the autumn of 2018, offering an extended description of Springfield, Illinois in that year. The work blends utopian speculation with a cast of characters whose names shift between 1920 and 2018—David Carson becomes St. Friend, Anne Morrison becomes Roxana Grey—suggesting a transformation of identities across a century. The table of contents lists chapters on flying machine riots, the abolition of yellow dance halls, and a lynching, indicating that this future is not uniformly peaceful. The opening chapter introduces a Campbellite minister, a florist, and a hostess, grounding the narrative in specific local professions and religious affiliations.

A Dual Cast and a Framed Future

The book's front matter includes a list pairing 1920 figures with their 2018 counterparts: the Campbellite minister becomes St. Friend, the florist becomes Roxana Grey, the hostess becomes Patricia Anthony. This transformation implies a continuity of character across time, though the nature of that transformation is left implicit. The subtitle describes the work as 'Being the review of a book that will appear in the autumn of the year 2018,' creating a nested structure where the reader encounters a future text through a present-day frame. The table of contents further complicates this by including a chapter titled 'How People of 1920 Think the Book Will Come, in 2018,' suggesting multiple layers of anticipation and retrospection. This framing device allows Lindsay to project hopes and anxieties of his own era onto a speculative future, without claiming direct knowledge of that future's reality.

St. Friend and the Order of Bread

Chapter XI introduces St. Friend, a healer 'of the body and soul,' whose real name is Hugh Adams Matheney. He leads two religious orders: the Order of the Strict Observance and the Order of the Liberal Observance. His methods include 'sermons and prayers and the pictured parables' celebrated in the 'Office of the Blessed Bread.' The text emphasizes his lineage: on his mother's side, a descendant of the Church of the Disciples; on his father's, the Matheneys of Springfield, early settlers. His cottage displays a baker's coat of arms and family flags, notably that of the Adams people from New Harmony, Indiana. St. Friend has adopted a Thibetan boy, now grown, who designs 'sunset towers' in the style of Louis H. Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. This detail ties architectural modernism to the city's future development, while the Thibetan presence hints at a multicultural Springfield. St. Friend's sister, over a centenarian, remembers Armistice Day 1918 as a baby, linking the novel's present (1920) to its future (2018) through a single lifespan.

Tensions in a Utopian Project

Despite its utopian framing, the book includes episodes of conflict: 'The Beginning of the Flying Machine Riots' and 'The End of the Flying Machine Riots,' as well as 'Surto Hurdenburg is Lynched' and 'The Lynching of Boone.' These chapter titles indicate that technological progress and social harmony are not guaranteed. The character Black Hawk Boone is described as 'fuming' and heals 'by hard maxims' and the 'Amaranth-Apple,' contrasting with St. Friend's gentler approach. The presence of a 'Prognosticator's Club' in 1920 suggests that the future is being actively debated and predicted within the narrative. The book's dedication to 'Isadora' and the list of transformed names imply a personal dimension to the utopian vision. Lindsay's own status as 'a citizen of that town' (Springfield) grounds the speculation in lived experience, while the catalog subjects—Utopias in literature, Springfield in literature—confirm the work's dual focus on place and ideal.

Readers approaching The Golden Book of Springfield should attend to the interplay between its frame narrative and its internal chronology. The work does not offer a straightforward utopia but a contested vision, where characters like St. Friend and Boone represent different paths to reform. The frequent shifts between 1920 and 2018 invite comparison between the author's present and his imagined future. Pay attention to recurring symbols—bread, flags, sunset towers—and to the way Lindsay uses specific Springfield locations and lineages to anchor his speculative project.