Credit Cards (1888)
Leave it to a college-dropout-turned-science-fiction-author named Edward Bellamy to come up with the idea for credit cards. The concept was first introduced in his 1888 novel. As one character explains it, each person is given a physical punch card “with which he procures at the public storehouses, found in every community, whatever he desires whenever he desires it. This arrangement, you will see, totally obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort between individuals and consumers.”
It’s a utopian vision of the future that Diners Club put into practice in 1950—though many credit card holders may disagree with that whole “whatever he desires whenever he desires it” part.
