Teaching Children Confidence in a High Tech World: The Netherlands 1950-1962

The article addresses the question how modern technologies were represented in a widely read illustrated magazine, Panorama, and in the comic for children which appeared on its final page. The article shows how technologies such as airplanes, robots and nuclear power, which were depicted and described in the magazine, also make their appearance, in a transformed way, in the comic story at the end of the magazine. This transformation is analyzed and it is argued that the children's stories may be read as an answer to the fears and uncertainties about these modern technologies that were common among adults at the time.