A sleeping young man is sealed in his house by an avalanche and awakens 300 years later in the year 2135 when the house is uncovered by excavation. Through this character, Griffith looks into the future of America from her time in 1836 as America's first known female utopian writer. She foretells a new form of power replacing steam engines, prohibition of liquor, women working jobs outside of the home, self-propelled farm equipment, income taxes, buildings made of fireproof materials, public construction and ownership of roads, breakup of monopolies, and other changes that were to come to America.