A time capsule is a historic cache of
goods or information, usually intended
as a method of communication with future
people and to help future
archaeologists, anthropologists or
historians. Time capsules are sometimes
created and buried during celebrations
such as a World's fair, a cornerstone
laying for a building or at other
events.
Background
Time capsules are placed with the
intention that they will be opened or
accessed at a future date.
An early example of the use of a time
capsule was the Detroit Century Box. The
brainchild of Detroit mayor William C.
Maybury, it was created on December 31,
1900, and scheduled to be opened 100
years later. It was filled with
photographs and letters from 56
prominent residents describing life in
1900 and making predictions for the
future, and included a letter by Maybury
addressed to the mayor of Detroit in
2000. The capsule was opened by city
officials on December 31, 2000, in a
ceremony presided over by mayor Dennis
Archer.
The 1939 New York World's Fair time
capsule was created by Westinghouse as
part of their exhibit. It was 90 inches
long, with an interior diameter of 6.5
inches, and weighed 800 pounds.
Westinghouse named the copper, chromium
and silver alloy "Cupaloy", claiming it
had the same strength as mild steel. It
contained everyday items such as a spool
of thread and doll, a Book of Record, a
vial of staple food crop seeds, a
microscope and a 15-minute RKO Pathé
Pictures newsreel. Microfilm spools
condensed the contents of a Sears
Roebuck catalog, dictionary, almanac,
and other texts.
This first modern time capsule was
followed in 1965 by a second capsule at
the same site, but 10 feet to the north
of the original. Both capsules are
buried 50 feet below Flushing Meadows
Park, site of the Fair. Both the 1939
and 1965 Westinghouse Time Capsules are
meant to be opened in 6939. More
recently, in 1985, Westinghouse created
a smaller, Plexiglass shell to be buried
beneath the New York Marriott Marquis
hotel, in the heart of New York's
theater district. However, this time
capsule was never put in place.
The Crypt of Civilization at Oglethorpe
University, intended to be opened in
8113, is generally regarded as the first
modern time capsule, although it was not
called one at the time. George Edward
Pendray is responsible for coining the
term "time capsule." During the
socialist period in the USSR, many time
capsules were buried with messages to a
future communist society.
Currently, four time capsules are
"buried" in space. The two Pioneer
Plaques and the two Voyager Golden
Records have been attached to spacecraft
for the possible benefit of spacefarers
in the distant future. A fifth time
capsule, the KEO satellite, which is
scheduled to be launched in 2015-16,
however, it has been delayed several
times and an actual date is not given.
After launch, it will carry individual
messages from Earth's inhabitants
addressed to earthlings around the year
52,000, when it is due to return to
Earth. The International Time Capsule
Society was created to maintain a global
database of all existing time capsules.
It is widely debated when time capsules
were first used but current evidence
shows it was used as early as 1876,
however the principle is fairly simple
and the idea and first use of time
capsules could be much older than we
currently know. In 2014, a
Revolutionary-era time capsule was found
at the Massachusetts State House dating
to 1795 and credited to Samuel Adams and
Paul Revere. It was previously opened in
1855 with some contents added.
Criticism
According to time capsule historian
William Jarvis, most intentional time
capsules usually do not provide much
useful historical information: they are
typically filled with "useless junk",
new and pristine in condition, that
tells little about the people of the
time. Many time capsules today contain
only artifacts of limited value to
future historians. Historians suggest
that items which describe the daily
lives of the people who created them,
such as personal notes, pictures, and
documents, would greatly increase the
value of the time capsule to future
historians.
If time capsules have a museum-like goal
of preserving the culture of a
particular time and place for study,
they fulfill this goal very poorly in
that they, by definition, are kept
sealed for a particular length of time.
Subsequent generations between the
launch date and the target date will
have no direct access to the artifacts
and therefore these generations are
prevented from learning from the
contents directly. Therefore, time
capsules can be seen, in respect to
their usefulness to historians, as
dormant museums, their releases timed
for some date so far in the future that
the building in question is no longer
intact.
Historians also concede that there are
many preservation issues surrounding the
selection of the media to transmit this
information to the future. Some of these
issues include the obsolescence of
technology and the deterioration of
electronic and magnetic storage media,
and possible language problems if the
capsule is dug up in the distant future.
Many buried time capsules are lost, as
interest in them fades and the exact
location is forgotten, or they are
destroyed within a few years by
groundwater.
Archives and archival materials,
including videos, might be the best
types of time capsules, as long as the
medium can still be used, or the data
can be read by the latest technologies
and software.
In media
The 1947 docudrama The Beginning or the
End is a semi-historical account of the
creation of the first atomic bomb during
World War 2. The film begins with staged
newsreel footage of the scientists and
officers involved in the project burying
a time capsule in Redwood National
Forest in California. The capsule
contained a copy of the film, along with
a projector to view it on, and
instructions for its operation set on a
metal sheet. The purpose of the capsule
was in line with the film's title, about
whether humanity will destroy itself now
that it has the ability to, or whether
it will rise above war as a whole and
come together to use nuclear power for
greater purposes. The film can be seen
as an example of cold war propaganda.
The 2009 dramatic film Knowing involves
a time capsule being placed in the
ground by an elementary school in 1959.
After staring into the sun, a girl
begins to hear voices, and later begins
to frantically write an incoherent set
of numbers down onto a page that she is
supposed to be writing a letter to a
student in the future with. The capsule
is sealed and opened in 2009 where the
character John Koestler realizes that
the list of numbers correlates to the
dates of tragedies, such as the 9/11
attacks, plane crashes, and other events
resulting in mass death, after his son
Caleb Koestler receives the letter and
brings it home.
Bibliography
William Jarvis. Time Capsules: A
Cultural History. ISBN 0-7864-1261-5
Janet Reinhold. A Sampling of Time
Capsule Contents. ISBN 1-891406-30-2
Vladimir Pakhomov. Mystery of the
Calendar - Message to the Unborn. ISBN
0-9580150-1-5
Larry Richard Clark. "Time Capsules: the
Why, the How, the Where". ISBN
978-1452882567
See also
References
External links
Smithsonian article on Time Capsules,
guidelines
Heritage Time Capsule's Congressional
Time Capsule 2009
The book of record of the time capsule
of Cupaloy — New York World's fair 1939,
scanned book via Internet Archive
The future of the future - Seattle
Weekly
Genesis Landing Site Monument
Installation
Andy Warhol's Time Capsule 21
Blanton Museum Time Capsule
Tips for building a time capsule from
the International Time Capsule Society
New York Times Capsule in NYC
The Jubilee Time Capsule - The Royal
Commonwealth Society's Jubilee Time
Capsule to celebrate Queen Elizabeth
II's Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Time Capsule of 1905 City of Palatka
Florida
