FOR POSTERITY’S SAKE
Look around you. What do you see? A toothbrush, some deodorant, an e-book reader. They may look like everyday items to you, but to an archaeologist in the distant future, they’ll tell a fascinating story of what life was like at the beginning of the 21st century. They’re perfect for a time capsule.
TALES FROM THE CRYPT
The modern fad of saving things for future generations began when scientists opened the Egyptian pyramids in the 1920s. Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, president of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia, was inspired by all of the valuable information society learned. He decided to create a similar vault of records and items to be opened by “any future inhabitants or visitors to the planet Earth.”
Jacobs called his swimming pool–sized container the “Crypt of Civilization.” It was sealed on the campus on May 28, 1940, with instructions not to open it until the year 8113. Jacobs didn’t just include a few everyday items in the crypt, but a collection he hoped would represent our entire civilization. There are over 640,000 pages of microfilmed material, hundreds of newsreels and recordings, a set of Lincoln logs, a Donald Duck doll, and thousands of other items. There is even a device designed to teach the English language to the crypt’s finders.
TIME AND AGAIN
Jacobs’s idea, published in a 1936 Scientific American article, created a new fad of “keeping time.” For the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Westinghouse Electric filled a seven-foot-long cylindrical vault with modern amenities and sealed it with instructions that it not be opened for 5,000 years. A company executive named G. Edward Pendray came up with a name for the highly publicized promotion: time capsule. The term entered the English language almost overnight. (Pendray also invented the word laundromat.)
Westinghouse designed a second capsule for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Here are just a few of the hundreds of included items:
• a bikini
• a Polaroid camera
• plastic wrap
• an electric toothbrush
• tranquilizers
• a ballpoint pen
• a 50-star American flag
• superconducting wire
• a box of detergent
• a transistor radio
• an electric watch
• antibiotics
• contact lenses
• reels of microfilm
• credit cards
• a ruby laser rod
• a ceramic magnet
• filter cigarettes
• a Beatles record
• irradiated seeds
• freeze-dried foods
• a rechargeable flashlight
• synthetic fibers
• the Bible
• a computer memory unit
• birth-control pills
Also included was a bound “Book of Records.” Many scientists and world leaders put messages in the book. Albert Einstein wrote, “I trust that posterity will read these statements with a feeling of proud and justified superiority.”
NOW WHERE DID I PUT THAT?
The International Time Capsule Society (ITCS) was formed in Atlanta in 1990. They believe that only a small fraction of time capsules will ever be recovered. Why? Partly because of thievery and partly because of secrecy. But mostly because of poor planning— people just plain forget where they buried it. The ITCS’s mission is to document every time capsule to give it a better chance of being opened someday. “People often think that in the future, people are going to be more efficient than we are,” said ITCS cofounder Knute Berger, adding that it’s not so. “If we have incompetent bureaucracy, they will too. You have to plan for that.”
The ITCS has created a list of the 10 most-wanted missing time capsules. (Two have been found—here are the other eight.)
1. Bicentennial Wagon Train Time Capsule. This holds the signatures of 22 million Americans. President Gerald Ford arrived for the sealing ceremony in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1976, but someone had already stolen it from an unattended van.
2. MIT Cyclotron Time Capsule. In 1939, a group of MIT engineers placed a brass time capsule beneath an 18-ton magnet used in a brand-new, state-of-the-art cyclotron. It was supposed to be opened in 1989, but by then the cyclotron had been deactivated and the capsule all but forgotten. When the capsule’s existence was discovered, the brains at MIT had no clue how to get a time capsule out from underneath a 36,000-pound lid. They still don’t.
3. Corona, California, Time Capsules. The citizens of Corona have lost not just one, but 17 time capsules since the 1930s. In 1986, they tried, unsuccessfully, to recover them. “We just tore up a lot of concrete around the civic center,” said a spokesperson.
4. M*A*S*H Time Capsule. In January 1983, the hit TV show wrapped for good. In a secret ceremony, the cast members buried a capsule containing props and costumes from the set. Where it was buried is a mystery—no one will say. But it’s somewhere in the 20th Century Fox parking lot. The lot, however, has shrunk somewhat over the last 20 years, so the time capsule may be located underneath a Marriott Hotel.
5. George Washington’s Cornerstone. In 1793, George Washington, a Mason, performed the Masonic ritual of laying of the original cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. Over the years, the Capitol has undergone extensive expansion, remodeling, and reconstruction, but the original George Washington cornerstone has never been found. It is unknown whether there is anything inside it.
6. Gramophone Company Time Capsule. In 1907, in Hayes, Middlesex, England, sound recordings on disk were deposited behind the foundation stone of the new Gramophone Company factory by the opera singer Nellie Melba (for whom Melba toast is named). During reconstruction work in the 1960s, the container was officially removed, but before it could be reburied, someone stole it.
7. Blackpool Tower. In Blackpool, Lancashire, England, a foundation deposit was interred in the late 19th century with the customary ceremony. When a search was organized recently in preparation for new building work, not even remote sensing equipment or a clairvoyant could find the lost capsule.
8. Lyndon, Vermont, Time Capsule. The capsule is an iron box containing proceedings of the town’s centennial celebration in 1891, scheduled to be opened a century later. But when the time came, the townsfolk couldn’t find it. They looked in the town vault, the bank, and the library for clues, to no avail. So they created a new one, which they vowed not to lose.
WANT TO CREATE YOUR OWN TIME CAPSULE?
It’s not as easy as you might think. The ITCS has created a list of guidelines to follow:
1. Select a retrieval date. A 50-year or less time capsule may be witnessed by your own generation. The longer the duration, the more difficult the task.
2. Choose an “archivist” or director. Committees are good to share the workload, but one person should direct the project.
3. Select a container. A safe is a good choice. As long as the interior is cool, dry, and dark, artifacts can be preserved. For more ambitious (century or more) projects, there are professional time capsule companies.
4. Find a secure indoor location. It is recommended that time capsules not be “buried”—thousands have been lost in this way. Mark the location with a plaque describing the “mission” of the time capsule.
5. Secure items for time storage. Many things your committee selects will have meaning into the future. Try to have a mix of items from the sublime to the trivial. The archivist should keep an inventory of all items sealed in the time capsule.
6. Have a solemn “sealing ceremony.” Christen the time capsule with a name. Invite the media and keep a good photographic record of your efforts, including the inside of your completed project.
7. Don’t forget your time capsule! You would be surprised how often this happens, usually within a short time. Try to “renew” the tradition of memory with anniversaries and reunions.
8. Inform the ITCS of your completed time capsule project.
The ITCS will add your time capsule to its database in an attempt to register all known time capsules. (www.oglethorpe.edu/itcs/)
SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED
Deciding what to include is the most difficult part. There are the obvious choices: a smartphone, a Bathroom Reader. But what about things like barbed wire or a Twinkie (don’t worry—it’ll last). Need suggestions? Here are some of the items the New York Times put in their “Millennium” time capsule in 1999:
• a Purple Heart medal from the Vietnam War
• a Beanie Baby
• UPC bar codes
• a firearms registration form
• a pager
• a cellular phone
• a battery
• a friendship bracelet
• an advertisement for an SUV
• food stamps
• a copy of the New York Times Magazine
• an LP record containing sounds of the late 20th century
• a New York Yankees baseball
• greeting cards
• Post-It Notes
• a video rental card
• a phone card
• a David Letterman top 10 list
• a Y2K Bug stuffed toy
• wild apple seeds from Kazakhstan
• a Macintosh mouse
• St. John’s wort capsules
• the Holy Bible in multiple translations
• a Weight Watchers Magazine
• a Butt Blaster instruction manual
• the National Enquirer
• Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlets
• a Dr. Seuss book
• a Dictionary of American Slang
• The Guinness Book of World Records
• a reservation list for the Four Seasons restaurant
• an IRS 1040 tax form
• a hair sample from Dolly the cloned sheep
• a Garry Trudeau cartoon sketch
Why did polyester blue jeans bomb in the 1970s? They wouldn’t fade.