Real Time Capsules

[scotrace]

Time capsules - those containers, often buried, that hold items to be dug up by a later generation as a 'snapshot' of a given time and place, have been popular since the early part of the Golden Era. A mini craze for them developed in the 1930's and again in the 1950's.

They can survive well, or go spectacularly wrong, as the buried 1957 Plymouth in Tulsa, OK demonstrated.

If moisture reaches the contents of a time capsule, they will be destroyed within months. Kept dry, the contents can still self-destruct because of the gases exchanged in a tightly sealed environment over time.

This is the bicentennial year of the founding of my City in 1807. A time capsule will be buried in November in a sealed vault buried under a marble slab. It is to be opened in 2107.

I had an idea I hope our great-grandchildren will think is nifty. We're calling for letters from current residents to be written to their descendants. They'll be submitted digitally, and burned to archival quality digital media that should survive the journey through time. There is no doubt that people in 2107 will be capable of reading any kind of disk we throw at them. We've asked people to give their name and address, and something of family history ("I am Mary Dokes, daughter of Johnny and Betty Dokes, my married name is Mary Jones," etc.).

I hope that people who live here in a hundred years will be excited about the possibility of reading a letter written just for them by someone who is long gone.

Anyone have any experience with time capsules? Any suggestions for items to include in one?

 

[Josephine]

That's a neat idea. I keep throwing out the idea for a time caspule to my kids, but they don't seem very interested...

There is no doubt that people in 2107 will be capable of reading any kind of disk we throw at them.

I'd still want it on acid free paper or the like. How many of us have a floppy drive anymore? And how few years ago were we still using them?

 

[Miss Neecerie]

That's a neat idea. I keep throwing out the idea for a time caspule to my kids, but they don't seem very interested...



I'd still want it on acid free paper or the like. How many of us have a floppy drive anymore? And how few years ago were we still using them?

lol

I do tech support for an 'older' bit of engineering technology. And no joke, on occasion, we have to access things on older media. So we have drives..for things like the larger floppy disks...etc...put aside...in case we need them.

But working on history is an odd situation and not the norm.

 

[ScionPI2005]

Besides the digital media, the only other thing that comes to mind right now is to put some currency in there. Would be cool to show future generations what the money we dealt with everyday looked like. Sort of similar to how excited we get these days when we see vintage or antique money.

Very cool idea, time capsules are fascinating. Do keep us posted on what sorts of things are decided upon.

 

[CharlieH.]

I remember that a few years ago my high school celebrated an anniversary with a time capsule to be opened in the unbearably distant year of 2015. The contents were left in charge of the students, thus the school's record of civilisation consisted of a newspaper, a blanket, an old broken game boy and a condom. All placed in the capsule with due pomp and ceremony.

 

[ShortClara]

I think it's an amazing idea! I would have done it. I'm sure I would have chosen things like don't sweat the small stuff, life is what you make of it, follow your bliss and to hell with what other people think, and don't let the computers think for themselves because it always ends really badly.

 

[rebelgtp]

its a very cool idea that i think the future generations may have appreciated. its sad that more people did not take part in it. was it widely publicized that this was happening? there is so much that you could tell them that i am sure they would never know otherwise.

it seems that for the most part people are getting more and more detached.

 

[Edward]

Great idea. Not sure what I'd say to the future-folks.... I'd probably just hold forth about some literature or art or music or something that was important to me.... something that might otherwise have been forgotten. I might put in a few photos or something. I expect to be long forgotten myself than as I'm not for having kids - little rother has produced a son already so they're gonig to carry on that lineage. In many ways, I kinda like the idea of fading into the past and just being one of those people in an old photo that nobody knows who they are, and can make up their own stories for. Our time passes, and theirs comes on. I wonder though whether anyone in our Western world will ever be allowed to just fade out like that, the way they used to - it seems to me that nowadays with the extent of official records there are and so on, there will always be a note of somebody somewhere.... I'm reminded of that poem, what was it called - "The Unknown American"?

Anyhow, I'm digressing..... the short of it: what a cool idea, and such a shame so few people bothered.

 

[panamag8or]

Always search first.

 

[scotrace]

Ha! Got me.

Forgot that I'd already done that. You can send future emails to scott@thenursinghome.com


Threads are now combined.

 

[panamag8or]

Ha! Got me.

Forgot that I'd already done that. You can send future emails to scott@thenursinghome.com

That's okay, my room is just down the hall.:cheers1:

 

[scotrace]

The deadline just passed. Seventeen total submissions! And one of them was on PAPER, one in WPS format, both of which were explicitly ruled out in the instructions for submission.

I still think it's a cool idea, even if it flopped around and died like a sunfish yanked out of the pond.

 

[panamag8or]

I don't see the problem with paper submissions, if they can be scanned and included in the digital format for permanence. With proper sealing, paper can last 100 years, and it would have given the capsule a more personal touch. Heck, I have letters older than that, that just sat in a trunk in the Florida humidity, and are still in excellent shape.

Anyway, I would have written about what we consider mundane activities, because those are generally not going to be recorded in historical texts. What is it that we most want to know about our ancestors 100 years ago? That is what I would include.

 

[Paisley]

Put in a newspaper. In 100 years, people will ooh and ahh and wonder what it is. They might even read it!

 

[Miss 1929]

How people lived

is what makes a time capsule interesting to future openers! Clothes we wore, music we listened to, games, food items (or representations of), papers and magazines, the latest fad.
I saw an article in a 30s Life magazine about a time capsule going in, they put in a Lilly Dache hat...
We could totally confuse them by putting in Golden Era articles!

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Best Time Capsule Ever

The Crypt of Civilization, 1939-40, Oglethorpe University, Georgia, USA.

http://www.oglethorpe.edu/about_us/crypt_of_civilization/

 

[Mike Hammer]

Besides the digital media, the only other thing that comes to mind right now is to put some currency in there. Would be cool to show future generations what the money we dealt with everyday looked like. Sort of similar to how excited we get these days when we see vintage or antique money.

Very cool idea, time capsules are fascinating. Do keep us posted on what sorts of things are decided upon.

Shucks, in 100 years the very idea of actual physical money may be as out of date as the idea of the washboard. The way things are going with on-line banking, debit cards, direct deposit paychecks and the like, we could very well be a 100% cashless society by then.

 

[Paisley]

Put in some seeds. Petunias, California poppies and sunflowers are popular and easy to grow.

 

[BigLittleTim]

I, Claudius

Money and newspapers aren't really that special for a time-capsule:

You can still find a bazillion coins with Queen Victoria's face on them; and every library of any size has every copy of The New York Times going back to the Stone Age.

As the roman emperor Claudius says in Robert Graves' incredible book
"I, Claudius", If you want something to survive for posterity... just leave the darned thing lying around! It was his experience, as an historian, that the important things that people try to preserve for future generations inevitably get destroyed. It's the tied-up bundles of trash, lying about anywhere, that end up surviving and providing our best insights into the past.

-BigLittletim

 

[Paisley]

Libraries may have microfiche or digital copies of old newspapers, but people don't go look at them for amusement. When I found old newspapers from the 1920s in my basement, I found them very interesting. Houses were selling for $2000 and a lot of people wanted to hire a "white girl" or "white man."