A Duluth Time Capsule Goes on Display at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum

The metal container after being pried open.

If you've never been present at the opening of a time capsule, then you are missing something special. The idea of it has to be fun, from deciding what to save for posterity to wondering what's inside when people open it up decades later.

This past Saturday Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum opened a time capsule that had been placed beneath the cornerstone of the former church building that now houses the museum. At the time, this had been the home for a Church of Christ, Scientist congregation that gathered here.

For those unfamiliar with this Duluth treasure, the Manuscript Library Museum is one of many around the country. This one, however, is unique because it's located in the town where David Karpeles graduated high school, Denfeld in Duluth West Side.

I heard about the time capsule only by chance last week. With a little free time on my hands I dropped in to see what the current themes were on dislay. Two of the featured exhibits were Florence Nightingale and the event that generated the famous poem "Charge of the Light Brigade." While there, local museum director Matthew Sjelin notified me of the weekend event.

I found the story intriguing because in 2007 I attended the opening of a time capsule in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere had been placed in a concrete vault that was to be opened in 2007. Boyd Coddington, an L.A. car-builder with a television show was on hand to help get the car started after its 50 year sleep. Inside the trunk were the "time capsule" contents.

So I was curious about the contents that had been hidden since 1912. First off, the container--a metal box--was smaller than I expected, but based on the quantity of books it contained the thing was really packed. A book of poetry by Mary Baker Eddy was one item that caught my eye. There were also newspapers from the day it was placed, as well as photos, Christian Science Journals, Bibles, letters and a sheet with signatures of all members of the congregation.

Here are some of the items they placed in the vault for posterity:

Related Links

Treasures of the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum

The History of Medicine @ Karpeles

Time Capsules: What Would You Conceal For 100 Years?

Christa Lawler's Account of the Treasures at Karpeles in Duluth

        The Minnesota Star Tribune, 28 Sept 2024

  

Time Capsules: What Would You Conceal For 100 Years?

This car was underground (and sometimes underwater)
for 50 years in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

A big story in the news this week has been the unearthing and opening of two "time capsules" that had been placed beneath a statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. The statue was being dismantled because it symbolized the oppression experienced by blacks under slavery.

But it was the time capsules that were the interesting feature of this story. They were 130 years old. What would they contain? In what condition were their contents?

I found the story intriguing because in 2007 I attended the opening of a time capsule in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere had been placed in a concrete vault that was to be opened in 2007. Boyd Coddington, an L.A. car-builder with a television show was on hand to help get the car started after its 50 year sleep. Inside the trunk were the "time capsule" contents.

Media gathered round to see what treasures might
be found in the trunk of this 1957 Belvedere 

The car and its contents had been buried as part of the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood. It was to be opened on the state's 100th anniversary. 

One item in the time capsule was a list of guesses as regards what the population of Tulsa would be in 50 years. The winning guess would win the car. There was also some gasoline, to make sure the car would run if cars of the future did not use gas.

Needless to say, when the lid was pulled from the coffin -- I mean vault -- one could readily see from markings on the walls that the vault had been filled with water to varying depths numerous times over the years. If you know anything about cars, they have a lot of parts that can rust... like the frame, the body, the engine.

The late Boyd Coddington had a team of assistants who managed to pry the rusted hood up enough to see that the engine was a block of rust. They then made a gallant effort to open the trunk to retrieve the contents of the time capsule. This was achieved and 

You can read here my account of the Tulsarama celebration. And here's a related story: Entombed 50 Years, Miss Belvedere Still Turns Heads

As for the 130 artifacts concealed in the Robert E. Lee, coins and bullets from the Civil War were among the various items unearthed, along with an 1875 Almanac and some books. The backstory on this second box (the first was found a couple months ago) can be accessed here at the Wall Street Journal site.

Which leads us to the question: What would YOU place in a Time Capsule that would be opened in 100 years? 

What about the original lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row"? Or an iPod filled with the entire Beatles catalog? How about a box of unused N95 Covid masks? Plus a copy of last Sunday's New York Times with my daughter's 10th crossword puzzle published there.

How about you? 

A Time Capsule from the Sixties

One of the funniest scenes in Woody Allen's film Sleeper is when he wakes up 200 years in the future and the scientists as him to identify the various historical items which they had found from civilization in the 20th century. They showed a film clip of Howard Cosell and surmised that in olden times interrogators would play this as a form of torture to elicit information. Woody Allen assents, "Yes."

These kinds of juxtapositions, looking back on the present from the lens of the future, have been used to comic effect in many films and cartoons. And it really will be fun to see what people of tomorrow thought of the 20th century, especially when they find the time capsules we've left behind with their various memorabilia.

1964 was a big year in my life. It was the year we moved to New Jersey. It was also the year of the New York World's Fair, or rather, the first year of the two year showcase of American industry in the midst of this international exhibition. A centerpiece of the fair, which sprawled at Flushing Meadows in the Queens, one of New York's five boroughs, was the Unisphere, a spectacular (in its day) enormous steel globe. My friend's dad, Mr. LaGreca, was a welder on the project and I am sure he took pride in being associated with it.

The World's Fair featured 140 pavilions on 646 acres. 21 of the pavilions were from various states like New Jersey. There were also 36 countries represented. I especially remember the aerial acrobatics at the Mexico pavilion. But the primary investors in the fair were U.S. companies like Ford, GM, Dupont, Westinghouse, Pepsi Cola, IBM, General Electric... sinking more than a billion dollars into the occasion.

In 1965, Westinghouse assembled items for a time capsule that would preserve the Sixties unto eternity, or whenever it was decided to allow its contents to be opened. Take a minute to guess its contents while I babble on for a paragraph or two.

Lee Iacocca's Ford introduced the Mustang in 1964 so that you could ride around the Ford Pavillion in the shell of a Mustang. Hopefully you got the color you wanted, or you'd have to stand in a long, long line for the next time. And I'll never forget the demonstrations in the Dupont pavilion, such as what happens to a tennis ball when you drop it into "absolute zero" temperatures.

Speaking of lines, they were almost always long for the favorite "rides" (if you call GM's travel car into the future a ride). You could, however, see a lot by avoiding the things most visited and returning another time when it was less crowded, if you lived a reasonable distance from the City.

O.K.... have you been thinking about that time capsule? What would a 1965 time capsule contain? At the top of the list, which you can find online is.... a bikini. Do you think people in the future will know what to do with it?

Here's the complete list of the contents of that 1965 Time Capsule.

• bikini
• Polaroid camera
• plastic wrap
• electric toothbrush
• tranquilizers
• ball-point pen
• molecular block
• 50 star American flag
• superconducting wire
• box of detergent
• transistor radio
• fuel cells
• electronic watch
• antibiotics
• contact lens
• reels of microfilm
• credit cards
• ruby laser rod
• ceramic magnet
• filter cigarettes
• Beatles record
• irradiated seeds
• freeze-dried foods
• rechargeable flashlight
• synthetic fibers
• heat shield from Aurora 7
• Revised Standard Version of the Bible
• film history of the USS Nautilus
• fiber-reinforced material
• film identity badge
• material from Echo II satellite
• computer memory unit
• pocket radiation monitor
• graphite from first nuclear reactor
• Vanguard satellite radio transmitter
• container for carbon-14
• tektite
• pure zirconium
• desalted Pacific Ocean water
• birth-control pills
• pyroceramic baking dish
• plastic heart valve
• Official Guide to New York World's Fair
• photographs of important events

As for that Beatles record, I hope they also included a record player.

If I've given you an appetite to hear and see more of the 1964 New York World's Fair, then you might want to bookmark this website and visit all the pages of information that have been compiled there, including maps and photos. Have fun reminiscing.