On the millennial cusp

'Time in a bottle' conveys notion of how life 'was'

When pop star Jim Croche sang about putting time in a bottle, he wasn't really thinking about time capsules or treasure-holding cornerstones.

The Student Building on the Indiana University Bloomington campus contains treasures of turn-of-the-century Indiana in its cornerstone box. Photo by Heather Hill

But the millennial cusp has stirred new interest in the ways people find to distill and preserve the essence of their individual and collective experiences for posterity.

Time capsules (and filled cornerstones) are one way people have chosen to contain and preserve the memorabilia of their lives, with the expectation that a succeeding generation--one a thousand years away perhaps--will benefit, be amused or be uplifted by the minutiae that, in some small way, conveys the notion of how life "was."

Perhaps the earliest and finest time encapsulations are the pyramids of Egypt. While they were created as vessels to the afterlife, their holdings contain treasures that define an entire civilization.

Today, time capsules run from the very simple (the Tupperware container buried in the backyard by an enterprising 10-year-old, for example) to the highly sophisticated (see cosmic story, this issue).

And they are catching on all over the world, according to Paul Hudson, founding member of the International Time Capsule Society at Atlanta's Ogelthorpe University. He is in charge of the society's capsule registry at the university, which is home to the Crypt of Civilization, an underground vault filled with thousands of 20th-century artifacts. The crypt's time capsule, buried in 1937, contains books, photos and a quart of Budweiser beer. Projected opening date is 8113.

At the New York World's Fair in 1939, the celebration of current technology and future possibilities took many forms, including Elektro the Motoman, a giant robot that talked and performed simple arithmetic, and a time capsule designed by Westinghouse Electric.

The capsula de tiempo, interred at the Seville (Spain) World's Fair in 1992, is perhaps the biggest time capsule of the 20th century; the "capsula" was an open tar pit where people could throw in whatever they wished to preserve.

The Student Building on the Indiana University Bloomington campus contains treasures of turn-of-the-century Indiana in its cornerstone box. When the building was dedicated in 1906, administrators added newspapers of the day, a copy of the state constitution, diplomas, class schedules, a photo of the campus, a list of contributors to the building fund and history of the fund-raising. Among items were copies of correspondence with John D. Rockefeller Jr., who contributed a great deal of money toward the building. Copies of the Stone Cutter's Journal and a list of the workmen and their wages are also in the box. There is a third item that seems to be wholly unrelated to the Student Building--a set of Louisiana Purchase Exposition stamps.

Ray Casati, university architect emeritus, said that copper cornerstone boxes were usually furnished by builders and sealed by the workmen with solder after the cornerstone laying ceremony.

"I'm sure some of the workmen wondered if the heat of the soldering set fire to any newspapers inside the box," he added.

The cornerstone committee for the old Memorial Stadium (located at what is now IUB's arboretum on 10th Street) contained memorabilia, including copies of publications about IU's Robert W. Long Hospital, the IU Medical Building and the James Whitcomb Riley Hospital, and a copy of a telegram sent by French Gen. Ferdinand Foch during World War I.

Cornerstones were laid for the building of Riley Hospital in 1922 and the Larue D. Carter Memorial Hospital in 1949, but lists of the contents, if any, are not available. Present at the laying of the cornerstone at Riley Hospital was little Mary Alice Smith, the inspiration for the Hoosier poet's Little Orphan Annie.

The custom waned during World War II, according to Casati.

Time capsules (and filled cornerstones) are one way people have chosen to contain and preserve the memorabilia of their lives.

"By the end of the war, cornerstones with boxes were no longer included in building plans," said Casati. He added that there may have been one or two more cornerstone boxes put into IU buildings after that, but only because influential persons on the local building committees wanted them.

In 1992, organizers of IUB's Student Recreational Sports Center groundbreaking considered (and rejected) the notion of using a gym locker as the "ceremonial" time capsule to contain materials reflecting two decades of facility planning. And the IPFW Friends Pavilion has a time capsule "buried" in its roof, said Matt Kubik, associate professor of architectural engineering technology at IPFW.

The structure was built by volunteer student and faculty labor in the fall of 1991, and the capsule was installed in the roof that same year, on the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7. The capsule is unique because it is a recycled plastic "ball" that once held beer. "It can only be removed by demolishing the structure--presumably when it is re-roofed or torn down 25 to 30 years from now, perhaps," explained Kubik.

Faculty, students and administrators on the Fort Wayne campus were invited to place messages, business cards and other memorabilia in it.

"At the time, my family had recently moved into a new house that was only partially completed. My wife--who was cooking for our family of six on a hot plate--was less than amused that I was spending every weekend working on the pavilion. The day we placed the time capsule, I sent her to the hardware store with the ball in order to fit it with a cap. Only later did I learn that she took that opportunity to insert her own message relating her opinion of the whole pavilion project!"

No matter what Kubik's wife thought of it, the Friends Pavilion won an American Institute of Architects Citation for Excellence in Architecture in 1992.

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