By: Natalie Mongarella, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2017, History, Bloomington
My project is working on a team to plan and design a time capsule for the IU Bicentennial to be opened in 2120. The time capsule is a signature project of the bicentennial. The experience thus far has been fun but at times frustrating. Part of our project is attempting to locate a time capsule buried in 1922 for the IU centennial which has since been lost.
We have been using limited resources and looking for information regarding the celebration, the people involved, what might have been inside the capsule, and where it most likely was buried. We have also been tasked with deciding what to do with the centennial capsule if we find it.
To date my personal research has included looking at other university time capsules for planning ideas, looking through IU newspaper archives and working with regional campuses to find information about past capsules.
One of the biggest things we are learning as a team is the importance of documentation as we progress through the project. We have learned from the lost centennial time capsule that documentation of the process and our decisions along the way might help safeguard the knowledge that the bicentennial time capsule exists along with its location and how we decided to create it.
Unfortunately, all but the information that says the centennial time capsule existed is missing. We have seen from other campuses around the country examples of capsules done well and other examples of lost history. One example of a time capsule done well was the Klarman Time Capsule made at Cornell University in 2016.
The Klarman capsule was sealed as part of a new humanities building celebration and is set to be opened during their bicentennial in 2065. I contacted the project manager, Kathy Hovis, to learn more about their intake and collection process, as well as what the time capsule was made of and where they purchased it.[1]
By doing so we received many good ideas about the kinds of items to put into our bicentennial capsule and how to effectively advertise submissions from social media.[2]
An example of lost history that we came across was a time capsule at the University of Maryland that was found in a cornerstone of a 63-year-old building in 1986 but no school record was kept of it.[3] A closer example of lost history also occurred when I visited IU Southeast to see a time capsule that had been made by the students for the campus’ 70th anniversary in 2012.[4]
When I arrived, some people did not know there was ever a time capsule and those who did were unsure of its location. Luckily, my going in to visit brought the time capsule to the forefront of their minds and they were able to locate it and move it into safekeeping.[5]
As a history major at IU, I talk a lot about the process of “doing history,” whether that be research, documentation, or preservation. Time capsules are an aspect of doing history and our team is striving to do it well so that we can preserve a snapshot of who and what IU is for the community 100 years from now.
We are working to literally encapsulate the past, present, and future [hopes] for the university. Our present portrayal needs to be accurate and show how IU has grown from its one building in Seminary Square to campuses across Indiana.
Our biggest issues thus far have come from researching the past. As I mentioned before, the idea of “doing history” involves research into how history was done before us. For example, one task of mine was to go through the archives of the Indiana Daily Student in 1922 and 1924 looking for information on the centennial celebration that included burying a time capsule. The online archives did not start for a few months after the date I needed in 1922 and included nothing for 1924.
I then moved to the microfilms where the week of the 1922 celebration was not part of the archive, it had been lost along the way. Preservation problems show me issues that previous historians and archivists have faced in doing their own history.
It is challenging to hit dead ends in research but they also open up a new set of questions. Is there a specific reason why some documents are lost? Was the event not covered? Did people in the past use different phrases or types of language that I’m not picking up on? Where is the next place I should look?
These were some of the questions I have asked myself over the course of this internship. Luckily I am a member of a team where we are all involved with research and have been able to give each other valuable insights, ideas, and new questions to ask. Having a team has been helpful to bounce ideas off of one another and come up with the best ways to go about our project and planning.
I’m excited to see where the time capsule plans go in the future. I hope that the centennial capsule can and will be found and I hope that the future teams use the foundational work that we have done to create a piece of history that truly embodies what IU means to students, faculty, staff, and the Office of the Bicentennial.
My personal hopes for IU in 100 years are that it is an even larger university that has grown as a great research institution, that the students continue to care about the school and feel connected to it, that Bloomington remains one of the most beautiful campuses and that the time capsule has been well preserved and is ready to open in 2120.
Works Cited
[1] Kathy Hovis, “Klarman Time Capsule Sealed into Place,” Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences, July 21, 2016, accessed February 1, 2017, http://as.cornell.edu/news/klarman-time-capsule-sealed-place.
[2] Kathy Hovis, “Klarman Time Capsule Sealed into Place,” Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences, July 21, 2016, accessed February 1, 2017, http://as.cornell.edu/news/klarman-time-capsule-sealed-place.
[3] “An Unexpected Find At Maryland College,” The New York Times, November 15, 1986, accessed April 17, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/16/us/an-unexpected-find-at-maryland-college.html.
[4] IUS Horizon, “IUS Preserves in Time Capsule for 25 Years,” The Horizon, August 27, 2012, accessed April 17, 2017, http://www.iushorizon.com/8734/features/ius-preserves-in-time-capsule-for-25-years/.
[5] Picture from J.T. Douglas at IUS shared with Natalie Mongarella through Box, March 31, 2017.