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Credit: New York Times
Credit: New York Times

Back to the Future: The Society Library and the World’s Oldest Time Capsule

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

An ornate claw-footed bronze chest, believed to be one of the oldest unopened time capsules in existence, received its overdue introduction to the 21st century just a fortnight ago.  The capsule, in the possession of the New-York Historical Society since its conception and deposit in 1914, was opened October 8.  Inside was a perfectly preserved compendium of books, newspaper clippings, institutional documents, catalogs, and history monographs. The bulk of materials were political and financial in nature -- disappointing the cadre of spectating journalists eager for lost treasures, whimsical intrigue and quaint novelties -- but others addressed a range of topics, from baseball to eagles to bullfighting to the theft of a John Singer Sargent painting from the Brooklyn Museum. While early media reports dismissed the capsule as an underwhelming “dud,” we here at the New York Society Library were excited to spot within the original inventory  our 1914 Annual Report, as well as a “List of Shareholders, Officers  and Benefactors,” and “History, Charter and By Laws, etc.” 

 Opened Time Capsule.  Surveying the capsule contents.

The New York Society Library was clearly important to the capsule curators, the Lower Wall Street Business Men’s Association. Great pomp and circumstance surrounded its fateful sealing. The Association, a society of merchants, philanthropists, and descendants of revolutionaries, organized the event in commemoration of the 1614 founding of New Netherland, the Dutch trading post that evolved into New York City. On May 23, 1914, to the tune of cheering spectators and Continental drum corps, they marched alongside hundreds of tea and coffee merchants and members of other historical and genealogical societies dressed in colonial-era costume of breeches and powdered wigs. They commenced at Fraunces Tavern and settled at the foot of Wall Street to watch former mayor and Columbia University president Seth Low resoundingly hammer bronze nails into the chest. While they left instructions with the New-York Historical Society to open it in 1974, the date with destiny was missed when the capsule was sent to offsite storage. Upon its rediscovery in the 1990s, patient historians opted to wait for the 100-year mark.

May 23, 1914 Celebration

An accompanying publication by the Association on New York’s “Commercial Tercentennial” cites the Library and its collection of “proper books” as evidence that 18th-century New Yorkers both valued erudition and had access to its means. While it can be assumed that many of the participants in the 1914 celebration followed in this illustrious line of Library users, our own archives offer proof of an immediate and personal link between the institution and the N-YHS time capsule. Historian Nick Yablon has surmised that Abram Wakeman, whose book History and Remembrances of Lower Wall Street and Vicinity  was included in the chest, was the chief curator of its contents. The Library possesses a letter from Wakeman to NYSL Head Librarian Frank B. Bigelow in which he fondly recalls checking out books from the Library with his father Abram Sr., a prominent lawyer, politician, postmaster of New York, and a confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. (Later, Wakeman and Bigelow served together on the United Historical and Patriotic Societies and Association of New York, which distributed prizes for textbooks on New York history.)

Contents of the time capsule, including an inventory citing New York Society Library materials. Credit: Allison Meir, Hyperallergic.

The media’s callous dismissals of the capsule as an immediately forgettable lot of “largely mundane ephemera” deny both the value of the artifact today and the intentions of yesteryear. In many ways the important part is not the capsule’s contents so much as what they say about its time and its creators. The contents memorialize the Association and the mercantile and intellectual legacy of New York City.  Collectively they become a new primary resource offering unique insight into the past. An exceedingly optimistic telegram from New York governor Martin Glynn accompanies the trove, declaring “May every problem which now engages the attention of New York have found a solution,” and indicating the organization’s overriding faith in history’s relevance to the present and the future. We can hope that scholars will take note and more survey the capsule holistically, now and in 2114, when it is slated to be exhumed again.

It could also be surmised that the curators feared its contents might not survive into the forthcoming decades, as ephemera by its very name is “that which is intended to be thrown away.” Relief, rather than disappointment, should greet its unveiling. In fact, many of the documents enshrined within the capsule are readily accessible through digital discovery tools unimaginable in the print world of 1914.  You may be surprised to learn that our website features text-searchable PDF files of the New York Society Library’s historic annual reports dating back to the inaugural 1856 edition and including the 1914 report that was sealed for 100 years by Abram Wakeman and the Lower Wall Street Business Men’s Association. When tracing both New York City and the Library’s rich history, the annual reports are an obvious and efficient starting point, and a follow-up blog post will explore their highlights and vast research value.

The time capsule contents laid out.

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