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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
100-year-old artifacts kept inside Kansas City time capsule are
revealed at World War I museum
By Graham Hurley, CNN
Updated:
5:20 PM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
Source: CNN
The National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, on
Wednesday showed off an excavated century-old time capsule, revealing a
cornucopia of early 20th-century relics, artifacts and documents.
In 1924, historians and museum curators banded together to bury a time
capsule inside the Liberty Memorial, to be opened in 100 years. The
items celebrated victory in World War I and provided a glimpse of life
at that time.
In the 1920s, a group of prominent Kansas City residents formed the
Liberty Memorial Association to dedicated to honor those who served in
World War I.
At the time, the association hosted a ceremony to lay the cornerstone
during the construction of the Liberty Memorial. About gathered as
airplanes circled overhead, doves were released and patriotic music
ringed through the ears of attendees.
The time capsule was placed deep within the limestone concrete interior
of the Liberty Memorial Tower. Now, 100 years later, the museum hosted
a ceremony to detail what was placed inside. The capsule had been
retrieved this summer.
“So here we are, as they had planned 100 years later to open this
capsule. Isn’t that great; who’d have thought that we’d be
here,” said Matthew Naylor, the president and CEO of the museum.
A complicated retrieval process
Unearthing the capsule was not an easy feat for museum curators and
staff, according to Christopher Warren, chief curator at the National
WWI Museum and Memorial.
Workers had to drill inside the Liberty Memorial Tower’s wall to
retrieve the capsule. In addition, the capsule was not in the same
location as anticipated, which required the museum’s facility
engineer to probe through 18 inches of thick limestone and concrete to
locate it.
The staff ran into another problem with the retrieval. Curation staff
were aware of potentially flammable from the 1920s that was stored
inside the capsule.
Naylor announced toward the beginning of the ceremony that the museum
had an official list of the contents of the capsule which allowed them
to determine the film was made with nitrate.
Staff feared the film would combust when it came into contact with
oxygen if it were not stored properly. With the help of the Kansas City
Police Department bomb and arson unit, the capsule was successfully
opened with no explosions.
The capsule was opened prior to the unveiling ceremony Wednesday to
evaluate the condition of the objects inside. Fortunately, the contents
were preserved and nothing was damaged from water or mold.
Century-old relics unveiled
Museum curators and staff spent eight hours meticulously opening the
interior packages using tweezers and small razor blades to preserve the
contents of the artifacts inside as well as the packaging.
Warren said inside were newspapers, a copy of the Constitution, a Bible
and a copy of the American declaration of war from April 1917.
Three objects were left to be opened live at the unveiling ceremony by
museum curation staff. The packed audience included students from
surrounding schools.
The first of these artifacts was a tube of seeds representing the
Kansas City agricultural community.
A tube of letters was the next exhibit unveiled, consisting of
congratulatory statements from Allied war commanders present for the
1921 groundbreaking for the Liberty Memorial. Another letter was penned
by President Calvin Coolidge.
The final object is a printing plate from the Kansas City Star dated to
November 1, 1921. The headline that day detailed 60,0000 people
marching along a three-mile parade route.
Capsule had a host of signatures
What proved to be unique to Warren and museum staff were signatures
engraved on the inside of the copper box. The museum thoroughly
performed research into the identities of the individuals and did not
discover who they were.
They concluded, however, that the signatures corresponded to people
involved in constructing the time capsule.
“What this shows is that it wasn’t just the committee
that were putting together the objects for the time
capsule,” Warren said.
“It was the whole community, the workers who were actually
constructing the time capsule and welding the lid on the top of it
itself that wanted to be involved in this celebration.”
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