Imagine a message intended to be read in 5,000 years. That is exactly the gamble the Westinghouse Electric Corporation made, twice, on the occasion of two New York World's Fairs separated by a quarter of a century. These two capsules, buried at Flushing Meadows, will not be opened until the year 6939, a future so distant it defies imagination. To put this in perspective, 5,000 years ago, writing had barely been invented and the pyramids of Giza had not yet been built.
The Genesis: The Context of the 1939 Fair
The 1939 New York World's Fair, titled "The World of Tomorrow," was held from April 30, 1939, to October 27, 1940, at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. Built on the former site of a landfill turned into a park (the same terrain described by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the "valley of ashes" in The Great Gatsby), the Fair attracted more than 44 million visitors over its two seasons. Its emblem was the Trylon and Perisphere, two futuristic white structures that became iconic symbols of pre-war technological optimism.
It was in this context of enthusiasm for the future that the Westinghouse Electric Corporation decided to create a time capsule. The idea was directly inspired by Dr. Thornwell Jacobs's Crypt of Civilization, whose project had been published in Scientific American in November 1936. Westinghouse wanted a similar but more spectacular project, adapted to the format of a world exposition.
The project was led by G. Edward Pendray, a public relations consultant and co-founder of the American Rocket Society. It was he who invented the term "time capsule" for the occasion, after abandoning his first idea for a name, "time bomb," deemed too bellicose in those times of international tensions. Nazi Germany had just annexed Austria in March 1938 and had invaded the Sudetenland in October 1938, and the world was preparing for imminent war.
Time Capsule I: Design and Contents
The capsule itself, called "Time Capsule I," is a tube made of a special alloy called "Cupaloy" — a mixture of copper, chromium, and silver developed by Westinghouse for its exceptional resistance to corrosion. The tube measures 228 cm (7 feet 6 inches) long with an interior diameter of 16.5 cm (6.5 inches) and an exterior diameter of 20.3 cm (8 inches). Its slender, torpedo-like shape earned it Pendray's unfortunate first name suggestion.
The capsule was deposited on September 23, 1938, seven months before the Fair's official opening, at 15 meters (50 feet) below ground level in Flushing Meadows Park. This exceptional depth was chosen to protect it from surface disturbances on a millennial scale.
Its contents were meticulously selected to represent everyday life and technological advances of the 1930s. Among the 35 everyday objects: a copy of Life magazine from November 22, 1937, an edition of the 1938 Sears Roebuck Catalogue (the most widespread mail-order catalog in America), a copy of the New York Herald Tribune from September 22, 1938, a pack of Camel cigarettes, a Gillette razor, a toothbrush, samples of modern fabrics (silk, wool, artificial rayon), a collection of American coins, an alphabet in typeface, and various small everyday objects.
Seeds of wheat, corn, oats, tobacco, cotton, rice, alfalfa, flax, and soybeans were included, sealed in individual glass tubes. The interior of the capsule was filled with a mixture of inert gases — nitrogen and argon — to prevent any oxidation and deterioration over the millennia.
The capsule also contained microfilms with more than 10 million words of text and a thousand images, covering subjects as varied as science, art, religion, industry, and daily life. Personal messages had been solicited from eminent figures. Physicist Albert Einstein wrote a message in September 1938, in which he expressed his hope that future generations would have solved the problems of war and inequality that tormented his era. Writer Thomas Mann also contributed an essay reflecting on the state of civilization.
The Book of Record: A Memory Plan
Aware that the greatest risk was not physical deterioration but oblivion, Westinghouse published a "Book of Record of the Time Capsule of Cupaloy." This book detailed the capsule's contents, its exact location (with precise geographic coordinates), and instructions for its retrieval. Copies were sent to thousands of libraries, museums, monasteries, and academic institutions worldwide, in the hope that this information would survive the 5,000 years of waiting. The choice to include monasteries was deliberate: religious communities had historically demonstrated a remarkable ability to preserve documents over long periods.
Time Capsule II: 1965, A Transformed World
Twenty-six years later, the 1964-1965 World's Fair gave Westinghouse the opportunity to create a second capsule. The world had radically changed: World War II had taken place, the atomic bomb had been invented and used, the Cold War was in full swing, and humanity had begun the conquest of space with the flight of Yuri Gagarin in April 1961.
"Time Capsule II," identical in design and materials to the first, was buried on October 16, 1965, one day before the Fair's closing. During both seasons of the Fair, the capsule had been displayed to the public, suspended above a reflecting pool at the Westinghouse Pavilion, attracting millions of curious visitors. After closing, it was lowered by cable into a prepared excavation, 15 meters deep, only 3 meters (10 feet) north of the first capsule.
The contents of Time Capsule II reflect the spectacular transformations of a quarter century. Among the notable objects: a 45-rpm record by the Beatles, a bikini, a piece of transatlantic fiber optic cable, cigarette filters (a new invention), a credit card, a fiberglass sample, tranquilizers (reflecting the rise of pharmacology), a tube of sunscreen, a ballpoint pen, a fragment of a heat-resistant garment from an astronaut's suit, coins, and stamps. Microfilms contained complete editions of American daily newspapers and detailed reports on recent scientific advances, including progress in space exploration and nuclear energy.
5,000 Years of Waiting: An Act of Faith
The two Westinghouse capsules will not be opened until the year 6939, 5,000 years after the burial of the first. This is an almost inconceivable time scale. To grasp what 5,000 years represents, consider that in 3000 BCE, writing was a recent invention, Stonehenge had just been erected, and the Great Pyramids did not yet exist.
The main challenge is not physical preservation — the Cupaloy alloy and inert atmosphere provide theoretically effective protection — but transmitting the information about the capsules' location across millennia. The Book of Record remains the primary memory mechanism. But in 5,000 years, how many of those libraries will still exist, and will the languages in which the book is written still be understood? This is a question that concerns long-term preservation specialists. The problem of transmitting memory over millennial time scales is also at the heart of reflections on nuclear waste storage, where future civilizations must be warned of dangers buried for tens of thousands of years.
Today, the capsule site at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is marked by a granite monument and commemorative plaques indicating the exact location of the two capsules. The park remains an active and famous public space, home to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (home of the US Open), the New York Mets stadium (Citi Field), and the Queens Museum, housed in the former New York City Pavilion of the 1939 Fair.
It is an extraordinary act of faith: believing that in 5,000 years, someone will remember these tubes buried beneath a New York park. But it is precisely this faith in the future that gives time capsules their emotional power — whether the horizon is five millennia or a single year, like the capsules created every day on Capsul.
Sources
- Pendray, G. Edward. *The Book of Record of the Time Capsule of Cupaloy*. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, 1938. - *The Story of the Westinghouse Time Capsule*, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 1952. - Archives of the 1939-1940 and 1964-1965 New York World's Fairs. - Jarvis, William E. *Time Capsules: A Cultural History*. McFarland & Company, 2002. - "Einstein's Letter to the Future," excerpt from the *Book of Record*, 1938. - Queens Museum, "The 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs."