Humanities-Time Capsule

To the reader of this brief wink in time I offer my salutations and wish to express the joy I presently feel at the prospect of your advent. Your present discovery of this cargo was no accident as you may suppose, but rather it is a “remembrancer designedly dropped”, to borrow Whitman’s famous phrase (do they know of Walt Whitman from where you stand on that bank of time?), and my intentions for it and for you, my unnamed friend, are no less grandiose or conceited as most human endeavor (Whitman, 1855). I hope to leave some part of me, a glimpse of my personal perspectives on the world in which I shared, and perhaps—the least self-involved and so the most distant hope of these efforts—communicate something of what it was like to live during the late 19th and early 20th centuries here in the United States of America.

That you have ample access to this type of historical information from where you stand in the future I have little doubt, as we have become ever more capable of recording the passing of events both significant and mundane (though is any moment forever lost to be considered truly mundane?) and individual access to such information continues to grow by the day. It is the communicative aspect that makes this journey we take together worthwhile however, as it is mostly my perspective that will largely be conveyed as opposed to any real taste of the time.

Life is far too large to convey anything remotely resembling a comprehensive examination, and perhaps providing even an adequate cursory glance will be beyond my capabilities. We are far too limited to encompass nearly all the varieties of plenitude existence sends our way (even the best among us, and I am far from that) and being locked into a single mind must certainly be regarded as one of our tragedies. No, the items that I have included herein provide little more than a vehicle for my perspectives and framework for my life’s journey. If you (whomever you are) enjoy acts of...