What’s inside? University Archives opens time capsules, the first in decades

Archivists are reluctant to open time capsules in front of an audience, something the journalist Geraldo Rivera would understand. Although not strictly a time capsule, “Al Capone’s Vaults,” the subject of Rivera’s 1986 live television special, ended with the discovery of a lot of dust.

Disappointing outcomes at these types of events are not unusual, even for those without a national television audience.

“There have been some pretty public events that went badly when cultural heritage sites opened time capsules that were empty or the materials inside were ruined,” says Hope Dunbar, university archivist for University Libraries.

But opening a time capsule is still a special occasion, like “opening a buried treasure,” according to Dunbar. The university had not opened a time capsule in 40 years, but in May, University Archives opened two.

Crews recently removed one of the time capsules from Farber Hall, part of the South Campus complex that once housed the university’s medical and dental schools. The other, believed to be from Foster Hall, had been in storage since facilities brought it to University Archives in the early 2000s.

The Special Collections staff and student assistants from University Libraries joined Dunbar for the painstaking process of cutting open the copper capsules without damaging what they held.

Like an artist arriving with her own brushes and paints for a portrait session, Dunbar brought her own drills, saws, gloves and safety glasses to open the capsules. She first drilled a small hole as a marker. Cutting proceeded from that point with an oscillating blade, a tool more precise than a jigsaw.

The work can be suspenseful — and tense.

A tightly packed box puts items in the way of cutting tools. What survived for years can be damaged in an instant. There is also no guarantee that the contents are well preserved. Air and water contamination can turn time capsules into trash cans, and what survives, if anything, is a mystery until someone peeks inside.

But a capsule, packed and sealed with the same degree of care used to open it, can reveal new stories for archivists to share.

And opening these recent time capsules offered its own plot twist.

“The time capsule we thought was from Foster Hall, based on information from facilities when it was donated, turned out to be from Cary Hall,” says Dunbar. “All the contents were related to nursing.”

Completed in 1959, Cary Hall originally housed pharmacy, biology and the School of Nursing.

“While accidental, it was serendipitous that we opened both the medical (Farber Hall) and nursing capsules at the same event,” says Dunbar.

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is celebrating its 180th anniversary this year. The School of Nursing will celebrate its 90th anniversary this year.

Keith Mages, University Libraries curator for its history of medicine collection, who was there for the opening, was thrilled when the Farber Hall capsule revealed original photographs of administrators from UB and Buffalo City Hospital, one of the university’s affiliated teaching hospitals at the time.

Among the items found in the Cary Hall capsule were a nursing cap belonging to “Miss C. King,” a complete set of coins minted in 1959, a copy of the tribute presented by Helen Stout, a student representative of the Biology Department, at Cary’s cornerstone ceremony and a University of Buffalo School of Nursing pin.

“Time capsules are academically and historically significant, but they are also, somehow, incredibly whimsical,” says Dunbar. “I hope that new construction and renovations will incorporate time capsules for future generations.”

The items, along with the copper boxes themselves, are being added as Archives collections. The materials, as well as all University Archives’ collections, are available for viewing. Guests can arrange an appointment by email.