Remembrance of Things Present
The Invention of the Time Capsule
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4155297 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Michael (0000-0003-4516-196X, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 760-760 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaaa397 |
| OpenAlex | W3111911017 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Perhaps all good histories are like time capsules, an archive and interpretation of the past and present projected forward toward the future. Nick Yablon's story begins with the final decades of the nineteenth century, when the still novel technology of photography helped focus the idea that a moment in time might be frozen and preserved—in the form of photos at first and other artifacts later—in safes or coffers designed to be sealed and addressed to a specific or undefined future date and civilization. Yablon examines early efforts by New York City publisher Anna Mary Deihm and Chicago photographer Charles Delevan Mosher, who designed boxes to conserve and transmit a collection of images intended to project an ideal nation, healed and healthy after the Civil War, for future ages to study and admire. Yablon skillfully links the quirky specificity of microhistories of particular time capsules like the two mentioned above, various
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Civilization · Ideal (ethics · Interpretation (philosophy · Photography · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Visual arts · Computer Science · History · Law · Photography and Visual Culture
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |