We, Who Are about to Die: On the Haunting of the Mid-Twentieth-Century American Time Capsule

This essay examines the rhetoricity of mid-twentieth-century American time capsules. Through an examination of the objects included within the Westinghouse time capsules prepared for the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs and the Crypt of Civilization at Oglethorpe University, this essay argues that time capsules are rhetorical objects predicated on haunting. The capsules’ objects of common use, reproductions of the body, and sound recordings evoke the ghosts of their original era and provide new means of understanding attempts at cross-temporal communication.