Kelly's Conservation Corner: Time Capsule Contents (Continued)

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Time Capsule Contents (Continued) - December 9, 2014

December 9, 2014

In June of 2014 we opened a time capsule that held three newspapers, two business cards and seven handwritten pages. These handwritten pages found in the Kings County Academy (Kentville, Nova Scotia) time capsule from 1929 have been transcribed by a volunteer at the museum. Most pages have faded or missing letters or words. In some cases these can be inferred via context but the transcription author acknowledges it does introduce the possibility of errors in transcription. As you will see he has marked in red those places where he had to make a judgement call on what was written. Sadly there are a few passages where it is unknown. On the other hand, this document is a priceless record of the state of the school district from 1888 until 1927 (earliest and latest dates mentioned).

The original author is unknown since it was not signed. But by not signing we can infer the intent was to give an overview rather than a personal account. Certainly, it does give an overview of the changes to the school including the names and terms of the Principals, changes to curriculum, classes offered, library initiatives, staffing changes and so on.

We are grateful for the considerable time and effort on the part of our transcriber who continues to selflessly devote many hours to all things historical. It is just such volunteers who are the mainstay of our community museum.

Previous posts related to the Time Capsule in this blog have had photographs of some of the handwritten pages which show the faded lettering and water staining. All of these entries and additional related information may yet become part of an exhibit on the history of education in Kings County.

I have attached a link to the transcription in PDF form below. Anyone who may have additional information on this important educational history can let us know at the museum. See our website Kings County Museum for contact details.

NOTE: the abbreviation ms in this document refers to the handwritten pages as manuscript.

KCA Time Capsule Handwriting Transcription

1 comment:

Unknown16 December 2014 at 10:15
This is quite amazing to read Kelly, very interesting piece of history. It must have been such a challenge for the transcriber to be able to "fill in the blanks" contextually, but the result is beautiful.
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BLOG Intention

My goal for this Blog is to:

communicate responsible historical object conservation practices to the general public,

provide advice and expertise to community museums in Kings County and Nova Scotia,

share ideas on what conservation work can be done on historical objects in a community museum setting where funding is always a challenge,

identify simple techniques, low cost materials that can be used to achieve positive results,

document my activities at the Kings County Museum in Kentville, Nova Scotia CANADA.

Conservation Tips. This section in some of the posts will provide specific tips on preventive care and conservation treatment. I will be cleaning, stabilizing, and treating objects but also, designing proper storage and preparing exhibits. I hope to provide tips on all of these subjects.

Comments are welcome. Comment by clicking on "No comments" shown in red at the bottom of each post. This also shows as "1 Comment" if there was already a comment. You will be presented with the option to comment and pick a profile such as Anonymous or Google+. Anonymous allows you to comment without registering whereas the other options require you to register first or use an existing account such as Google+ but, in all cases for security reasons I will take a look at them before publishing.

Conservation Tips Disclaimer

While I hope you find the information in this BLOG and the information provided by those organizations I have listed in Links To Related Websites of use and interest, I expect people to recognize that any work done on an object is a risk and is best performed by trained professionals. I cannot be responsible for any damage done to items due to information provided herein. There are individuals and organizations you can contact as follows if you need assistance.

You can contact the Museum of Natural History at their general information number 1-(902) 424-7353 in Halifax, Nova Scotia if you have questions about an historical artifact or need advice or assistance with artifact conservation.

Canadian Association of Professional Conservators - CAPC is the national accrediting body for conservators. They have a listing of members both geographically and by speciality.