Celebrating Echoes from the Past

Ninety years after a time capsule was placed into the cornerstone of AFB’s headquarters, friends of AFB gathered at the site to hear powerful messages that were almost lost to time.

On December 5, 1934, AFB held a ceremony to place the cornerstone at 15 W. 16th Street in Manhattan. The location served as AFB’s main office for over six decades. When AFB moved its offices to New York’s Penn Plaza in 1997, the location of the time capsule was unclear.

M. C. Migel, Helen Keller, and Dr. John Finley stand in a room that looks as if it's still under construction. Migel and Keller hold a trowel, and Keller also holds a brick. Thanks to a photograph taken during the 1934 event, AFB found and carefully retrieved the time capsule, which was opened during a ceremony as part of AFB’s centennial celebration in 2021.

Among the time capsule’s contents were two silver disc records, with instructions on how to restore and play them. After several years of painstaking restoration, the American Printing House for the Blind (APH), which serves as stewards for the AFB and Helen Keller Archives, retrieved and digitized the recordings with remarkable clarity.

“We’re greatly indebted to APH for capturing these voices from long ago, one being the voice of Helen Keller with a message for her best friend Anne Sullivan Macy,” said Tony Stephens, assistant vice president for communications at AFB. “These echoes of the past from AFB’s early leaders are just as relevant now for the blindness community as they were nine decades ago.”

This event was made possible by New York’s Center for Jewish History, which now occupies the space. They graciously welcomed AFB and APH to the site of the cornerstone to share the recordings with the world. AFB thanked the Center with a framed reproduction of a letter Keller sent to Adolph Hitler in 1933, condemning the human rights violations taking place in Germany -- a reminder of Keller’s advocacy on wide-ranging global matters.

To learn more about the AFB time capsule, watch an event livestream, and listen to the recovered recordings, visit www.afb.org/TimeCapsule.

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