100 Objects #1: The Century Safe

Summary

99% Invisible: 100 Objects #1 – The Century Safe

Host: Roman Mars

Guest: Jill Lepore

Date: May 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

The premiere episode of 99% Invisible’s new series, "A History of the United States in 100 Objects," explores the story of the Century Safe—a time capsule created for the 1876 Centennial Exposition and opened a century later, in 1976. Roman Mars is joined by historian Jill Lepore to unravel the significance, the anticipation, and ultimately the letdown of the safe’s contents. The episode reflects on how societies commemorate history, the act of preserving objects for posterity, and what items can (and cannot) say about the past, setting the tone for the series ahead.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: The Bicentennial and the Century Safe

• America in 1976:
  Roman Mars evokes the cultural and political mood of the U.S. during its bicentennial, highlighting post-Watergate cynicism, Vietnam fatigue, and presidential transitions ([00:40]–[01:56]).
• Introduction of the Century Safe:
  • In the marbled Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol, an imposing iron time capsule—"like a western... big iron, monstrous thing" (Jill Lepore, [02:03])—awaits its opening after 100 years.
  • The safe was created in 1876 for the nation’s centennial, to "capture the moment," then sealed with the intention that it be opened "by the President of the United States in the crazy futuristic year of 1976" (Jill Lepore, [03:01]).

Creating the Capsule: The 1876 World's Fair Context

• World's Fair Scene:
  The 1876 Centennial Exposition was a showcase of American technological wonders, introducing Heinz ketchup, the Statue of Liberty’s torch, and Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone ([05:12]–[05:24]).
  • "It's a little bit like a circus. Plus Epcot Center. Plus Disney World. Plus... the UN." ([05:12], Jill Lepore)
• National Mood in 1876:
  • Still reeling from the Civil War, with reconstruction faltering and women’s suffrage rising, there’s a tension between celebrating progress versus acknowledging unresolved turmoil ([06:41]).
  • "Less about American freedom and liberty and democracy, and more about American economic and industrial might and geographic expansion." ([06:41], Jill Lepore)
• A Novelty of Historical Consciousness:
  Jill Lepore posits the idea that obsession with “the future” is a relatively recent phenomenon:
  "Nobody thought about the future until the 20th century... people begin... really thinking, like, if machines keep getting better and faster and bigger and stronger, what will the future look like?" ([07:57])

Anna Deem: The Entrepreneur Behind the Safe

• Who was Anna Deem?
  A Civil War widow and sharp businesswoman, Anna Deem conceived of the safe as "a stunt to get some attention for and sell subscriptions to the magazine and the newspaper" ([08:59], Jill Lepore).
  • Engraved with instructions for the future, the safe was both a spectacle and a marketing ploy.
  • People could even pay to put their autograph inside. "It was a clever ruse. Give me a kid. You got a nickel? So she made a little pretty penny." ([09:42], Jill Lepore)
• Convincing the Public:
  Anna Deem leveraged the centennial fervor to promote the idea, playing into the new fascination with preservation and future-gazing ([10:16], [10:32]).
• Safe Forgotten:
  After its fanfare, the Century Safe was "meant to be forgotten for a century" ([11:14], Jill Lepore).

Rediscovery and Opening, 1976

• Lost Key, Found Story:
  By the 1970s, the safe was all but forgotten until a reporter’s curiosity—then a search for the lost key, which surfaced in Florida ([12:07], [12:43]).
• National Mood, 1976:
  • Disillusionment and division after Watergate, Vietnam, and Civil Rights protests flavored the year ([14:00]).
  • Hostility and resistance to the bicentennial celebrations from various groups—"Jesse Jackson called for a boycott... protests by Native nations... but also a lot of powwows." ([14:00], Jill Lepore)

The Opening Ceremony

Timestamps: [15:10]–[16:33], [20:07]–[22:31]

• President Ford’s Speech:
  • "As we look inside this safe, let us look inside ourselves." ([15:58], President Gerald Ford)
  • "America's wealth is not in material objects, but in our great heritage, our freedom and our belief in ourselves." ([16:13], Ford)
  • Lepore’s take: "He just kind of runs with the metaphor, right?... I kind of like Ford." ([15:45], Jill Lepore)
• Opening the Safe:
  President Ford and onlookers anticipate revelation, hoping for artifacts that encapsulate a century.

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The Disappointing Reveal

• Contents Revealed:
  • Mainly photographs (Lincoln, Grant, Congress members, Anna Deem).
  • An inkstand (purportedly Longfellow’s), a book of government employees, an autograph book, temperance pamphlet, and a photo of Anna Deem’s physician ([21:36]–[22:16]).
  • "There's just nothing. It's just like nothing after nothing... people just start laughing." ([21:02], Jill Lepore)
• Public and Media Reaction:
  The moment is considered anticlimactic; "It's some non-event." ([22:31], Lepore)
• Why the Disappointment?:
  "They don't cross the valley of time with their significance intact. So what was significant to the people who put them in there was the novelty of photography, the possibility of preservation." ([22:54], Jill Lepore)
  • The safe reflects more a fascination with the act of keeping than with what is actually kept:
    "It's almost like a monument to the possibility that we could preserve something where what to put in there was an afterthought." ([24:09], Lepore)

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Reflection: What Makes an Object Worth Preserving?

• Jill Lepore on the Ideal Time Capsule:
  • "Nothing published. Nothing that is not handwritten or hand drawn. Like... one of a kind... that would be a revelation upon its discovery." ([24:54])
  • Her dream finds: "Love letters of Ulysses S. Grant... the diary of a Chinese railroad worker who was learning English... something that we don't have." ([24:54])
• Roman Mars’s Counterpoint:
  Even objects that seem banal—like a temperance pamphlet or an official photograph—tell real and meaningful stories when given context ([25:39]).
• Significance of Commonplace Items:
  The inkwell’s story connects to Longfellow’s grief and national mourning—details only revealed through context ([25:39]–[28:36]).

On Representing the Past

• Cautions & Obligations:
  • “The people who suffer the most leave the least evidence behind... any history that begins with what survives has a real challenge... that's the asymmetry of the historical record." ([28:36], Jill Lepore)
  • The storytellers' duty: Seek evidence to honor both "the powerful and the powerless." ([28:36])
• The Series’ Mission:
  Roman: "We’re not making an official archive... But we are going to tell our story... through objects. 100 objects to be exact." ([30:14])
  • Inviting listeners to contribute their stories and objects to the project ([31:14]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Buildup and the Letdown:
  • "I mean, really, it's a dud." ([20:49], Jill Lepore, on the safe's contents)
  • "Would have been like looking at a rocket ship." ([09:33], Lepore, on the safe at the 1876 fair)
• On Historical Gaps:
  • "Much like the present, the past is largely a chronicle of misery. I mean, people suffer, and the people who suffer the most leave the least evidence behind." ([28:36], Jill Lepore)
• On Preservation:
  • "It's almost like a monument to the possibility that we could preserve something where what to put in there was an afterthought." ([24:09], Lepore)
• On Objects Telling America's Story:
  • "In all these objects, in any American object, you can find America." ([25:39], Roman Mars)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:03] Jill Lepore describes the safe
• [06:41] Lepore on America's mood in 1876
• [08:59] Anna Deem and her motives
• [11:14] The safe is forgotten on purpose
• [12:07] Rediscovery in the 1970s
• [14:00] The mood of the bicentennial
• [15:58] Ford: “As we look inside this safe, let us look inside ourselves.”
• [20:07]–[22:16] The disappointing opening and contents
• [24:09] Jill Lepore on why the safe’s contents disappointed
• [28:36] Lepore’s remarks on the biases and absences in the historical record
• [30:14] Roman Mars outlines the 100 Objects series

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Conclusion

This episode launches the ambitious "100 Objects" project with a meditation on what objects can—and cannot—say about a nation’s history. The story of the Century Safe becomes a way to reflect on memory, erasure, and the challenge of finding the threads of real life amid official records. Roman Mars and Jill Lepore encourage both skepticism and curiosity about how America's story is told, making a call for diverse, overlooked histories as the series unfolds.

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Call to listeners:
Roman Mars invites listeners to submit their own object stories:
“I want you to look in your attics and think back through your family histories and tell us what objects you think tell a bigger story of America. Email us at 100objects99pi.org... It’s gonna take all of us forgotten nobodies to do this right.” ([31:14])

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For more, visit 99percentinvisible.org.

Transcript

[Roman Mars]

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[Jill Lepore]

like picture like a western where they're robbing a train. And there's a safe on one of the cars of the railroad train. And it's this big iron, monstrous thing, but it's sort of portable, that kind of a safe, like a 19th century safe.

[Roman Mars]

This is historian Jill Lepore.

[Jill Lepore]

The safe, which is known as the century safe, sometimes called the Centennial safe, was specially built on the occasion 100 years before, not of the bicentennial, but of the centennial, the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

[Roman Mars]

The Century Safe was created in 1876 to mark the country's 100th birthday. The idea was to make a time capsule to fill the safe with objects, things hand selected to represent the moment they came from those Meaningful objects were hidden away inside the safe in and the doors were sealed. And written on the doors were instructions to the future.

[Jill Lepore]

It is inscribed upon it the promise that it will be opened by the President of the United States in the crazy futuristic year of 1976. Good morning to all of you. Happy birthday to the usa. We are very pleased to have you assembled here this morning on a very historic occasion. And President Ford has been coerced by his aides to carve out a few minutes in his schedule to traipse from the White House over to the Capitol building into Statuary hall where a fleet of photographers is assembled awaiting this century long wait finally coming to an end with the opening of an iron and glass door.

[Roman Mars]

When the safe was first sealed, there was a record of what had been put inside. But by 1976, after its hundred year journey through time, most people had no idea. And so now they were gathered around with one shared question. What was in there? What objects did those Americans from the past think would really say, this is who we are. These are the things that represent us and our values? I mean, what a daunting task. What a fraught exercise. What objects could anyone possibly pick to tell the story of the country, of our country? What fool would even attempt such a thing? From 99% Invisible and BBC Studios, this is a history of the United states. And in 100 objects, I'm Roman Mars. Okay, so let's go back 100 years before 1976, when the safe was first being filled, which to my understanding was at the World's Fair of 1876. So could you talk about that? World's Fair?

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah. So World's Fair, we don't really have them anymore. It's a little bit even hard to describe, but it's a little bit like a circus. Plus Epcot center plus Disney World plus

[Roman Mars]

the U.N. it had arts and science exhibits from across the globe. 30,000 exhibits in more than 200 buildings. You could climb a ladder onto the right arm, the torch arm of the future Statue of Liberty. Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated what turned out to be his prototype of the telephone. Heinz ketchup was introduced to the public. It is hard to conceive of those as contemporary inventions. But with innovation accelerating to light speed, there they were, side by side.

[Jill Lepore]

The big hit of the Centennial Exposition was Machinery hall where there was this giant power engine. There are also typewriters and sewing machines. Just like a lot of gadgetry that was fun to see.

[Roman Mars]

President Grant personally pulled the lever of that engine that brought all the other Exhibits in the hall to life. The technology had advanced so far that for most attendees, it must have seemed like magic. The fair was, in many ways, the centerpiece of the nation's first big birthday. So could you give a sense of what the General mood of 1876 is? Are people really feeling like celebrating the United States? Like, what is going on?

[Jill Lepore]

It is a big commercial hullabaloo to get people to celebrate the United States in 1876. Recall, we're only 11 years from the end of the Civil War, in which three quarters of a million Americans died. We are at the turning point in which reconstruction, the plan for a fully multiracial democracy in the United States for the first time, is just about to be abandoned. And there is a great spirit of reform in the United States still, especially under the banner of the women's suffrage movement. So there's a lot of political tumult in these years, but there is a tremendous amount that Americans who have an appetite for celebration are very keen to celebrate, and maybe surprisingly, less about American freedom and liberty and democracy, and more about American economic and industrial might and geographic expansion.

[Roman Mars]

One in five Americans came to the 1876 World's Fair to see all of that innovation for themselves. In fact, progress had accelerated so much, life was changing so fast, that for the first time, Americans were becoming fascinated, resonated with the future.

[Jill Lepore]

You would say, now, okay, for all of human time. Haven't humans always been interested in the future? And I would say, no, that is where, like, people, like, we just live in, like, what is the future of work? What is the future of automation? What is the future of AI? What is the future of democracy? Like, all of our political debates are about the future. It's like a kind of, like, Davos Aspen pipeline of, like, we must talk about the future at all times. Nobody thought about the future until the 20th century. So. But there is kind of the beginning of a notion of historical time that is novel in the 19th century. And people can picture rockets and going to the moon, and they're not called robots until the 1920s, but you can kind of. There's a lot about mechanical men. So people begin, for the first time really thinking, like, if machines keep getting better and faster and bigger and stronger, what will the future look like?

[Roman Mars]

And it's in this moment of celebrating the past and thinking about the future, that one woman, Anna Deem, a magazine publisher, dreams up the century safe.

[Jill Lepore]

She was a Civil War widow and, you know, was a canny businesswoman. And here was a stunt to get some Attention for and sell subscriptions to the magazine and the newspaper. So she commissioned the building of this elaborate safe, which is kind of cool. It has, like, engraving all over it, and then it promises on it that it's going to be opened by the President of the United States in 1976 on July 4th, which is just cool. It would be. Would have been like looking at a rocket ship.

[Roman Mars]

So she gets space at the World's Fair to set this thing up, and then people interact with it. Like, how do they. What is on display?

[Jill Lepore]

Well, the thing itself. But then you could. You could look at what was already in there, and you could pay money to have yourself put in. You could pay to have to sign your autograph in an autograph book of just anybody. And these chumps did that. It was a clever ruse. Give me a kid. You got a nickel? So she made a little pretty penny.

[Roman Mars]

So, like, if the idea of time capsules is quite new and the idea of, like, thinking about the past is kind of. Is actually a new concept, thinking about the future is kind of a new concept. How does she convince people to care about this enough to get floor space on the World's Fair?

[Jill Lepore]

I think she was a great show businesswoman. And it did speak to the moment in the sense of. It was a clever idea. Right. Here we are 100 years from this Declaration of Independence. Why don't we think about where the country will be 100 years from now after the fair.

[Roman Mars]

Having done everything she could to drum up excitement, Anna sealed her safe full of objects and entrusted it to Congress.

[Jill Lepore]

And it goes down, you know, into the Raiders of the Lost Ark storage facility.

[Roman Mars]

So, like, really, over the course of this hundred years, despite the ornate bigness of the safe itself, it really does get kind of forgotten.

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah, it's meant to be forgotten for a century. Like, what are you going to do? Check on it?

[Roman Mars]

Yeah, I guess that's true.

[Jill Lepore]

What's the point of seeing what it looks like since 1929.

[Roman Mars]

So the safe sat in the nation's capital as the country changed around, sat there as debates about segregation grew from Reconstruction, as the Washington Monument went up, and eventually Lincoln's as men in uniform filled the streets on the way to World War I. Then World War II, it sat not bothering anyone. Through the Great Depression and Wounded Knee and the Titanic and the creation of television and the Korean War and the March on Washington and the Stonewall riots and men walking on the moon. Time went on and on, and the country changed and changed, and suddenly it was the 1970s.

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah. So a newspaper article appears, I think, in 1971. There's a lot of newspaper coverage of the bicentennial. And there's a story about, hey, aren't we supposed to be opening up this centennial safe? Because some clever reporter got the idea to go back and see what happened at the Centennial. And then they go to the Smithsonian. This phone is like, yeah, I think we still have that, but we don't know how to open it.

[Roman Mars]

The New York Times runs an article, quote, smithsonian can't find keys to centennial safe. That's right. In the intervening decades, they had lost the key. And then a man in Florida sees the article and realizes he has it

[Jill Lepore]

because Anna Dean didn't have any children. So what happened to the key? And she didn't somehow, for some reason, she didn't give it to the Smithsonian. She gave it to her, like, great niece Edith or something. And this guy in Florida was Edith's, I don't know, great niece.

[Roman Mars]

I have great Aunt Emma. Is that. Does that sound right?

[Jill Lepore]

Emma, Edith, Gertrude. We could just make up a name that belonged to that Edwardian era Roman, and we would be covered.

[Roman Mars]

It was the guy's great aunt Emma who had gratefully passed on the key. So the safe could now be opened.

[Jill Lepore]

And so then there's a whole rigmarole of like, are they gonna get it out? Are they gonna bring it to the Capitol? Then they managed to find it in storage. They bring it to the Capitol in January of 1976. They have gotten the key from that guy, but maybe it's rusted. They have to hire a locksmith to jimmy the thing.

[Roman Mars]

Okay, so we have at least some of the parts here all coming together in 1976. And again, I kind of was hoping if you could sort of characterize the national mood at this moment as opposed to 1876. I mean, this is the bicentennial again. It's really tumultuous time. Watergate has happened. A real change in the sense of what people feel about their government. What is the temperature around the country? And how is the bicentennial unfolding?

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah, so we're barely out of the Vietnam War, Pentagon Papers, Watergate. Nixon's resigned in 74. Ford very controversially, pardons him. And for Ford, really throwing himself into the hoopla of the bicentennial is about healing the country from those divisions and those wounds. And he comes to really believe that that is his main task as president. It was also controversial because, you know, the country's vision of itself was not a unitary vision any more than it was at any other point in American history, but, you know, there. Jesse Jackson called for a boycott of the bicentennial. Gil Scott Heron wrote this great piece called Bicentennial Blues. There was a lot of kind of like Frederick Douglass vibe, resistance to the bicentennial. There were a lot of protests by Native nations, really effective protests. But there were also a lot of powwows, like a lot of public celebrations of Native culture and Native politics. So it kind of had it all, the Bicentennial.

[President Gerald Ford]

It is with high honor and deep personal pleasure that I introduced the President of the United States.

[Roman Mars]

And so like, in an effort to grab onto something that we can all rally behind, let's get to this opening ceremony where Ford is in his three piece suit.

[President Gerald Ford]

Obviously, I'm deeply honored to have the opportunity to open this historic centennial space.

[Roman Mars]

Ford stands in front of a packed room, cameras flashing, reading his speech from index cards.

[President Gerald Ford]

It contains many items of interest to us today as we celebrate the completion of our second century.

[Jill Lepore]

And I think it's actually quite a special. I think it's a nice speech, right? It's. I don't know, I guess if you don't like Ford, you're not. I mean, I kind of like Ford. He just kind of runs with the metaphor, right?

[President Gerald Ford]

As we look inside this safe, let us look inside ourselves.

[Jill Lepore]

What does the safe contain? It contains our hopes and aspirations as a people. And nothing is more precious than that.

[President Gerald Ford]

America's wealth is not in material objects, but in our great heritage, our freedom and our belief in ourselves.

[Jill Lepore]

Let us look into our hearts.

[President Gerald Ford]

Let us look into our hearts and into our hearts. Thank you very much.

[Jill Lepore]

And now let's open the doors.

[Roman Mars]

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[Jill Lepore]

Yeah, so he pulls things out one by one and sort of looks at them. Here is a and tries to, like, identify him.

[President Gerald Ford]

That's a Tiffany ink stand. I understand.

[Jill Lepore]

Like, okay, this is an ink stand.

[President Gerald Ford]

It looks a little different than the ones we have, Kyle.

[Jill Lepore]

There's a room of photographers and reporters who are awaiting, you know, message in a bottle. Confessions of Jefferson Davis, an unpublished memoir that explains the abandonment of Reconstruction. Like, I like all the things that I want to see.

[President Gerald Ford]

This is a photograph of an early statesman. I don't see his name, but I

[Jill Lepore]

mean, really, it's a dud.

[President Gerald Ford]

Lindy. I have a picture of a chairperson. I don't have any indication of her name, but looks mighty pretty.

[Jill Lepore]

Like, it's just. There's just nothing. It's just like nothing after nothing. And so he pulls out more things and people just start laughing, I guess.

[President Gerald Ford]

The other picture was Mr. M.F. cooper, electoral commissioner. They always seem to get their picture in there.

[Jill Lepore]

Sometimes you have very high expectations for, like, what could you want to have seen from 1876? And nothing in there is anything that you would ever have wanted anybody to keep on any occasion.

[Roman Mars]

In the end, the safe turned out to have a lot of photographs. Abraham Lincoln was there. Ulysses S. Grant. There was one of all the members of the 44th Congress, the one seated in 1876, and one of Anna Deem herself.

[Jill Lepore]

And then there's the temperance pamphlet. There is this ink stand that supposedly was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's.

[Roman Mars]

There was a book with the names of the 80,000 people working for the government in 1876. There was a picture of Anna Deems, family physician. He must have been a fantastic doctor. And a book of autographs from legislators, clergymen, poets, scientists, and anyone who paid to sign it.

[Jill Lepore]

Like forgotten nobodies. They might as well have been called. Like, everyone's just like, oh, okay, yeah, what are we doing tomorrow?

[President Gerald Ford]

I hate to make this announcement, but the bells have rung in the house for a vote to all the housemates.

[Jill Lepore]

This is like it's some non event.

[Roman Mars]

So why do you think these objects were so disappointing?

[Jill Lepore]

I think they don't cross the valley of time with their significance intact. So what was significant to the people who put them in there was the novelty of photography, the possibility of preservation. I mean, it is kind of new to be keeping something preserved. And this would have been a very well preserved set of materials because they're sealed in a glass box. That would have seemed significant to them. The very fact of being able to seal it. You know, embalming was really new in the Civil War because, you know, your son or your brother, your father Died far from home. And people could pay to have the body embalmed so that it could be sent by railroad to go home. And you could still. It would still be something you could view before burial.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah.

[Jill Lepore]

And that form of preservation, preserving the human body long enough for a railroad journey to get home and be seen by loved ones was a hugely significant thing. Like photography, where you could still see someone who had died.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah.

[Jill Lepore]

And the century safe is like, has that sense of embalming a moment in time, but it's more fascinated with the very act of preservation than it is with carefully thinking about what's worth preserving. It's almost like a monument to the possibility that we could preserve something where what to put in there was an afterthought.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah. So what would have been interesting? What could she put in there that you as a historian and you particularly as an archive nut, as the type of historian who likes old dusty things to pull out. Like, what would you have liked to have seen?

[Jill Lepore]

Oh, something totally sneaky. First of all, nothing published. Nothing that is not handwritten or hand drawn. Like something that is one of a kind that exists nowhere else, that can be found nowhere else that would be a revelation upon its discovery. So. Love letters of Ulysses S. Grant. I don't know. You know, like, I don't really care about Ulysses S. Grant, but the diary of a Chinese railroad worker who was learning English or something. Like, I don't. Like something that we don't have.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah.

[Jill Lepore]

And that we were not. That was not going to survive otherwise.

[Roman Mars]

I very much take Jill's point here. I can't imagine how disappointing everything in the safe must have felt after 100 years of buildup. But I will say, even those objects that seem like they are absolutely worthless when you spend a little bit of time with them, they do take you somewhere. Like the temperance pamphlet. Of course, a handwritten original item would be more profound. But this mass printed pamphlet represents one of the biggest social movements at the time. One that would ultimately amend the Constitution not once, but twice. This fight over alcohol that is so far in the past for us was front of mind for them. Or that photograph of the 44th Congress. It features eight black members more than ever before. But it was also the last time we would have so many black representatives for almost 100 years. Were they thinking at this moment in 1876 that this progress would continue? Or could they feel the failure of reconstruction on the horizon? Even that thoroughly unremarkable inkwell that Ford pulled from the safe. It belonged to Henry Wadsworth. Longfellow, the celebrated poet and author of Paul Revere's Ride. He's the reason every American knows the Redcoats are coming. The version of the Revolutionary War most people carry around in their heads came from his pen. But when the safe was filled, he was still deep in mourning from the death of his wife. She was at home with him when her dress caught fire. And when Longfellow tried to smother the flames, he suffered severe burns to his face. From then on, he wore a long beard to hide his scars. He was never the same. One writer said his poems about mourning effectively turned him into the nation's grief counselor. And the only reason I know all this is because that inkwell was in the sentry safe. So I understand the disappointment of Joe Lepore and President Ford and the entire population of the United States in 1976, but I do think that in all these objects, in any American object, you can find America. The reason why I want to talk to you about this, about the century safe, is because we're embarking on this series called A history of the US in 100 objects. And. And so we're kind of picking things out, you know, to represent the United States. And I was just wondering, like, should we even be trying to do this? Like, do you have some advice?

[Jill Lepore]

I don't know. Why not? I say, I'm glad you're doing it. You will have fun. I think that. I think it is important to recognize that much like the present, the past is largely a chronicle of misery. I mean, people suffer, and the people who suffer the most leave the least evidence behind. And so any history that begins with what survives has a real challenge to arriving at any proper perspective on the human condition. I think that is the asymmetry of the historical record, right? The people who were wealthiest and most literate and had the greatest resources not only left, not only made a lot of records, they managed to have their records preserved. And everyone else disappears and just vanishes. Their remains are gone. And I think it puts a special obligation in anyone who's trying to write history or tell a story about the past to be attentive, to not give up in the face of the asymmetry, and to try to repair the historical record by finding other kinds of evidence, the evidence that does survive, that makes sure that we understand the lives, both of the powerful and the powerless. But I wouldn't fall into the notion that it is that you're assembling an exquisite and representative archive.

[Roman Mars]

We are not making an official archive. It probably won't be exquisite. But we are going to tell our story, the story of the United states, through objects. 100 objects to be exact. We are going to try to look beyond the official record outside of the things we've already thought to preserve and put behind museum glass. Instead, we're going to talk to historians and writers and storytellers and just normal people about discarded objects and small personal keepsakes and all kinds of things that are so common we don't think about how important they really are. We're going to see what stories those kinds of objects have to tell us about where we've been as a country, the good and the bad, the promises and the failures. Jill lefor thank you so much for talking with me. I really had a great time.

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah, I had a great time, too. I can't wait to see what you guys put in your safe.

[Roman Mars]

Whatever we put in our safe, it won't be a time capsule for the future. This is a collection for right now, an ongoing weekly exhibit of the past to help us understand this moment. And we need you. I want you to look in your attics and think back through your family histories and tell us what, what objects you think tell a bigger story of America. Email us at 100objectsin9pi.org it's gonna take all of us forgotten nobodies to do this right. Join us as we make history. There was a version of the show back in 2010 from the BBC that was focused on the world, A History of the world in 100 objects. The stories all came from objects housed in the British Museum and I loved it. It was a landmark show. So I'm proud to be working with BBC Studios on this new and reimagined version, picking up the mantle and telling stories about the usa. We'll be bringing you new episodes every Friday right here in the 99% invisible fee. Our next episode will air next Friday, but if you want to hear that episode and all future episodes one week early. Subscribe to Sirius XM Podcast. Plus My guest, Jill Lepore, is a historian, professor of American history at Harvard University and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She's also a staff writer at the New Yorker and a brand new recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. I love every single one of her books but the jubilee edition of her amazing book these A History of the United States was just released. It's so good, guys, you gotta read it. A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production of 99% Invisible and BBC Studios. It's hosted and curated by me, Roman Mars. Our series producers are Priscilla Alabi, Brenna Daldorf and Ellie Lightfoot. Our Associate producer is Isaac Fisher. This series was edited by Annie Brown and Courtney Harrell, Mixing by Charlie Brandon King, Fact checking by Amy Bracken. Our theme song is by Swan Real from 99% Invisible. Our executive producer is Kathy Tu from BBC Studios. Our executive producers are Annie Brown and Courtney Harrell. Our Production coordinator is Shan Pillay and the Production Manager is Mabel Finnegan Wright. Artwork by Stephen Lawrence. 99% invisible is part of the Sirius XM podcast family headquartered in beautiful uptown Oakland, California and BBC Studios is headquartered in beautiful white city, West London. If you want to get in touch or have an object for us to consider, email us at 100objects99pi.org thank you to the Julian P. Cantor Collection at the Carl Albert Center Archives and the Gerald Ford Presidential Library for use of the audio of the opening of the Century Safe.

[Jill Lepore]

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