National Postal Museum Exhibits

The National Postal Museum is divided into galleries that explore America's postal history from colonial times to the present. Visitors learn how mail has been transported, emphasize the importance of letters, and spotlight the creation and wondrous diversity of postage stamps.

		Exhibits Home	\|	Current	\|	Upcoming	\|	Past	\|	Virtual

Virtual Exhibits

Arago Virtual Exhibits
Arago Researchers and the National Postal Museum staff create unique exhibits that juxtapose personal selections of museum objects and exceptional private collections to present interesting interpretations and great history.

Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic
(Physical Exhibit: March 22, 2012 – January 6, 2014)
As the largest, fastest, and most glamorous ships of their eras, Hindenburg and Titanic share many similarities. As anniversaries of the disasters are marked in 2012—seventy-five years since Hindenburg burned and a century since Titanic sank—many questions remain unanswered. Original objects include mail, postcards, menus, photographs, keys from the Titanic post office, and the salvaged postmark device from the Hindenburg.

Systems at Work
(Physical Exhibit December 14, 2011 – Permanent)
You drop a letter in a mailbox and then what happens? You receive mail at home or the office—how does it get there? The answer to these questions will unfold in Systems at Work, a new permanent exhibition under development at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. Systems at Work recreates the paths of letters, magazines, parcels, and other mail as they travel from sender to recipient over the last 200 years.

Mail Call
(Physical Exhibit: November 10, 2011 – Permanent)
Explore the history of the military postal system through Mail Call, the newest exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution National Postal Museum. Through Mail Call, visitors can discover how military mail communication has changed throughout history. Learn about the armed forces postal system from the American Revolution to the present day and experience military mail for yourself through exciting artifacts and letters. Visitors can gain an appreciation of the importance of military mail and the hard work that went into connecting service men and women to their government, their community, and their loved ones at home. The exhibit features a number of interesting artifacts which will bring the story of military mail to life. Artifacts, along with the accompanying film “Missing You,” give visitors a chance to experience military mail for themselves.

Art of the Stamp: Owney the Postal Dog
(Physical Exhibit: July 20, 2011 – Spring 2012)
Art of the Stamp: Owney the Postal Dog features Bill Bonds’s original painting of Owney that was produced for the stamp. It is accompanied by 6 sketches illustrating various poses of Owney that Mr. Bonds created as he developed his final portrait. In addition, 5 tags that were given to Owney on his many travels and selected by Bonds as background for his stamp art, are also included.

G.H. Kaestlin Collection of Russian Imperial and Zemstvo Stamps
This virtual exhibit is presented by both the National Postal Museum and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Information Programs. The website, along with the Arago exhibit, show one of the three best museum Russian stamp collections in the world.

Fad to Fundamental: Airmail in America
Learn how the U.S. Post Office Department created the framework for America's commercial aviation industry. From 1918-1926, a few daredevil pilots and some aging aircraft made history and bound the country together by air.

The Pichs Collection
Explore Cuba's postal and aviation history in an ongoing research and exhibition effort to study and bring to the public an important research resource for the cultural history of Cuba, the Roberto Pichs collection of Cuban postage stamps.

Collecting Ancestral Homelands
Collecting stamps of your family’s ancestral homelands offers insights into your own family’s past and experiences, and so they teach you something about your own heritage. Collectors share their stories here, just click the stamps to learn more.

Mail by Missile
Fifty years ago, the US Navy and Post Office Department placed 3,000 letters in a missile on board the USS Barbero submarine and aimed it at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Mayport, Florida. In this slideshow presentation, curator Nancy A. Pope reveals more about this Cold War era mail delivery experiment.

Negro Leagues Baseball Stamp Exhibit
(Physical Exhibit: October 20, 2010 – July 10, 2011)
On view is original art produced by Kadir Nelson for the creation of the Negro Leagues Baseball stamps, which pay tribute to the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 to approximately 1960.

Delivering Hope: FDR & Stamps of the Great Depression
(Physical Exhibit: September 9, 2009 – June 6, 2010)
Franklin D. Roosevelt, president during the Great Depression, used stamps to communicate with the American people.

Alphabetilately
(Physical Exhibit: September 26, 2008 – January 31, 2014)
This exhibition presents an alphabet of philately through 26 topics, in which each letter stands for some aspect of stamp collecting or the sending of mail.

Victory Mail
(Physical Exhibit: March 6, 2008 – July 6, 2011)
The Victory Mail exhibit showcases the Museum’s collection of World War II V-Mail correspondence. V for Victory, a popular symbol of the Second World War, was the inspiration for the name of this new fangled correspondence style.

Rarity Revealed: The Benjamin K. Miller Collection
(Physical Exhibit: May 27, 2006 – January 12, 2009)
Called the “crown jewels” of U.S. stamp collecting, Miller's collection was donated to the New York Public Library in 1925 where it was displayed for more than 50 years. But after a theft in 1977, the collection was locked away until the National Postal Museum exhibit.

Postal Inspectors: The Silent Service
(Physical Exhibit: February 7, 2007 – Indefinately)
Today about 2,000 postal inspectors are at work across the United States investigating crimes against the mail. Learn more about the inspectors and their job in this exhibit.

Out of the Mails
(Physical Exhibit: December 14, 2006 – January 31, 2008)
As hostilities between the colonists and the Crown grew, many people began protesting high postage rates by sending their letters "out of the mails."

Trailblazers & Trendsetters: Art of the Stamp
(Physical Exhibit: November 16, 2006 – August 17, 2008)
This exhibit presents works of art commissioned by the US Postal Service over the last 40 years. These paintings and drawings represent the work of 42 different artists and showcase an array of techniques and styles.

War Letters: Lost and Found
(Physical Exhibit: November 11, 2005 – November 13, 2006)
"War Letters: Lost and Found" features original letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam that were lost or abandoned and then rediscovered by strangers.

John Lennon: The Lost Album
(Physical Exhibit: October 6, 2005 April 10, 2006)
Before Lennon traveled the globe playing music with The Beatles, this boy from Liverpool, England saw the world in a whole different way−through stamps.

Stamps Take Flight
(Physical Exhibit: March 15, 2005 March 19, 2006)
This exhibit reveals highlights from the wide-ranging Postmaster General's Collection spanning more than 150 years of US stamp-making, including not only stamps, but "behind-the-scenes" materials.

Artistic License: The Duck Stamp Story
(Physical Exhibit: July 2004 - July 10, 2006)
This exhibition explores the history of rare and collectible Federal Duck Stamps created as a result of this extraordinary conservation program.

The Queen's Own: Stamps That Changed the World
(Physical Exhibit: April 6, 2004 – January 11, 2005)
The National Postal Museum is pleased to present a selection of extraordinary materials from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's personal philatelic holdings. The Royal Philatelic Collection includes the world's finest and most comprehensive collection of British and Commonwealth stamps.

The Kristen Ollies Collection
Kristen Ollies started her collection in 1999, when she was in fifth grade. Her collection has grown to an award-winning private collection of 48 album pages.

In the Line of Duty: Dangers, Disasters and Good Deeds
(Physical Exhibit: October 8, 2003 – January 2, 2007)
This exhibition surveys the dangers faced by the nation's postal workers, honors their individual acts of heroism, and celebrates the U.S. Postal Service's involvement in a program that distributes pictures of missing children to tens of millions of homes each week.

Art of the Stamp
(Physical Exhibit: July 30, 2003 – February 26, 2004)
On view are 100 original drawings and artworks that were used to create postage stamps, including entries for the famous Elvis stamp design competition.

Posted Aboard R.M.S. Titanic
(Physical Exhibit: April 14, 2001 – October 30, 2001)
The tragic sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic has captivated our imaginations for decades. Among those who lost their lives when the ship sank were the ship's five postal clerks.

Roberto Clemente Exhibit
(Physical Exhibit: April 1, 2001 – January 25, 2002)
This exhibition features one of baseball's great icons -- Roberto Clemente Walker (1938-1972), who was honored on two U.S. postage stamps.
Roberto Clemente en español

Women pulling their supplies through the streets of Skagway, Alaska

As Precious as Gold
(Physical Exhibit: September 30, 1998 – September 30, 2002)
As Precious as Gold, continues in an online format. The exhibit examines the great Klondike Gold Rush and the unforgettable role of the mail carrier in providing contact between those so far from home and the families they left behind.

Mail to the Chief: The Stamp Designs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(Physical Exhibit: January 30, 1998 – July 2, 1998)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoyed a lifelong interest in collecting stamps. FDR sketched the original designs for several United States stamps issued during his time in office.

Binding the Nation
(Physical Exhibit: July 30, 1993 – Permanent)
This gallery provides an overview of mail service in America from colonial times through the 19th century, stressing the importance of written communication in the young nation.

Serving the Cities is one of the exhibits in this gallery

Customers and Communities
(Physical Exhibit: July 30, 1993 – Permanent)
This gallery focuses on the modern changes in mail service introduced at the turn of the 20th century.

Moving the Mail atrium exhibit at the Museum

Moving the Mail
(Physical Exhibit:July 30, 1993 – Permanent)
Faced with the challenge of moving the mail quickly, the postal service looked to trains, automobiles, airplanes, and buses to deliver the mail.

The Art of Cards and Letters
(Physical Exhibit: July 30, 1993 - June 6, 2011)
This gallery emphasizes the art of letter writing, a cherished art form providing a window into American history.

Philatelic Gallery
(Physical Exhibit: July 30, 1993 – Permanent)
For both the serious collector and those who know little about the renowned hobby of stamp collecting, this gallery highlights some of the best philatic collections in the world.

Union soldiers pose at their camp near a mail sorting and writing desk

A Nation Divided
(Physical Exhibit: July 30, 1993 - August 15, 1998)
When the conflict between the north and south finally exploded into war, the nation's communication system was also ripped in two. The system instituted to unify the country through the dissemination of information was instead used to solidify the break.

Other NPM Related Exhibits

Parcel Post: Delivery of Dreams
Parcel post service began on January 1, 1913 and was an instant success. During the first five days of service, 1,594 post offices reported handling over 4 million parcel post packages. The effect on the national economy was electric.

Grinnell Missionary Stamps
In the early days of philately, rumors circulated about a cache of very rare and valuable Hawaiian missionary stamps secreted away in New England. Were the Grinnell stamps this legendary hoard? Or were they expensive fakes?



		Back to Top	Home \| Copyright and Privacy \| Contact \| Site Map \| Credits