12/10/2008: World War II Mail and Memories

Eighteen visitors joined curator Lynn Heidelbaugh for a tour of the Victory Mail exhibition in honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Heidelbaugh spotlighted key objects in the exhibit, sharing the impressive technical element of this mail innovation as well as the emotional impact of letters during wartime. Heidelbaugh particularly recommends Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg for V-Mail fans. In some of the most poignant scenes of the well-researched novel, sisters form a nightly circle to pen letters and V-Mails to friends and fiancés overseas.

Image: Victory Mail exhibition logo

12/6/2008: Holiday Card Workshop

This popular annual workshop was a big success this year. Artist Thalia Doukas shared special card-making techniques such as weaving paper, creating a mini-book, and transforming cards into 3D tree ornaments. Doukas shared wonderful art material collected over many years and brought a new element to the workshop—a highly popular glitter/confetti station. This year’s workshop included gorgeous postage stamps with holiday images but also included floral themed stamps and transportation, which made many artistic collectors very happy.

Image (top): A young visitor shows off a decorative element he plans to add to his holiday card—a graceful snowflake cut from a coffee filter. Image (bottom): Artist Thalia Doukas discusses card making techniques with workshop participants.

12/2/2008: Book Launch: The 1933 Chicago World's Fair—A Century of Progress

Chief curator of philately Cheryl Ganz spoke about and signed her new book, The 1933 Chicago World's Fair—A Century of Progress, in an evening lecture attend by an enthusiastic crowd of about 30 people. Ganz revealed fascinating stories she uncovered about the fair, shared anecdotes about interesting fair personalities, and made connections to stamps and philatelic material.

Image: The 1933 Chicago World's Fair—A Century of Progress is an engaging social and cultural history of the fair, seen through the lenses of technology, ethnicity, and gender.

11/22/2008: “Mystery Crates” Revealed

On Saturday, November 22, 2008, museum visitors experienced a peek behind the scenes. Museum Technician Rebecca Johnson revealed some of the most interesting contents of 27 wooden crates that were packed full of historical objects in the 1970s and promptly forgotten. Johnson’s job is to unpack, clean, record, and preserve these objects, which include envelope machine patent models, many cap badges worn by postal workers, postal tools used on the job, and much more. The hook in the photo on the left, for example, was probably used to easily grab bags of mail.

About 65 visitors explored the objects during the program. A few visitors envied Johnson’s job, saying museum work “sure seems fun.” Johnson laughed, saying “just five more crates to go!”

Image: Johnson carefully holds a “mystery object” for examination.

11/15/2008: American Indian Heritage Month Family Celebration

Visitors learned about Sequoyah, the Cherokee man who invented writing for his people, and designed new US postage stamps celebrating his accomplishments. They also explored a Haida canoe featured on a US stamp (left). Though it appears to be small on the stamp, visitors were surprised to learn that the real canoe is 63 feet in length. Children used a measuring tape to compare the lengths of other forms of transportation to the canoe on the atrium floor.

Image: The Haida canoe featured on a US postage stamp was a big hit with visitors.

11/9/2008: A‐B‐Cs of Stamp Collecting

On November 9, 2008, Janet Klug, author of the Smithsonian
Guide to Stamp Collecting, led a collecting workshop for 20 participants at the National Postal Museum. Ms. Klug gave a brief presentation on the “A‐B‐Cs” of collecting, helped participants create their own collections, shared the exhibit Alphabetilately: an Alphabet of Philately with the visitors, and signed copies of her new book.

Learning more advanced techniques was a highlight for many
participants. Using tongs, mounts, and hinges were useful skills that
participants mentioned repeatedly afterwards.

Knowledgeable Postal Museum volunteers staffed each table.
Ms. Klug chatted with each visitor about his or her collection, offering
helpful tips to experts and beginners alike.

Image: Ms. Klug helps a family assemble collections. Mom practices using tongs while her daughter mounts a stamp.

11/4/2008: Politics and the Post

Visitors had politics on their minds on Election Day—and so did the Postal Museum! Politics and the Post took place in the museum’s historic lobby at a gallery cart. Original 1970s political cartoons surrounded the cart, each poking fun at the perceived inefficiency of the Post Office Department or the efforts of Postmaster General Winton “Red” Blount to “take the post office out of politics.” The theme of political patronage, union negotiations, strikes, presidential politics, and controversy was relevant to the day and visitors enjoyed looking at the cartoons.

Image: Postmaster General Winton “Red” Blount as a modern-day Paul Revere rides a Mailster through town warning that “A postal breakdown is coming—if changes aren’t made!”

10/18/2008: Making Arago Work for You workshop

On Saturday, October 18, 2008, 16 visitors and museum docents discovered the museum’s online collections database, Arago, and began to learn their way around the website. Celebrating the near completion of a project to provide access to every US postage stamp, the Arago team gave a presentation including helpful hints and upcoming projects. Visitors then tried out the site at computer stations with one-on-one guidance from the team.

Learning went both ways. As visitors picked up helpful tips, the Arago team saw the website through the eyes of new users.

Image: Arago team member Christine Mereand shares tips for better browsing.

10/16/2008: Alphabetilately: An Alphabet of Philately Gallery Talk

Though the Alphabetilately exhibit contains 26 different topics related to stamp collecting and mail, there are many more stories to tell. On Thursday, 62 museum visitors got a chance to dig deeper into this fascinating topic as the exhibit’s three philatelic consultants spotlighted favorite objects, philatelic oddities, and behind-the-scenes stories. Marvin Murray, Bruce Petersen, and Gordon Trotter—each partial to certain letters in the philatelic alphabet—introduced the exhibit to visitors young and old. Visitors who could correctly pronounce the exhibit’s title received a prize!

Image: Public Programs Coordinator Erin Blasco greets visitors as they arrive for the Alphabetilately gallery talk.

10/11/2008: Commemorative Cancels and Covers

The Postal Museum celebrated its 15th anniversary with a special program dedicated to commemorative cancels and covers. These fun and collectible items reveal mail’s journey with artistic flair, act as meaningful souvenirs, and can be something special to receive in the mail! Visitors created their own covers, learned about mail carried by Amelia Earhart on her historic flights, did a scavenger hunt in the exhibit Alphabetilately: an Alphabet of Philately, and enjoyed stories related to mail.

“This event was one of my favorites,” said Community Outreach Manager Philippa Rappoport. “People of all ages from different communities worked behind the scenes to craft and produce this event. The mission of heritage programming is to reach out in a sustained way to underrepresented audiences—and this was an example of that mission in action. It was an honor to produce this program.”

Image: The National Postal Museum’s 15th Anniversary commemorative cancel

10/4/2008: Latin Jazz Celebration

Kicked off with jazz music by local student musicians from the Music Teaching Project, this event brought the recently released Latin Jazz commemorative stamp to life. The Postal Museum partnered with Smithsonian Jazz Appreciation Month Initiatives, an initiative of the National Museum of American History.

Families designed stamps with artist Michael Bartalos, who created the Latin Jazz stamp. Bartalos also signed covers featuring the colorful stamp and spoke about his design.

Visitors grooved to Latin beats during a conga drum demonstration by Afro Bop Alliance percussionist Felix Contreras and Ken Kimery of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. They also learned about the roots of Latin Jazz in a multi-media presentation by Smithsonian Jazz Appreciation Month Initiatives.

The event commemorated Hispanic Heritage Month as well as National Stamp Collecting Month.

The Postal Museum and Jazz Appreciation Month Initiatives used the Latin Jazz Celebration event as an opportunity to reach out to the community. With Arturo Salcedo, Outreach Specialist from Washington DC Public Schools Parent and Family Resource Centers, staff from both units attended meetings with community members and a Washington, DC Educational Expo. The United States Postal Services provided Spanish translation for materials.

Image (top): The Latin Jazz commemorative stamp, designed by Michael Bartalos, captures the tropical rhythms and colors of Latin Jazz. Preparatory sketches for the stamp are on view in the Alphabetilately: an Alphabet of Philately exhibit.
Image (middle): Student and professional musicians from the Music Teaching Project carry the crowd away with jazz music.
Image (bottom): Ken Kimery and Felix Contreras play the congas.

9/26/2008: Z is for Zeppelin Curator Talk

Chief Curator of Philately Dr. Cheryl Ganz spoke to an audience of 47 people about one of her favorite topics—airship aerial globetrotters of the early 1900s and the stamps and mail they flew.

Image: Chief Curator of Philately Dr. Cheryl Ganz spoke about the process of creating Alphabetilately: an Alphabet of Philately, which reveals the designerly details of philatelic objects. As a curator, she said she learned to see the objects from a new perspective.

9/4/2008: Preserving Postal History

The Benjamin Franklin statue on display inside the National Postal Museum has long been a popular backdrop for group photos, a starting place for tours, and a historical icon. Recently, Franklin, the nation’s first postmaster, found another reason to claim the center of attention—a conservation treatment!

Conservator Cathy Valentour performed a three week treatment on the 72-year-old Tennessee marble statue created by artist William Zorach. Postal Museum preservationists and educators seized Franklin’s treatment as an opportunity to give visitors a peek behind-the-scenes and motivation to refrain from touching museum objects.

As Valentour treated the “last leg” of the Franklin statue on Thursday, September 4th, thirty seven museum-goers visited a gallery cart to talk with Preservation Specialist Manda Kowalczyk about the treatment.

Children enjoyed pointing out the treated and untreated portions of the statue and practicing their own “conservation techniques” using a toothbrush and a sample piece of marble. Adults marveled at the time and detailed work required to treat a statue of Franklin’s size and the dramatic difference between treated and untreated portions.

A few visitors who were members of the preservation and conservation community—including a professional from an archeological organization and an Italian fresco specialist—compared their own conservation processes to the Postal Museum’s.

Image: Three young visitors formed a "fan club," transfixed by the detailed work of conservator Cathy Valentour.

8/6-7/2008: Collection Connections

This two day workshop introduced visitors to the basics of topical stamp collecting. Participants soaked stamps off envelopes, sorted stamps into topics, and created a collection to take home.

Interesting collection topics included: Olympics, Scouting, Middle East, Birds, Disney, Favorite Countries, Fruit, and many more!  

Image: Visitors search for that perfect stamp to complete their topical collections.

8/1/2008: Owney Day

This very special program celebrated Owney, a stray dog that wandered into an Albany, New York post office and became the unofficial mascot of the Railway Mail Service.

Visitors sorted mail in a railcar, talked “mail slinger” shorthand, designed Owney stamps, and let the camera roll as Owney made appearances on Dog Wild TV.  

Image (top): Reporting live from Dog Wild TV! A museum intern shows off the set of Dog Wild TV. Visitors donned Owney ears and tags and were interviewed as the celebrity canine.
Image (middle): It’s story time! Wearing a pair of Owney ears, an educator reads one of the many children’s books featuring Owney the Dog. The story was met with much tail wagging.
Image (bottom): Visitors added their own “paw prints” to a giant 15 to celebrate the museum’s 15th Anniversary. 

7/17/2008: Postal Inspectors Festival

About 300 visitors and campers learned to protect themselves from mail crimes through meeting real postal inspectors and a general analyst from the United States Postal Inspection Service.  

At activity tables, visitors sharpened their skills identifying and dealing with suspicious or fraudulent mail, found out about life on the job for postal inspectors, cracked the historic Black Hand case, and learned about valuables sent through the mail. In the “Find the Fakes and Fraudsters” activity, participants sorted a stack of mail, separating the benign mail from suspicious examples. At a postcard making table, they shared tips on protecting oneself from crimes in the mail with friends and family. Families and teenage camp groups participated in an Internet Safety Talk led by the inspectors. 

Image (top): Postal inspectors provided resources and answered questions.
Image (bottom): Museum intern Abby helps visitors identify a “suspicious package.”

 • POSTAL INSPECTORS: THE SILENT SERVICE

6/28/2008: Postcard Art Connection Workshop

The Postal Museum put out a “mail art call” for creative postcards. Over 150 postcards poured in from Malaysia, Italy, Germany, Oregon, and a fourth grade classroom in Ohio. On June 28th, more than 100 visitors explored the postcard display and made their own mail art.

Image: One mail art postcard from Italy was attractive on both sides. Beautiful postage stamps, hand stamps, retro typewriter text, and messages of peace make this postcard an “original.”

6/14/2008: Trains! Model Railroad Workshop

Over 800 Visitors Celebrated Mail by Rail and experienced the daily life of a Railway Mail Service (RMS) clerk. Families enjoyed sorting railway mail in the museum’s train car, tooting train whistle patterns, talking like a “mail slinger” with RMS slang words, exploring the “mail on the fly” crane, and designed their own high-speed mail innovations. Three local clubs set up model railroads and the Railway Mail Service Library provided expertise, resources, and movies about the RMS.

Video: Train whistles toot while visitors enjoy one of the model railroads.

5/30/2008: Victory Mail Family Day

Click here to read a V-Mail about this fun day! Victory Mail (V-Mail for short) operated during World War II to expedite mail service for American armed forces overseas.

• Victory Mail exhibit

5/15/2008: Adversity, Adventure, and the 90th Anniversary of Airmail

On Thursday, May 15, 2008, families and adults explored the first scheduled airmail flights through fun activities. An important event in local and national history, the flights flew from Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Many visitors were surprised to learn that airmail had a rocky start.

Learn more about airmail in the Fad to Fundamental online exhibit: www.postalmuseum.si.edu/Airmail

Image: Director of Education Allison Wickens helps a young visitor weigh mail on an airmail scale and “purchase” a stamp at the appropriate rate. This visitor then acted as the “cashier” and led the rest of her family through the activity. Visitors also played the “Planes vs. Trains” game to learn how these two forms of mail transportation measured up. They created their own “Inverted Jenny” stamp and “flew” the mail on a large map featuring the three cities to have scheduled airmail service.

5/4/2008: Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Celebration

The Smithsonian’s feature event for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month was a colorful family celebration featuring performances, storytelling, and art activities. Families designed heritage stamps, created heritage stamp collections, made origami Owney the dog finger toys, and shared their stories with others in a “Story-Letters, Story-Tellers” correspondence activity.  

“This event was one of my favorites,” said Community Outreach Manager Philippa Rappoport. “People of all ages from different communities worked behind the scenes to craft and produce this event. The mission of heritage programming is to reach out in a sustained way to underrepresented audiences—and this was an example of that mission in action. It was an honor to produce this program.”

Image (top): Stamp illustrator Kam Mak helps young visitors try on a dragon head. Mak read his children’s book My Chinatown: One Year in Poems and shared stories of his childhood in Chinatown, New York. He discussed the process of creating his Lunar New Year stamp celebrating the Year of the Rat, sharing rarely seen early sketches. Born in Hong Kong, Mak moved with his family to New York City in 1971 and is now an associate professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Image (second): Members of the Northern Virginia Rondalla, which plays traditional Filipino music, perform in the National Postal Museum atrium. Band leader Mandy Paredes explained that Rondalla provides the young people with opportunities to learn about their culture and heritage but wouldn’t work if the kids didn’t have so much fun together.
Image (third): Hawaiian dance group Hālāu O Nā Hali`a performs in the atrium. Based in Waldorf, Maryland, the hula halau (school) was founded by Patty Makanui, Debbie Burkle and Keoni Paul.
Image (bottom): Chamak, George Washington University’s South Asian fusion dance team, performed twice at the Asian Pacific American Heritage Family Day Celebration. The team says that dance is more than just movement, “it’s a way of life.”

5/2/2008: My Dear President Author Talk

Visitors explored the public and private faces of presidents in this book talk and tour connecting correspondence and philately. Curator of the papers of presidential families at the Library of Congress Dr. Gerard Gawalt discussed his book My Dear President: Letters between Presidents and Their Wives. Dr. Gawalt shared letters from the book as well as other favorites that illuminate the personalities of presidential couples. “A lot of presidents wouldn’t have made it to the White House if not for their wives,” Dr. Gawalt said.

Assistant curator Daniel Piazza then gave a tour of the 2-cent “Black Harding” Stamps of 1923. When President Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack on August 2, 1923, the Post Office Department rushed a 2-cent black mourning stamp into production. Hundreds stood in line to buy the stamps a month later, launching the philatelic craze for “first day covers.” See this specialized collection of this stamp and related materials in the pull-out frames.

Image: Dr. Gerard Gawalt spoke about his book 'My Dear President: Letters between Presidents and Their Wives' in the museum atrium.

• Lederer Collection of US 2¢ “Black Hardings”

4/19/2008: Meet Amelia

Actress Mary Ann Jung brought Amelia Earhart’s story to life with the show “Amelia Earhart: Dreams Take Flight.” Jung re-enacted Earhart’s night at the White House with help from audience members playing Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Amelia and Eleanor went for a night flight on April 20, 1933, a time when few people in the world had flown—especially at night. Participants drew pilots’ views of Washington, DC at night to celebrate this historic flight.

Image: Visitors help re-enact the story of Eleanor Roosevelt asking the president if she could learn to fly under Amelia’s instruction. The President said no but Eleanor and Amelia did enjoy one flight together.

4/12/2008: Jazz Appreciation Month Celebration

On Saturday, April 12th, visitors enjoyed the Postal Museum’s Jazz Appreciation Month Celebration. One of many events across the Smithsonian, the program featured live jazz music by the James Zimmerman Trio, art activities, an exploration of the new Latin Jazz stamp, and stamp collecting.

Participants explored US stamps featuring jazz musicians and voted on which had the best “jazz nickname.” (Jelly Roll Morton and Dizzy Gillespie beat Count Basie.) Adults and children also donned their own jazz nicknames. Among the best: Exquisite Katherine, Speedy Simone, Z-Bop, Sugar Bear, and Jumpin’ Jester.

Visit www.smithsonianjazz.org to learn about other jazz events!

Image: The James Zimmerman Trio plays jazz while a family digs into an activity—creating scratchboard art inspired by a children’s book about Duke Ellington. Vocalist Zimmerman, guitarist Nick Lipkowski, and bassist Wes Biles shared their love of jazz music and spoke about the history of jazz.

4/2/2008: Greetings from Hometown Washington, DC: Postcard Slide Talk

Jerry A. McCoy, special collections librarian at the DC Public Library’s Washingtoniana Division and Peabody Room, took visitors on a tour of Washington, DC’s local attractions through historic postcards. Looking past the tourist attractions, monuments, and federal city, McCoy focused on the historic sites long part of the local experience. Postcards of diners, piano shops, churches, and other historic sites illuminated the DC that has often been torn down or renovated as the city changed.

This program was featured in the “Around the Mall” blog on Smithsonian Magazine. Read the feature here:
aroundthemall.smithsonianmag.com/archives/238

3/27/2008: Collection Connections Family Day

About 200 visitors enjoy activities related to Rarity Revealed: the Benjamin K. Miller Collection. The participants, many of which were out-of-town visitors, created stamp collections, made their own “Inverted Jenny” stamps, and followed scavenger hunts in the exhibit. “It was much more interesting than I had anticipated,” one teenager wrote on her evaluation form. “Stamp collecting is very cool!”

Image: Education Aide Susan Bergner helps a young visitor vote in the Stamp Beauty Contest. Benjamin K. Miller’s collection includes the intricate “Cattle in the Storm” stamp, often judged the most beautiful by stamp collectors. The two other stamps, selected by Assistant Curator of Philately Daniel Piazza were the 10-cent Ocean Liner Stamp (this little girl’s favorite) and the 5-cent dark blue Ribault Monument stamp. Almost 50 visitors cast votes, with the Ocean Liner coming in first place. Visitors were surprised that philatelists “like the cows best.” This activity proved popular with adults and children and helped explain what is so special about Miller’s stamps.

3/15/2008: Nuestra Quinceañera: a Celebration of
Our 15 Years

The National Postal Museum celebrated its 15th anniversary in the fun and festive fashion of the Quinceañera, a special birthday for Latina and Hispanic girls. Visitors first decorated their own coronas (tiaras or crowns) to get into the spirit before moving on to other activities.

The first hour of the program featured the opportunity for young women and their families to chat casually with Latina professionals Alta Rodriguez of the United States Postal Service and Magdalena Mieri of the National Museum of American History about education, careers, and dreams. Visitors wrote in “All About Me” journals and shared them with the two women and each other.

Later in the day, visitors joined dancer Eileen Torres in a dance lesson, learning steps to salsa, merengue and cha cha, dances featured on the Latin Dance Stamps released in 2005. Music and dance are important parts of the Quinceañera tradition.

Image: Three friends model their tiaras. 86 people participated in the tiara activity.

3/8/2008: Women in Aviation Day

About 1,900 Girl Scouts, parents, and visitors participated in three National Postal Museum activities at Women in Aviation Day at the Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center. Collecting women’s history stamps was a very popular activity as was designing a stamp to commemorate each girl’s future accomplishments. Assistant curator Lynn Heidelbaugh and her mother helped girls map the flights of aviatrix Amelia Earhart by examining her cover collection.

The goal of the event was to encourage young women to pursue science, technology, and math. Of the 44 organizations with booths, girls often told museum staff that our activities were “the coolest.”

Image: Surrounded by planes, Girl Scouts learn about important women by creating women’s history stamp collections. Inspired by stamps they found as well as images of the Bessie Coleman, Juliette Gordon Low, and Gerty Cori stamps, girls then designed themselves on stamps as pilots, zookeepers, and other careers.

2/23/2008: Black History Family Day

Black History Family celebrated three small communities that have made a big impact on American culture—literature from the Harlem Renaissance, quilts from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and the blues in the Mississippi Delta. All are featured on stamps.

Image: The Delta Players lead visitors in singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before dramatically presenting poems by Harlem Renaissance author Langston Hughes, who was commemorated on a 2002 stamp.

2/9/2008: Sundman Lecture: The 100 Greatest Stamps

Nearly 100 people attended the Sixth Annual Maynard Sundman Lecture, 100 Greatest American Stamps by Donald J. Sundman and Janet Klug. Sundman began by speaking about his father, Maynard Sundman, founder of Littleton Stamp Company, who had passed away in 2007. The authors shared their favorite stamps, like the Elvis stamp and “Inverted Jenny.” Within the top 100 were historically important stamps, beautiful stamps, and rare stamps—all with interesting stories. They also discussed their selection and ranking process as well as stamps that didn’t make the cut. Many of the authors’ stories elicited chuckles from the audience and the post-lecture reception featured lively discussion.

Image (top): The authors sign their book, which was so popular that the Museum Shop sold out! The shop will re-order the book.
Image (bottom): The large crowd included many members of local stamps clubs, and many who traveled from far away to attend.

1/29/2008: Postal History is Cool: the Polar Post Curator Talk

Assistant curators Lynn Heidelbaugh and Allison Marsh shared their research on the polar post with museum visitors. Marsh discussed the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus and its journey in the North Pole, an event commemorated by stamping letters with a special cachet. Usually not on public view, the stamps used were shown to visitors during the program. Heidelbaugh shared the story of postal workers at the US post office in Little America, Antarctica.

Image (top): Heidelbaugh talks with a family about a stamp designed by Franklin D. Roosevelt to commemorate the Byrd Antarctic Expedition.
Image (bottom): Usually not on view to the public, stamps used to commemorate the passing of the USS Nautilus beneath the North Pole on August 3, 1958 were on view during the program.

1/19/2008: Rarity Revealed Family Day

Benjamin Franklin’s 302nd birthday was a big hit with visitors young and old. At one popular table, visitors updated Franklin’s inventions and solved a problem Franklin faced as postmaster—moving the mail faster. (Some popular suggestions: mail delivered by robots, horses with roller-skates, and mail by underground tubes.) At other activity tables, participants added birthday candles to Franklin’s “cake” and wrote letters in secret codes to get a sense of correspondence during the Revolutionary War.

Image (top): American University students and a museum staff member have an energetic discussion of how to speed up mail delivery
Image (bottom): A young visitor (sporting an updated version of Franklin’s bifocals) enjoys “Ben’s Broadsheet Beat,” a journalism and mail-themed scavenger hunt.

1/12/2008: Philatelic Films: Charade

60 people watched Charade, a 1963 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. After the screening, National Postal Museum Research Chair Daniel Piazza discussed the film’s fascinating philatelic connection to an audience of serious collectors, movie buffs, and many first-time visitors.