National Postal Museum

What is “Off” about “Offsite”

By Rebecca Johnson, Preservation Technician and Offsite Coordinator

Almost every museum has offsite storage. As museum collections continue to grow, more spaces are needed to store all of the artifacts; this usually means finding a second, third or fourth location. In Washington, DC where real estate for storage is extremely expensive, some of the Postal Museum’s storage facilities are often miles away from the museum in industrial areas where square footage is more affordable; this is when it’s called “offsite storage”. With a collection containing items such as large, motorized vehicles and heavy industrial machinery, it’s easy to run out of space quickly.  All of the objects stored in these offsite locations are treated with the same standard of care as those stored at the museum. We even have space for staff to work at these offsite storage facilities where they monitor, maintain and improve storage conditions. Offsite storage is managed by the preservation department, but all collections staff and curators have full access to the spaces and artifacts.

Crating large murals for long-term storage.

    

Objects stored on open shelving.

Opening crates for processing.

Some great discoveries inside crates.

Rigging of Hong Kong Mailbox to transfer to new crate.

On any given day, you can find Postal Museum staff hard at work, protecting the artifacts at our offsite storage facilities. With the help of grants, we have been able to crate almost all of our oversized objects for their long term preservation. We also work on building micro-environments for some of the small objects for preservation purposes. The staff works out there to update the museum database and take photographs of all objects stored offsite. Offsite is also a great place for some of our larger donations to be processed (surveyed, cleaned, rehoused, and photographed) because of the sheer quantity of objects, without being in the way of other staff members.

NPM curator sorting through donation.

Preparing South Pole Safe for photography.

Surveying mural for conservation treatment.

Surveying objects for information gathering.

Mass transfer from USPS waiting to be processed.

Prepping portrait for photography.

Other random projects that have been known to happen at one of these many offsite storage spaces include picking the lock on a safe to see if anything is inside, and repairing a flat tire on a bicycle. The Postal Museum staff has also opened up old crates from previous decades to check on the objects and sometimes rehouse the objects if necessary. There are regular inventories of offsite storage spaces to make sure every object is accounted for in the museum’s database. We are grateful that these storage facilities allow us to keep acquiring additional artifacts to interpret philatelic themes and the history of U.S. postal operations.

 

 

Cleaning handstamps.

Conservation treatment of international mailboxes.

Exciting new discovery off-site.

Picking safe lock ot see what's inside.

Sorting through a transfer from USPS.

Repairing flat tire on historic bicycle.

 

Hindenburg Passenger Ticket

By Cheryl R. Ganz, Philately Department

May 6, 2013: 76th Anniversary of Hindenburg Disaster

Burtis J. “Bert” Dolan’s passenger ticket survived the final flight and disaster of the German zeppelin Hindenburg. Through the courtesy of the Burtis J. Dolan family archive, the ticket is now on exhibit in the Smithsonian National Postal Museum exhibition Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic. The ticket, #2398, was purchased from the Zeppelin operating company only two days before the May 3, 1937, departure from Frankfurt, Germany, and signed by Captain Ernst Lehmann, who perished after the crash landing. The ticket cost was 1,000 RM, equivalent to about $450 during the Great Depression. This is possibly the only surviving passenger ticket from that final flight.

Business colleagues from Chicago, Dolan, an executive in the perfume business, and Nelson Morris, an executive in the meatpacking industry, had crossed paths in Nice, France, during their spring 1937 business trips in Europe. Morris convinced Dolan to change his travel plans. Rather than return home by sea, why not travel on the Hindenburg, which was making its first trip of the season? A faster trip would allow Dolan to surprise his family with an early return for Mothers Day. Morris paid the additional costs over ocean liner travel for Dolan’s zeppelin ticket, and Dolan paid Morris’s Hindenburg bar tab just before the landing.

On May 6, 1937, at 7:24 p.m. local Lakehurst time, Dolan and Morris stood side by side at the Hindenburg’s starboard promenade windows (near the reading and writing room) to watch the landing crew grab the ropes and moor the great zeppelin. One minute later, a jolt shook the passenger cabin. The two friends grasped a post to stay on their feet as the Hindenburg’s bow surged upwards. Panicked, they jumped from a window, first Morris and then Dolan. Morris later recalled, “The most remarkable thing that I know in my life, I took metal rods an inch thick in my hands and I broke them. They broke like paper.” After clearing the wreckage, he turned and looked back for Dolan, but did not see him. Dolan perhaps paused to help someone at the window before running clear. In so doing, he was caught in the tangle of burning girders that surrounded him. He died in the disaster, leaving a widow, Mildred, and four children, who did not even know he had been aboard. Dolan’s body was identified by his passport and passenger ticket in his pocket, and he was still holding the rosary given to him by his wife.

The family learned of Dolan’s Hindenburg passage from Nelson Morris’s brother Edward, who shared the secret. Shocked, the family anxiously followed the news. They received the devastating confirmation from a priest who had performed last rites. Recovered, burnt items from Dolan’s body were returned to the family, including his passport, ticket, and the invoice for Morris’s onboard expenses and two telegrams. Dolan had written a letter to his wife, which was in an unfranked envelope addressed to her marked “strictly personal.” In the touching and emotional letter he told his wife of his personal conflict in flying against her wishes and that should anything happen enroute, “None of us know the Lord’s will.”

Read more: Dennis Kromm, “Homecoming,” The Zeppelin Collector (July 1988) 59-63. »

 

Burtis J. Dolan’s passenger ticket salvaged from the final flight and disaster of the German zeppelin Hindenburg, May 6, 1937. Courtesy of the Dolan family archives.

 

 

Salvaged passport of deceased passenger Burtis J. “Bert” Dolan. Courtesy of the Dolan family archives.

 

 

Burtis J. Dolan’s family members visit the Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic exhibition and view the portrait of family friend Nelson Morris. Left to right: granddaughter Mary Alice and great grandsons Matthew, Timothy, and Brian.

Learn more about the Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic exhibition.

 

1972 Peace Corps Stamp Artist David Battle Visits Museum

By, Patricia Raynor, Loan Coordinator

David Battle, whose design concept was used for the 1972 Peace Corps Stamp, visited the Postal Museum on April 12. Jim O’Donnell and I interviewed Mr. Battle in 2010 for an article on the Peace Corps stamp and were delighted when he contacted us that he was planning a visit to Washington, DC. While at the museum, Mr. Battle spoke fondly of his visit to Washington in December of 1971 when and his family were invited to attend the ceremony announcing the Peace Corps stamp.

Peace Corps stamp issued February 11, 1972

 

David Battle also designed the cachet for the 1971 first day cover that he is holding.

The National Postal Museum has the original Peace Corps stamp art on loan from the U.S. Postal Service’s, Postmaster General Collection. Annette Shumway, museum technician PMG Collection, brought out the art for him to examine in person.  He showed us how graphic artist Bradbury Thompson added an extra dove in the adaptation for the final design as the design of the Peace Corps stamp was vertical and his original design was square.

 

 

David Battle examining the 1972 Peace Corps stamp art with Annette Shumway overseeing on the right.

Bradbury Thompson note from the National Postal Museum Library, Third Assistant Postmaster General, Stamp Design Files.

David Battle lives in Ohio with his wife Esther.  His art frequently appears in the Antioch Review.

Photographs by James O’Donnell

To learn more check out:
David Battle and the story behind the Peace Corps stamp
http://postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/1d_peace_corps_stamp.html

The Postmaster General Collection
http://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2012/07/the-postmaster-general-collection.html
                                

The Great Kipton Train Wreck

By Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator

On April 18, 1891, near Kipton station, 40 miles west of Cleveland, Ohio, the fast mail train #14 collided with the Toledo Express. The fast mail was running at full speed, and the Toledo express was almost at a spot where it would traditionally pull over on a siding to let the fast mail pass. The massive collision killed nine men, six of them postal clerks working on the fast mail train.

A line of freight cars and the station itself may have impaired the vision of the engineer of the fast mail train. He apparently applied his breaks as soon as he saw the Toledo express on the road, but it was too little, too late. According to one newspaper report, “The engine of the Toledo express was knocked squarely across the track, and that of the fast mail reared in the air, resting on the top of the other. The fast mail consisted of three mail cars and two parlor cars, and the Toledo express of five coaches and two baggage cars. The first and second mail cars were telescoped and smashed to kindling wood, and the third crashed into the first two and rolled over on the station platform, breaking the windows of the building.” (1)

The Railway Mail Service clerks killed in the wreck were all from Ohio. They were Frank Nugent of Toledo, J.L. Clement of Cleveland, James McKinley of Conneaut, and Charles Hammil, John J. Bowerfield, and Charles L. McDowell, all of Elyria.  This horrific wreck, which made headlines across the country, brought the dangers of serving as a railway mail clerk home to the nation. In the weeks following the wreck, newspapers and magazines produced a number of stories highlighting the lives and work of railway mail clerks. The Post Office Department emphasized the wreck in their continuing calls for railway companies to produce steel mail cars instead of wooden ones which provided little protection for clerks in collisions.

Investigators determined that the Toledo express crew was at fault. Their train was late and should not have started out for Kipton, knowing that the fast mail was approaching on the same line. The investigation centered on the engineer’s watches, one of which was possibly four minutes slow. A mere four minutes was the difference between life and death on the line.

The General Superintendent of the line in question, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, appointed Cleveland, Ohio jeweler Webster Ball to investigate time keeping issues on the line. Ball’s investigation resulted in the establishment of watch performance and inspection standards in 1893.

At Kipton, wooden mail cars offered little protection for the clerks working inside.

Remnants of train cars at Kipton following the collision.

An historical marker at Kipton tells the story of the tragic wreck of 1891.

One of dozens of headline articles about the wreck.

  
 (1) “A Horror of the Rail,” The Atlanta Constitution, April 19, 1891, page 19.

Remembering the Titanic

By Daniel Piazza, Philately Department

This year’s anniversary of Titanic’s sinking is a pretty low-key affair. Last year was the centenary, and there were hundreds of commemorations all over the world that garnered a lot of media attention. Everyone is interested in a hundredth anniversary, but a hundred-and-first somehow does not seem as important.

A crowd will gather at the Washington, D.C. Titanic memorial, as they do every year, but it will be a fraction of the three to four hundred who showed up last year at midnight.

If you don’t want to venture to the Southeast waterfront, you can instead come to the National Postal Museum and see original sketches of the memorial by its sculptor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, on loan to us from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

 

Loan from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Even if you have viewed Fire & Ice before, a number of new pieces were installed in January that make it worth a second look. The National Archives in New York has loaned us a manual of ship’s regulations that once belonged to Titanic survivor and White Star Line managing director J. Bruce Ismay. Published in 1907, the book was standard issue on all ships belonging to the International Mercantile Marine Co., including Titanic. We have opened it to the page dealing with “Custody of the Mails.”

 

 

Loan from National Archives and Records Administration (New York)

One of the most famous radio transmissions of all time is memorialized on this Marconi company form from Olympic’s radio room. At 1:13 a.m., one hour and forty minutes after striking an iceberg, Titanic tells Olympic, “We are putting the passengers off in small boats.” This was one of the last intelligible messages sent by Titanic. “N.Y.T.” stands for “New York Time,” which Second Officer Charles Lightoller reckoned was 1 hour and 33 minutes behind Titanic’s time.

 

On loan from Dr. Edward and Joanne Dauer.

Chicago physician Frank Blackmarr, a passenger aboard Carpathia when that ship received Titanic’s distress signals, assisted the ship’s surgeon treating survivors. He collected numerous relics of the disaster, including the autographs and addresses of Titanic’s four surviving officers. The autographs, from top to bottom, are: Fourth Officer James Graves Boxhall; Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller; and Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe. Third Officer Herbert John Pitman signed on a separate sheet (not shown).

 

 

Loan from Brian, Maria, and Alexander Green

So, even though the “big anniversary” is behind us, a visit to Fire & Ice at the National Postal Museum is a new opportunity to learn about the disaster and reflect on the enormity of Titanic’s loss.