National Postal Museum

NPM's Women On Stamps Online Exhibit Series Completed

 Caption: 1893 4-dollar Queen Isabella & Christopher Columbus stamp

One-hundred and seventeen years ago with the release of the 1893 Columbian Exposition Issue, Queen Isabella of Spain became the first woman to be featured on a United States postage stamp. Since that 4-dollar crimson lake colored stamp which Queen Isabella shared with Christopher Columbus was issued, hundreds of United States definitive and commemorative postage stamps have honored important women in American and world history. Explore NPM's Dedicated Women's History Month Landing Page Here.

 
2002 37-cent Ethel Payne & 1991 29-cent Fanny Brice © United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.  

Almost two years ago, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s Web Team set about creating a series of Arago online exhibits highlighting every woman honored on a U.S. postage stamp. The result is the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s Women On Stamps Series comprised of four different online exhibits. The first two exhibits, Women On Stamps Part 1 & 2, were composed by Web Team Intern Lauren Golden and Arago Research Coordinator Christine Mereand. The final two exhibits, Women On Stamps Part 3 & 4, were composed by Web Team Intern Kelsey Fritz and Christine Mereand. All of these online exhibits plus more exciting content can be accessed through the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s dedicated Women’s History Month landing page – http://postalmuseum.si.edu/women

Or Enjoy Each of NPM's Women On Stamps Online Exhibits Through The Links Below:

Part 1: Women's Stamp On History

Part 2: Pioneering Women

Part 3: Women In Literature & The Arts

Part 4: Women In The Performing Arts

 
1994 29-cent Sacagawea & 1936 3-cent Susan Anthony © United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Hollywood's Historical Mishaps: The Pony Express

Recently, we brought you behind the scenes of the Pony Express Family Festival. The April 3rd date of the festival is drawing near and Public Programs intern Emily Shapero is busy putting the final touches on activities for the program. Here’s a peek into Emily's latest project: busting Hollywood myths about the Pony Express!  

When I was offered the Postal Museum’s Family Programs Internship, I did not expect to add to my resume:  “able to quote every line from a variety of old Hollywood westerns and Pony Express TV shows.”  After several hours of watching YouTube clips of Roy Rogers rescuing damsels in distress and characters from "Bonanza" riding off into the sunset, it was getting difficult to have conversations without a western accent.  But all of this was worth it because these clips are some of the best educational tools around—primarily because they get everything wrong. I knew it would be a challenge to change all of the misconceptions our visitors have about this brief period of American history, but why not tackle them at the source: Hollywood.

The Pony Express exhibit (opening April 2010) is full of movie posters
romanticizing the Pony Express.

I selected six different Pony Express TV shows and movies as evidence in our case against Hollywood’s historical mishaps.  "Bonanza" (1966), "Young Riders" (1989), and "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" (1951) compose our TV culprits, with "Winds of the Wasteland" (1936), "Young Bill Hickok" (1940), and "Frontier Pony Express" (1939) as our feature-length frauds. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to bust the myths propagated by these slick productions. We had to think of a creative way to (as all experienced museum educators say) interpret them. 

Enter Craig, or as our visitors will get to know him, Johnny Dakota, Pony Express rider!  Craig has graciously volunteered to be our costumed interpreter for the April 3rd program. This is no small task, as Craig must take on the persona of an 1860 Pony Express rider, master a western accent, and wear a vest that is slightly too small; all while remembering a significant amount of historical information. As Johnny Dakota, Craig will leap up halfway through the screening of the video clips and excitedly set Hollywood straight with nostalgic anecdotes about his days on the trail. 

Throughout the day, Johnny Dakota will also be available to answer questions, pose for photos, and puzzle over visitors’ cell phones…or “miniature telegraph machines” as he knows them. 

Take a look at these video clips and see if you can spot the historical inaccuracies! I’ve listed a few below—and this is just the beginning!

These clips were specially selected for both their high entertainment value and their glaring historical inaccuracies. How many of these errors did you catch?
   
Mail transfers and the culture of the station house: Riders relied on fresh horses and each other to relay the mail across the west. These clips do a pretty good job of showing that these transfers took place, but most of them leave out one detail: the horn. Some riders carried a horn with them, using it to alert the station masters to be ready with a fresh horse. In a "Young Riders" clip, one of the riders hollers “YAHHHOOOOOO” instead of using a horn, which is what several riders would do instead of carrying a horn. While the show gets that part correct, it also portrays the station house as a very social place. In fact, it was probably quite lonely. As Johnny Dakota tells us, “there never woulda been a whole darned party waitin’ at the station!”

Serious Shooting: In many of these clips, the Pony Express riders rely on their guns to get out of tough jams. Whether they faced wild animals or a villain in a black hat, fictional riders were always packing heat. Truthfully though, Pony Express riders rarely carried excessive weaponry. A lighter revolver would have been carried but rifles would have been left behind—they were too heavy. If you want to be fast, you have to be light. Hollywood spices up plot lines with bad guys and wild animals but rarely shows one of the main difficulties on the trail—the weather!
 
The Pony Rider as a Hero:  Although we can call the Pony Express riders of 1860 heroes for their bravery on the trail and their dedication to uniting the nation through mail, they were hardly so in the Hollywood sense. The "Frontier Pony Express" includes a scene in which Roy Rogers chases down a run-away stage coach to rescue a southern belle. Although historical characters like Buffalo Bill probably would have claimed to have done something like this, riders would have been way more focused on getting the mail on its way as quickly as possible.

The Pony’s Last Ride:  In one of the last clips, two riders discuss the telegraph and the end of the Pony Express. Luckily for them, Russell, Majors, & Waddell let them take home their ponies at the end of the service. This scene is probably more fact than fiction, especially because the Pony Express was never intended to be a permanent service.

There are two main lessons I’ve learned from busting all of these Pony Express myths. The first:  don’t believe everything you see on the silver screen. The second: the true history of something is usually just as, or even more, interesting than the Hollywood version.   

The 1970 Postal Strike

On the afternoon of March 23, 1970, President Richard Nixon addressed the American public on television. He announced that he had, “just now, directed the activation of the men of the various military organizations to begin in NYC the restoration of essential mail services.” The president took this extraordinary step as a reaction to an ongoing wild-cat strike among U.S. postal workers. At the core of the strikers’ complaints were recent Congressional actions that gave a 41% pay raise to Members of Congress while postal employees would receive a 4% raise. Letter carriers and other postal workers were at the low end of the national wage scale. The situation was so dire that some carriers in New York City were eligible for welfare programs.

 

Design and Architectural Firm Chosen for Gross Stamp Gallery

Image courtesy of Smith Group

After announcing the generous donation by Bill Gross last fall, the William H. Gross Stamp Gallery is quickly becoming a reality. This week, the Postal Museum selected two firms to create the gallery: the exhibit-design firm Gallagher & Associates of Silver Spring http://www.gallagherdesign.com/  and the architectural and historic preservation firm Cho Benn Holback + Associates of Baltimore. http://www.cbhassociates.com/

Docents On Wheels!!!

By Ida Marie Giusti, Volunteer Docent

Docents from the Postal Museum have been gathering lately for tours in the Washington area, looking for unique ways to connect museum visitors to different aspects of the NPM collection. In this spirit, a group of Postal Museum docents (Ida Marie, Tadas, Robin, Tanika, Meredith and Jeff) traveled to the Springpex Stamp Show on Sunday, March 7th. We started our day off with breakfast then the “Docents on Wheels,” as we like to call ourselves, hopped into the new Postal Museum minivan. Such an adventure through Virginia, we almost got lost! (Note to self – next time carry a GPS because Jeff can’t remember where he’s going!)  Getting slightly lost was promptly forgotten when we arrived at the show and were happily greeted by the designer of the new Pony Express and Boy Scout Caches.  It was a thrill to meet him and have the envelopes signed!

Curator's Pick -- Dick Tracy and Mr. ZIP

   

In the summer of 1963 the Post Office Department introduced its new ZIP Code plan to the American public. Every address would be assigned a five-digit number that was to be added to the traditional city and state combination. Postal officials anticipated some resistance by the public to using ZIP codes. Not only did people have to remember a series of numbers assigned to their address, but also learn the numbers assigned to each of their correspondents. The Department began a nation-wide publicity campaign for the service, using posters, radio, and television advertisements, to enticing noted singer Ethel Merman to record a ZIP code song (sung to the tune of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah").

  

Happy Albert Potts Day

On this day in 1858, Philadelphia iron products manufacturer Albert Potts patented his design for a lamppost mounted collection mailbox (patent #19,578). His box was designed to be mounted to a lamppost so people could drop their letters into the box instead of making a special trip to the post office to mail their letters. Potts called his invention a “new and Improved combination of Letter-Box and Lamp-Post for Municipalities.” The bulk of Potts’ brief patent description details how the mailbox should be attached to the lamppost. His hope was not only that the US Post Office Department use these new collection boxes (which they did), but that cities would purchase his company’s lampposts to match (that part of his plan was less successful).

 

Potts noted that this new type of collection unit would “afford greater facilities to the inhabitants of large cities for the depositing of letters, and … enable the carriers to collect, or the citizens to deposit therein, at any period of time.” The Potts mailbox was the first of the postal system’s street collection mailboxes, but was, even in 1858, too small for the job. Over the next few decades dozens of inventors and designers patented a variety of “new and improved” collection mailboxes (see examples below), from overwrought, baroque-inspired ornate structures to boxes fitted with complex machinery for customer’s or carrier’s “ease of use.” Few designs made postal officials’ final cut, but they tended to have one thing in common – simpler in design and use.

 

The U.S. Postal Service & Stamp Designs On The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Stamps Featuring Mother Teresa, Vintage Mahogany Speedboats, McGruff The Crime Dog? A USPS Conspiracy? The Catholic Church, Champion Stamp Company & A Scott Catalogue? What is the connection? Find out more by watching a segment from the March 8, 2010 episode of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart---Click On "Mail Mary" Below To View The Segment---Remember That The Show Is A Parody of Everything!

 

Click On "Mail Mary" Above To View The Segment

A 2003 postage stamp featuring Mother Teresa issued by Vatican City.  

A few of the stamps featured in The Daily Show segment--click on them to learn more

© United States Postal Service. All rights reserved. 

Behind the Scenes: Planning the Pony Express Family Festival

A herd of horse puppets has gathered on my intern’s desk. She spends hours watching clips of old western movies on YouTube. She has diverged from office-appropriate language and started speaking in the western slang you’d expect to find in a dime novel or comic book, referring to her “hoss” or “cayuses.”

Surprisingly, these aren’t signs that Emily is off task. As the creative mind behind the Pony Express Family Festival which takes place on Saturday, April 3rd, she is fulfilling the requirements of her internship project here at the Postal Museum.

Developing a family program that will be both educational and fun is a tall task, especially as April 3rd is the 150th anniversary of the Pony Express. Each of the hands-on activities Emily creates must meet lofty educational goals, be appropriate for the target audience, accurately convey the historical message, stay within budget, and delight our museum visitors. The overall goal of the program is to spark visitors’ thinking about the romance and the reality of the Pony Express—and have fun doing it.

One of the most exaggerated aspects of the Pony Express story is the dangers riders faced on the trail. Though Hollywood would make you believe that conflicts with American Indians were rife, the biggest danger facing most riders was mundane—the weather. To help convey this message, Emily is creating a puppet show in which kids act out a Pony Express adventure story. The “bad guys” in this story are rain, snow, lightning, and dark nights.

In another activity, families will design merchandise that Buffalo Bill would sell today if he were still on the road spreading excitement (along with a few historical inaccuracies) about the Pony Express with his popular Wild West show. Since most kids have Dora the Explorer sneakers or footwear dedicated to favorite sports stars, the activity will encourage them to design a pair of Buffalo Bill sneakers or boots. (Certainly the enterprising and ever popular Buffalo Bill would have also created an iPhone app dedicated to himself if he were around today—or even a reality TV show.) The activity provokes thinking about how fiction, celebrity, and commercialism have kept the allure of the Pony Express alive long beyond its 18 months in existence while distorting many of the facts.

This 1940 stamp captures the drama of the Pony Express rider leaving a station house.

At another activity table, visitors are challenged to banish thoughts of text messaging and e-mail and make some tough choices letter writers faced in 1860. Is it worth $5 to speed a love letter across the west by Pony Express? Are you willing to wait nearly a month while an important business letter crawls along by stagecoach or ship at a far cheaper rate? This activity not only illustrates what type of mail was most likely carried by Pony Express (only the most urgent of correspondence, usually related to business) but also how exciting the service was considering the other slower methods of transportation. 

This month, Emily’s plans and ideas for the family festival will start coming to life. A few generous Girl Scouts will be spending their spring break earning service hours by cutting out hundreds of paper pony puppets and building a stage out of foam core. Curators will be consulted with last-minute historical questions. The museum’s PR officer will mail 2,000 postcards to Washington, DC, families inviting them to the event. The web team will transform the museum’s Facebook page to a hub of Pony Express activity. Finishing touches will be added to the Romance & Reality exhibition scheduled to open on the day of the festival. As the  kickoff to 18 months of Pony Express programming and events draws near, we can’t help but feel a little of the excitement the crowds must have felt as they gathered in St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California to see the first riders gallop off on their journey.

Comic Book published by Dell Publishing Co., Western Printing & Lithographing Company in New York.

Emily’s family festival is just one of many Pony Express anniversary events taking place around the country this year. We are especially excited about the Buffalo Bill Look-Alike Contest taking place at Pony Express National Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, and the activities of the National Pony Express Association, which include a 1,966 mile re-ride. We hope that, just like Emily, you get the opportunity to catch Pony Express fever. So saddle up for a ride through history on April 3rd! We’ll see you on the trail!

Philatelic Musings on Art: Velazquez at the Metropolitan Museum, NY

 
 
It's always fun to find a work of art that is represented on a stamp. Unfortunately, this often entails a trip to some far off location, many times on another continent. Right now, thanks to some clever research by conservators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, it's possible to come close to an original artistic image represented on a stamp. Or to be more accurate, as you will see below, almost represented on a stamp.

There is a super famous painting by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (1599 - 1660) in the Prado Museum (Madrid, Spain), entitled "The Surrender of Breda" (see right image above). It commemorates the victory of Spain's army over the Dutch city of Breda, and was a tribute to the Spanish commander, Ambrosia Spinola. It's a big, beautiful, quite spectacular painting, on the same level as other brilliant paintings by this artist such as the sensual "Rokeby Venus" or the remarkably clever "Las Meninas".  

Spain honored this painting by placing it on a stamp in 1959 (see left image above). Sadly, this stamp does not do justice to the beauty and brilliance of the painting. And,to add artistic insult to philatelic injury, the entire painting is not even depicted. One figure missing from the stamp is the figure at the far right edge of the painting, gazing out at the viewer. (see high magnification image at right) Exactly who he is has been much debated, but remains unknown.

Which brings me to The Metropolitan Museum. For many years a painting hung in a room containing several Velazquez works. The particular item in question, "Portrait of a Man" (below), was attributed for many years to a pupil or disciple of the master (in museum lingo: "from the workshop of Velazquez").  However, a recent restoration has convinced the museum that the portrait is instead by Velazquez himself. And on close inspection, the figure portrayed is the same gentleman on the far right edge of the "Surrender of Breda" in the Prado, and on the 1959 Spanish stamp.

There is a great video that tells the story of how the Metropolitan experts figured all this out, which can be viewed here. Next time you are in NYC with a bit of spare time, check out this Velazquez portrait, and think of the stamp this gentleman almost made it onto.

Mark H. Haimann