National Postal Museum

Ray Gaillaguet, French Collector

By Dr. Cheryl R. Ganz, Chief Curator of Philately

Raymond Gaillaguet (1920-2011) died in June 2011, and he left his philatelic estate to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. His award-winning exhibit of French Sower postal stationery has become part of the museum’s permanent collection, and his library of specialized French literature added over fifty volumes to the museum library. Daniel Piazza, Curator of Philately, explains that “Ray’s enthusiam for the postal stationery of his homeland is evident on every page of his collection. Besides adding considerable depth to our holdings in this area, his gift will make it possible for the National Postal Museum to share his passion with others.” The balance of his philatelic estate will be returned to the marketplace via auction, with the proceeds used to benefit philatelic initiatives and collection care at the museum in his memory.

Ray and his late wife Denise were born in France and came to the United States after World War II.  He had served in the OSS. Both were active in philately and exhibited at local shows, nationals, and internationals. Ray won grands and major awards for his exhibits of Bordeaux: Birth of the Third Republic and Early Sower Issues. He served as president and treasurer of the Rhode Island Philatelic Society, president of the Philatelic Group of Boston, trustee of the Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Museum, show chair of RIPEX, board member of France and Colonies Philatelic Society, and U.S. Commissioner to PhilaFrance 82, Bangkok 83, Ameripex 86, and PhilaFrance 89. He was an APS judge emeritus in addition to owning a business, singing in glee club, and enjoying good food, wine, and good friends.

Postal Museum Launches Owney the Dog Curriculum

The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum has announced the development and release of new curriculum and supporting materials based on the museum’s beloved “Owney the Dog.” The announcement took place at the recent Smithsonian Institution’s annual Teacher Night held this year at the National Museum of the American Indian with more than 4,000 teachers in attendance. The 60-page full-color curriculum guide features four different units that use the story of Owney the Dog to meet reading, writing, math, social studies, science and art standards. The lessons are designed to provide inspiring and meaningful interdisciplinary experiences in classrooms from kindergarten through third grade.

Owney was a scruffy mutt who became a regular fixture at the Albany, N.Y., post office in 1888. He loved the mail and began to ride with the mailbags on Railway Post Office train cars across the state and then the country. In 1895, Owney even made an around-the-world trip, traveling with mailbags on trains and steamships to Asia and across Europe. The RPO clerks adopted Owney as their unofficial mascot, marking his travels by placing medals and tags from his stops on his collar. He has been preserved and is on display at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.

The curriculum guide features four themed interdisciplinary units on mapping, autobiography, jobs and primary sources. Targeted towards second grade learning standards, these lessons combine to illustrate the life and legacy of Owney the Postal Dog. The curriculum is developed in tandem with Owney-themed technology tools, including an e-book and an augmented reality postage stamp. Also accompanying the curriculum are worksheets, rubrics and companion lessons for students with special education needs.

“Owney stands iconic at the Postal Museum because he is such an engaging entry point to U.S. history” said K. Allison Wickens, director of education at the museum. “In this curriculum, we linked his adventurous story to a myriad of elementary school topics to better serve teachers in the areas of social studies, reading, math, writing, science and the arts. Many teachers have already discovered his powerful presence in their classrooms and with their guidance, we are confident these new lessons will find a place in many more.”

“Kids connect with Owney because dogs are still around nowadays, whereas other aspects of history have changed and advanced over the years—they ‘get’ him,” said Alexandra Roosenburg, learning and technology coordinator for the Primary Campus/Washington International School. “Having a mascot like Owney for the students to interact and identify with when learning about U.S. history and geography makes learning more fun, and thereby worth their while!”

A special online microsite has been created for the Owney curriculum (www.npm.si.edu/owneycurriculum) and resides on the museum’s main website. The site features a downloadable curriculum guide for teachers, which includes units on maps, jobs, tags and stories. Worksheets, rubrics and other resources are also available on the site.

The museum makes other teacher resources available on the museum’s recently redesigned website for educators at www.npm.si.edu/educators.

Meet the Owney the Dog Look-Alike Contest Winners

By MJ Meredith

More than 70 dogs across the country lounged on mailbags, dressed up in letter carrier uniforms, and posed by mailboxes, competing to be Owney the Dog’s modern-day look-alike. The nationwide contest, co-sponsored by the Washington Humane Society, searched for a dog that captured Owney’s adventurous and travel loving spirit.

We were amazed at the creativity of the entries and relieved that we didn’t have to choose the winner on our own!  Over 8,000 votes from the public were cast selecting three dogs that most embody Owney’s spirit.

We’re pleased to announce the winners:

First Place, Bentley

Fremont, California

Bentley, a dog that somehow became homeless just like Owney, previously won a local Owney look-alike contest in California. His owner says Bentley arrived dressed in tags and “must have caught Owney’s spirit, because he climbed right up the steps of the railway postal car and settled down comfortably on and near the mail bags.”

Second Place, Jordy

Arlington, Virginia

Jordy is also a rescue dog and like Owney loves to travel.  Jordy’s owners say that he loves going on family vacations and is a very loyal friend.

 

Third Place, Murphy

Athens, Ohio

Murphy, is a mutt like Owney and was rescued from the pound. He also shares Owney’s adventurous and friendly spirit.  His owner says that Murphy makes friends will all the dogs at the park and that when they travel he “fearlessly takes the position as co-pilot and navigator.”  

In addition to a prize package all three dogs will have their photo displayed next to Owney in the Postal Museum for two weeks.  Stop by and visit Owney and these modern day look-alikes!

Treating Objects Impacted by Disaster: The 9/11 Mailbags

By Manda Kowalczyk, Preservation Technician

This is the third in a series of three posts addressing the anthrax bioterrorism attacks that took place in October 2001. Click for parts one and two.

In October 2001, the National Postal Museum began collecting objects from the Church Street Post Office in New York City, which serviced The World Trade Center. The large items we collected, including a sorting unit, were wrapped up, palletized and delivered to NPM by a fine arts handler.  However, small objects, including two satchels and a mail sack, were put inside a box (shown below) and mailed to the National Postal Museum.

As these objects were en route to D.C., another tragedy occured. On October 6, 2001, two letters containing anthrax were sent through Washington, D.C.'s Brentwood mail processing center, the hub for D.C. mail activity.

On October 21, 2001 the Brentwood facility, later renamed the Curseen-Morris Mail Processing and Distribution Center after the two postal workers who lost their lives after inhaling the lethal anthrax, was closed and sealed for decontamination but not before the box containing these three mailbags had entered the facility. The package was held at the post office for several months while the building was decontaminated. 

Once the box arrived at NPM, the mailbags were sent to an off-site Smithsonian facility where they went through a second decontamination process to remove debris from the initial 9/11 attacks.  After decontamination the objects were bagged and sent back to NPM.

One of the mailbags as it arrived at NPM after decontamination.
 

Despite decontamination, the mailbags were still dirty and needed to be surface cleaned, photographed and put into boxes for storage. Recently the preservation department installed a new fume exhaust arm (also known as an elephant trunk) and exhaust fan enabling me to set out the mailbags and surface clean them using a High-Effeciency Particulate Air (HEPA)Vacuum and brushes. I wore my half-mask respirator, Tyvek suit and nitrile gloves for personal protection and went to work.

I found cleaning the mailbags to be quite a fullfilling and emotional experience and I was moved when I opened up one of the satchels and found numerous rubber bands (used to bundle mail) and two pens that belonged to companies in the World Trade Center (pictured below.) The zip codes were obvious clues.

Below are before and after treatment images of the three mailbags.

Before:                                               After:

    

      
    
    
 
 

Read more about the Postal Museum's September 11th collection in our four part series found here.

 

The Anthrax Mail Attack: Postal Workers on the Front Line

By Nancy Pope, Historian

This is the second in a series of three posts addressing the anthrax bioterrorism attacks that took place in October 2001. Click for parts one and three.

On October 15, 2001, an aide to then-Majority Leader Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota opened an envelope containing a threatening message and powdery substance that was later determined to be anthrax. The senators’ letters each contained the following note:

09-11-01
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT.

The Senator’s staff was quickly provided with antibiotics. Twelve Senate offices shut down the next day, the Capitol the day after. 

During this time, postal workers continued to process the nation’s mail, including those in the Hamilton Township facility in New Jersey and the Brentwood facility in Washington, D.C. Two letters, addressed to Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Daschle, carrying the fictional return address of: “4th Grade / Greendale School / Franklin Park NJ 08852” had entered the mail stream in New Jersey. They passed through the Hamilton Township facility in New Jersey, and later the Brentwood facility in Washington. Daschle’s letter had traveled to the Capitol from Brentwood while Leahy’s letter was sidetracked to the State Department after a computer eye misread the letter’s ZIP code from 20510 for 20520.

The day after the Capitol shut down a Hamilton postal worker tested positive for cutaneous (skin contact) anthrax. A second worker from the same facility tested positive the next day. Meanwhile, at Washington, D.C.’s Brentwood postal facility, just over a mile north of this museum, postal workers continued work as usual. Senior postal officials continued to be assured by Centers for Disease Control experts that the envelopes carrying anthrax would not be a danger to postal workers.

Some workers (here shown at Merrifield, Virginia) were provided with masks and gloves for handling the mail.

The Hamilton facility closed for testing on October 18. The Brentwood facility remained open and operational. In the meantime, some of the Washington postal workers had begun seeking medical treatment for virus-like symptoms. One was Thomas Morris Jr., a distribution clerk in the Brentwood facility. His symptoms began on October 17, but were considered the result of a simple virus. In the early morning hours of the next Sunday Morris called 911 to report his breathing was “very, very labored.” Morris continued to explain what he feared might be the cause:

MORRIS: "Ah, I, I don't know if I have been, but I suspect that I might have been exposed to anthrax."

OPERATOR: "Do you know when?"

MORRIS: "It was last, what, last Saturday a week ago, last Saturday morning at work. I work for the Postal Service. I've been to the doctor. Ah, I went to the doctor Thursday, he took a culture, but he never got back to me with the results. I guess there was some hang-up over the weekend, I'm not sure. But in the meantime, I went through a achiness and head achiness, this started Tuesday. Now I'm having difficulty breathing and just to move any distance, I feel like I'm going to pass out. I'm here at the house, my wife is here, I'm on the couch." (1)

Morris arrived by ambulance at the hospital but died only a few hours later from anthrax inhalation. The same Sunday morning a second Brentwood postal worker, Joseph Curseen, was taken into a local hospital emergency room with flu-like symptoms. Curseen was sent home where his symptoms worsened, and he returned to the hospital. He died six hours after his second arrival, also from anthrax inhalation.

The nation’s focus turned from the US Capitol, which reopened on October 22, to the postal facilities and their stricken workers. In spite of prevailing expert opinion, it had become crystal clear that anthrax spores not only could escape from envelopes, but in fact had done so in alarming numbers. The other seven postal workers who were infected with anthrax and survived worked in either the Hamilton or Brentwood postal facility. Brentwood was closed on October 21.

The Brentwood facility reopened after a cleaning and decontamination process that cost $130 million. The Hamilton postal facility reopened in March 2005 at the cost of $65 million. 

The Brentwood facility being prepared for decontamination.

In recognition of the deaths of Brentwood’s postal workers, the facility was official renamed Curseen-Morris. On February 19, 2010, the FBI and US Postal Inspection Service announced that the investigation of the anthrax letters had been concluded, with evidence pointing to Dr. Bruce Ivins, a government scientist, as the culprit. Ivins, aware of the government’s suspicions, had committed suicide in July 2008.

 

(1) Internet news site, ABC News, accessed September 29, 2011, (http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92222&page=1)

The Anthrax Mail Attack

By Nancy Pope, Historian

This is the first in a series of three posts addressing the anthrax bioterrorism attacks that took place in October 2001. Click for parts two and three.

On October 2, 2001, with the nation still recovering from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a Florida newspaper employee, Robert Stevens, was hospitalized and died three days later from inhalation anthrax. On November 21, 2001 New England native Ottilie Lundgren died from inhalation anthrax. The weeks between these deaths brought the nation face to face with a new fear that a common part of their daily routine – the mail – had turned deadly.

Twenty-two people were infected with spores from the anthrax letter attacks. The letters, addressed to government officials and members of the media, led to the infection of nine U.S. postal workers and the death of two. Before the end of that October, the American public had become frighteningly familiar with phrases like cross-contamination, bioterrorism, and the difference between inhalation and cutaneous (skin contact) infections.

At first, authorities had no idea how or where Stevens had been contaminated. On October 8, US Attorney General John Ashcroft told reporters that they did not yet have enough information to say “whether or not this could be related to terrorism” or what he called “an occurrence.” The next day, the FBI took over the investigation and by October 11, after a second newspaper mailroom employee was found to have been exposed to anthrax, officials focused on the newspaper’s mailroom, and by extension, the mail.

The mail link drew national attention after an assistant to Tom Brokaw of NBC News tested positive for anthrax infection. She remembered that a threatening letter she opened two weeks earlier contained “a sandlike substance.”(1) Many began to approach their mail with extra caution. Herbert Bush of Flushing, New York began treating his mail literally with gloves, “I keep it at a distance and wear gloves definitely. I told my wife and daughter not to be too anxious to open anything.”(2)

Speculations flew over motives for the mailings; many feared they were a continuation of the 9/11 attacks. The fears were widespread. In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder’s office was sealed off after white powder leaked from a letter in the mailroom. Similar discoveries led to led 55 people being taken to hospitals in Paris, the evacuation of Canterbury Cathedral in London, the evacuation of Canada’s main Parliament building, and the closing of the international airport terminal in Vienna in the weeks following Stevens’ death.

Americans did not realize that because of the way mail moves through the mostly automated systems in postal facilities, the nation’s postal workers were on the front line of this particular terrorist attack. When the anthrax letters passed through sorting centers they were shaken, squeezed, and jostled by machinery that culled, cancelled, processed, and sorted them. Even after mail was identified as the anthrax source, officials were not concerned about postal workers.

Experts did not believe that anthrax particles could pass through a paper envelope. But the micron-sized particles did leak through. Not only did the pressure of the processing machines force spores into the open air, but the routine use of blowing air to clean machines and surrounding areas spread those spores even further. The spores that escaped the envelopes in sorting centers also found their way onto other envelopes in a cross-contamination scenario that was also unanticipated by field experts.

As the media followed the story, there were occasional references to potential dangers faced by postal workers, but the focus quickly returned to the letters’ targets in the media and U.S. government. On October 17, although the U.S. Capitol was shut down after employees in Senator Daschle’s office tested positive for exposure, the regional mail facilities remained operational.

 

(1) “Anthrax Found in NBC News Aide,” New York Times, October 13, 2001 p. A1.
(2) “Scares over Anthrax Send Jitters Through the U.S. Mail,” New York Times, October 14, 2001, p. A31.

“Teaching” in the 21st Century

By Jeff Meade, Mobile Learning Program Lead

Let’s put some quotes around the word “teaching” and really start thinking about education in the 21st century. We’ve just launched the fall program series for educators to investigate what being a teacher means in this busy and complex world of digital media and rapidly changing technology. We’re also changing the dynamic of learning in museums, prompting educators to create the connections between museums and their classrooms.

Local pre-k teacher, Cassidy Martinez, gathers digital resources in the museum for a creative story using Glogster.

Workshop 2.0 sessions challenge educators to become students, challenging them to use the Postal Museum’s collection to make sense of the world we live in. Each of the planned workshops focuses on a specific topic, but all promote active, inquiry-based learning. We won’t tell you what objects mean- that’s up to you to decide! The first of these fall workshops took place on Saturday, October 1st, and the participants made some amazing connections. Participants were tasked with exploring 21st century literacy, and ended up writing digital comic books and interviewing museum visitors for a creative writing assignment.  You can see these examples and workshop photos on the EdLab twitter feed: @SIEdLab. Over half of Saturday’s participants attended one of our summer Mission Possible workshops, and one of these educators, Emily Donahue, even came down from Boston just to attend the first fall workshop!

Page three of a digital comic book that began with early airmail pilot Eddie Gardner’s flight mask, currently on display in the museum.

We’re also taking where learning happens into consideration. Workshop 2.0 sessions start in the Postal Museum, thinking about real objects and interacting with historical stuff. But, history and science take place all around us, so why stop learning in a classroom or museum? Why not use classrooms or museums as the starting point for learning, then challenge our students to make connections between the content and the world around them? If you want to explore “teaching” in the real world, then you need to come for a workshop this fall. We have two more Saturday workshops coming up, and we hope to see you there. Come in and be part of the story! Register for workshops here, and be sure to check us out on Flickr and Twitter!

Photographing Owney's Tags

By Allie Hasson, Digital Imaging Technician

As a Postal Museum follower, you may already be aware of Owney the dog and his notable relationship with the postal clerks of the late 1880’s.  In case you aren’t, it is important to know that he spent most of his time riding trains and sleeping on mailbags, he was considered a good luck charm for the Postal Service workers, and he was given tags and medals to record his travels almost everywhere he went.  Owney and more than 400 of his tags now inhabit the National Postal Museum, and 2011 brought both conservation treatments and completely updated photographic documentation for the entire Owney collection.

Owney wearing his tags.

In this post, I will share my experience with the Owney project from the perspective of a digital imaging technician, which involved photographing each of his 400+ tags.  Photography of the Owney tags was important to the collection because it created online access to high resolution images of the tags for museum followers, researchers, educators, cachet makers, and anyone else interested in studying Owney’s story.  This new access is part of a Smithsonian-wide priority to broaden access to the Institution’s expansive collections.


While taxidermist and sculptor, Paul Rhymer, was treating Owney himself, Postal Museum technician, Rebecca Johnson, and contracting object conservator, Cathy Valentour, worked together to clean and treat each of Owney’s tags.  As the tag treatments were completed, I worked with Rebecca to coordinate the move of each of the tags in groups of about 30 to the museum’s photography studio.  The tags are stored separately in boxes that note their accession numbers and help museum staff keep track of the tag’s history and role in Owney’s story. 

Owney tag storage.

I constructed a light-diffusing miniature portrait studio for the tags, using a table, a light tent, two external lamps, and a camera stand.  As shown in the image below, I used one light on either side of the light tent and positioned the camera, suited with a macro lens, above the tent on the sturdy camera stand to allow for the sharpest images possible.  This was particularly important given the tiny dimensions of some of the tags and the remarkable details present in many of them.  I took images of the front and back of each tag on a white background, black background, and with a color bar for after treatment record shots. 

Digital Imaging Technician, Allie Hasson, in the photo studio.

As I moved through each set of tags, I was surprised at both the variety of materials from which the tags are made as well as the volume. (400 tags is a lot for a medium-sized dog, though he didn’t wear them all at once.)  The tags are composed of an assortment of metals, including silver, aluminum, nickel, chrome, and many brass tags, as well as about a dozen very fragile and curiously large leather tags.  The wide range of metal surfaces proved a challenge as I began this project, as many of them created a glare, or in severe cases a reflection of the camera and of me, when being photographed.  This made using the light-diffusing tent imperative.  I also experimented with the set up, aiming the lights at different trajectories as well as using small reflectors inside the light tent to minimize glare.  To avoid abrading the leather or exposing the metal to skin oils that can smudge and/or cause deterioration, I used blue nitrile gloves (pictured below) to move the tags from their trays to the light tent.   


Once the tags were all imaged, I processed the files in Photoshop to rotate and crop them using our imaging standards in preparation for their long term storage in our digital database as well as their appearance on Arago.  Each tag is now accessible in high resolution on Arago for anyone interested in studying them.   To find out if Owney visited your town and what he might have taken with him as a souvenir, visit Owney’s page on Arago.

The final product, Owney's tags as displayed on Arago.