In our partnership with the Capitol Hill Cluster Schools, we (EdLab) arrange mission-based field trips to various Smithsonian museums and ask students to use museum objects as a launching point for further investigation into a broader challenge.
Recently, we took our Watkins Elementary fifth grade to our home base, the National Postal Museum, to investigate what it would have been like to travel out west onto the new American frontier in the 1800's-- and to investigate how travel has changed today, and how it's become a nearly universal part of life.
The students explored the museum galleries looking for clues into what travel to the West might have looked like, and then interviewed museum visitors about their experiences with travel and starting a new life. At the end, the students recorded audio entries about museum objects from the perspective of a 19th century traveller to the west-- to be built into broader podcast journals about the journeying life in the time of Manifest Destiny.
Starting in mid-February, objects for the National Stamp Collection section of the new William H. Gross Stamp Gallery have been shipped out to the Smithsonian's Office of Exhibits Central (OEC) about every month or so. The panels were designed to present the objects in sections based on historical time frames or significant historical events. The objects have therefore been organized according to their corresponding historical sections (above). We ship about three of these sections per delivery to OEC.
Clamshell boxes used to store objects for shipment and to store prepped objects before they are mounted to panels
Once they get to the Office of Exhibits Central in Landover, MD, the objects are either backed and wrapped or encapsulated. These are the two primary methods by which we preserve objects that will be mounted to graphic panels. When backing and wrapping we use both mylar (clear polyester film) and mat board. The process of backing and wrapping is just what it sounds like. We cut a piece of mat board to the shape and scale of the object, leaving about a sixteenth of an inch of mat board all around. The board is our backing. Then we place the object on the mat board and wrap the mylar around it. We leave a small boarder of mat board around the object so that the edges of the object do not get crushed when the mylar is pulled taught and attached to the back with double stick tape. The corners of the mylar must also be cut so that we are working with a mylar shape that can be wrapped, or folded, around the mat board.
Most of the backed and wrapped objects are in the early sections that contain covers with wax seals. It is important to back and wrap these covers so that the wax seals have a firm support and do not bend and crack. We also back and wrap objects that are too thick to be encapsulated. Check out the process of backing and wrapping in the fun and instructional video below!
Adjusting stamps before I finish encapsulation
Adjusting magnetic strip before I run an ultrasonic weld
The encapsulating process only involves mylar. Because we are exhibiting these paper objects for 30 years (our longest exhibition of high value material) we are also including buffered tissue in with objects that are not gummed or perforated to stabilize the Ph levels of the paper. When encapsulating an object we are essentially sandwiching the object between two sheets of mylar and then creating a seal around the object. We create the seal using an ultrasonic welder that uses high-frequency vibrations to bind the two sheets of clear polyester film together. The machine is essentially hammering the polyester together at a very fast pace. When we try to encapsulate objects that are too thick the welder is not able to weld the mylar completely together. This is why we choose to back and wrap the thicker objects.
In order to encapsulate several stamps at once I take two pieces of mylar, one on top of the other, and run a weld across the bottom of them. Then I take tongs and place several stamps along the weld line and run welds on each side of each stamp so that they are welded on three sides. I then place a spot weld at the top of the stamp instead of a run to allow for air exchange, and then trim the edges. The encapsulator is a beautiful tool and especially helpful for preserving paper as it does not use heat at all. We had the manufacturer of the Polyester Encapsulation System make a miniature version of the machine just for this project. The smaller machine is perfect for working on encapsulations of stamps and makes the overwhelming amount of tiny encapsulations much more manageable. Most of the objects for the William H. Gross Stamp Gallery will be encapsulated rather than backed and wrapped.
Four kivas filled with panels patiently waiting their turn to be adorned with objects.
Open kiva showing the interior organization system of bins.
Once all of the objects for a particular section have been prepped we are then ready to mount them to their respective panels. Just as with backing and wrapping, we use double stick tape to adhere the back of each protected object to its panel. First we align the object to the text that describes it, then we set up rulers to guide its placement, and finally we place the object with the tape in its place. And that is how we complete a panel. Now just multiply the process of prepping about 13,000 objects by the process of mounting them to 750 panels, and you’re only looking at the amount of work that is going in to the National Stamp Collection (NSC) portion of the new gallery. The NSC is the densest section of the Gross Gallery, but there are many other sections to complete when this one is done!
Pulling a panel fresh from the kiva without any objects mounted to it. This particular panel illustrates an H grill and a split grill from the Benjamin K. Miller Collection.
On December 9, 1887, 125 years ago, a gang of train robbers stopped and boarded the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway train just as it began to pull out of Genoa, Arkansas, 30 miles north of Texarkana. After forcing the train to a stop, the men ordered the engineer to set fire to the Southern Express Company car unless the man inside surrendered and unlocked the door. He did so, and the thieves proceeded to gather up a few thousand dollars from the car. As one of the men began to make his way toward the mail car another reportedly warned him that “if they disturbed the mail it would go hard on them.”[1] Mail clerk R.P. Johnson noted that with that admonition the men left the mail car undisturbed, taking their loot and running away. Detectives found a raincoat at the scene, and traced it through the store to the man who bought it, W.J. Brock, who admitted his guilt and fingered two brothers as his accomplices.
The men Brock named were none other than James and Reuben “Rube” Burrow who had already robbed at least three other trains prior to this one. The brothers were found, and while James was captured, Rube managed to escape. James’s trial for the Genoa train robbery was still underway when he died from tuberculosis in a Texarkana jail. Brock was released for his part in turning the boys in. Rube and Brock paired up again for another train robbery, this time Rube killed a passenger in the attempt. Rube’s friends and extended family helped hide him in their home county - Lamar County, Mississippi. Wanted posters and alerts for Rube were sent to a number of post offices in the area, and in July 1889 Burrow shot and killed postmaster Mose Graves when Graves refused to turn over a suspicious package to Burrow (it held a wig and fake moustache).
Rube was captured the next year on October 9, 1890 and taken to jail in Linden, Alabama. There, he managed to get his hands on a gun and after locking the guards in his cell headed out for his escape. He was quickly spotted and shot dead on December 8, 1890.
Reuben “Rube” Burrow
Drawing of James Burrow
Drawing of William Brock, the brothers’ accomplice in their December 9, 1887 train robbery.
[1] “Bold Robbers at Work,” New York Times, December 11, 1887, p. 3.
EdLab has officially kick-started its partnership with the Capitol Hill Cluster Schools. Since September, we've been working with teachers and students at Peabody Pre-K, Watkins Elementary, and Stuart Hobson Middle School to introduce them to mission-based learning.
The kindergarten class we are working with at Peabody Pre-K will be doing a mission to uncover and raise awareness on the history of their school. An essential part of this process is encouraging students to be curious about their surroundings, so one of our first steps in this mission project was to explore the statue sitting at the center of Stanton Park, a large park and community hub right across from the school's front doors.
Doing the "See, Think, Wonder" thinking routine with our Capitol Hill Cluster kindergartners.
We used a thinking routine titled "See, Think, Wonder" to discover details about the statue and think about who the figure in the statue might be-- Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero. As part of their exploration, the students used iPod touch cameras to document the various details and perspectives of the statue. Students will later be visiting the National Portrait Gallery to explore other important figures- perhaps even George Peabody himself!
