24 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 195 6 



on a draw loom, gift of Mrs. Katherine Estey Cross, deceased, through 

 her daughter, Mrs. John A. Bartlett, and a group of woods from Flor- 

 ida, Texas, and Mexico, received from Orville A. Oaks. 



History. — Since the Museum has in its exhibition and study groups 

 the only collection of White House china of any size, a concentrated 

 effort has been made to expand this collection. Specimens of the state 

 service designed for use in the newly decorated White House dining- 

 room at the end of the Truman administration and continued in use 

 as the state china during the Eisenhower administration were received 

 as gifts from Lenox, Inc. Keceived as a gift from the Polk Memorial 

 Association, Nashville, Tenn., is a dessert plate from the state china 

 used in the White House during the Polk administration. The largest 

 single donor of White House china was Col. Theodore Barnes, who 

 presented a plate and a dessert cup from the official White House china 

 of the Lincoln administration and two dessert plates from the state 

 service of the Hayes administration. 



Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower presented miscellaneous costume mate- 

 rials, including the pin she wore as an ornament on her wedding dress 

 which is exhibited in the Museum. A magnificent garnet-red velvet 

 dress worn by Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, sister of President Grover 

 Cleveland and First Lady of the White House from his inauguration 

 in 1885 until his marriage in 1886, was presented by Miss Constance H. 

 Wood, niece of Miss Cleveland. 



The division of military history received as a bequest of Albert 

 G. McChesney a fine officer's sword of the period of the War of 1812 

 with a finely engraved scabbard and blued and gilded steel blade. 



The most important additions to the philatelic collections are 

 original sketches for stamp designs by the late President Franklin D. 

 Roosevelt and autographed or initialed by him. These items were 

 among 30,817 specimens lent by former Postmaster General James A. 

 Farley. The Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, 

 transferred a complete set of 22 die proofs of the Migratory Bird 

 Hunting (Duck) stamps believed to be the only complete set of die 

 proofs outside the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. A worldwide 

 collection of 71,726 varieties was received from Mrs. Theodore S. 

 Palmer, in accordance with the will of her late husband, Dr. 

 Theodore S. Palmer. 



Outstanding accessions received in the division of numismatics are : 

 2 ten-thaler pieces of Brunswick-Luneburg struck in 1660; 2 gold 

 coins of Albania and Egypt, presented by Paul A. Straub; and a 

 series of 232 coins lent by the American Numismatic Association as an 

 addition to their collection of twentieth-century foreign coins. 



