REPORT ON THE HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 

 IN THE U. S, NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



By A. Howard Clark, Curator. 



The transfer of a large collection of relics of General Washington 

 from the Patent Office to the National Museum in 1883 was the begin- 

 ning of a separate section devoted to historical collections. With the 

 Washington relics were grouped many objects heretofore exhibited in 

 other departments of the Museum, but which are of more interest as 

 personal relics of representative men or memorials of events or places 

 of historic importance. Here were brought together various gifts from 

 foreign governments to Presidents Jefferson, Adams, Van Bureu, Com- 

 modore Perry and other high officials of the United States, besides 

 relics of Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Gen- 

 eral Ripley, Commodore Elliott, Commodore Biddle, and many other 

 eminent American statesmen and soldiers, as well as numerous manu- 

 scripts and relics pertaining to the colonial and revolutionary war 

 period of our country, and mementoes of Sir John Franklin, Kane, 

 Hayes, Hall, De Long and other Arctic explorers. In November, 1886, 

 the large collection of relics of General Grant were received and added 

 very greatly to the popular interest in this section of the Museum.* 

 The growth of the historical collections in the past three years has 

 been very rapid, and the space devoted to this class of exhibits is found 

 far too limited for their display to visitors. The collections exhibited 

 in the north hall have been partially rearranged and many new objects 

 have been installed during the year. Labels have been written for all 

 objects shown. There are now in reserve many hundreds of objects that 

 might be exhibited if space permitted. 



A beginning has been made on a collection of postage stamps of all 

 nations, about 1,600 specimens gathered by Professor Baird forming 

 the nucleus of this collection. 



The collection of portraits of representative men of the world has in- 

 creased considerably in number during the year, but is yet very incom- 

 plete. There have been put on exhibition engraved and photographic 

 portraits of some of the most eminent scientists, and an interesting col- 



*4 list qf tl^ese objects is given in the Annual Report for }887. 



