Reports of the Museums and Research Institutes 



33 



ticipates in both national and international philatelic and 

 postal events. In Fiscal Year 1999, the staff of the National 

 Postal Museum combined the energies and talents of its en- 

 tire staff for a yearlong series of events, exhibitions, public 

 programs, and on-line exhibits dedicated to telling the pow- 

 erful story of the RMS Titanic. The official name of the great 

 ship that could not be sunk was Royal Mail Ship Titanic. The 

 great disaster claimed the lives of five sea post clerks as well 

 as six million pieces of mail. Fiscal Year 1999 was truly a Ti- 

 tanic year for the National Postal Museum. 



The National Postal Museum was invited to exhibit 

 "Posted Aboard RMS Titanic" at two venues in Melbourne, 

 Australia from March through June 1999. "Posted Aboatd 

 RMS Titanic" marked the museum's first traveling exhibi- 

 tion and was seen by more than 250,000 visitors in 

 Melbourne as part of the "Melbourne 99" international phil- 

 atelic exposition. The exhibition was later installed in the 

 Postmaster's Gallery at the Australia Post in Melbourne. In 

 May, "Posted Aboard RMS Titanic" was featured in San An- 

 tonio, Texas, at the National Postal Forum in conjunction 

 with the American Postal Wotkers Union. 



Following these events, the museum installed and opened 

 the complete "Posted Aboard RMS Titanic" at the National 

 Postal Museum on September 17, 1999. The expanded exhi- 

 bition featured large-scale murals of the ship, an exploration 

 of sea post mail service, and paintings of the five sea post 

 clerks who perished while attempting to save Thank's mail. 

 The highlights of the exhibition wete the exttaotdinary ob- 

 jects removed from the bodies of the clerks recovered at sea. 

 These included Oscar Scott Woody 's keys to Thank's mail 

 room and John Starr March's gold pocket watch eerily 

 stopped at 1:27. 



"Posted Aboard RMS Titanic" was kicked off with a spec- 

 tacular gala event with the museum's supporters, leaders of 

 the mailing industry, and leaders from the U.S. Postal Ser- 

 vice. Educational and public programs, an interactive digital 

 exhibition, and special tours carried this important story to 

 an exceptionally broad audience. The exhibition is expected 

 to travel to Smithsonian Affiliate museums in the futute. 



In addition to the concentrated effort on the Titanic exhi- 

 bitions, the National Postal Museum installed three other 

 major exhibitions. On October 6, 1998, "As Precious As 

 Gold," documenting the role of the Post Office during the 

 1896 Alaskan gold rush opened to the public. Immediately 

 following this, "Mayhem by Mail," exploring the world of 

 postal inspectors and crime in the mail opened on October 

 16. Finally, in January, "Down With rhe Frauds!," featuring 

 a rare collection of revenue stamps used to regulate adulter- 

 ated foods opened in the museum's Rarities Gallery. 



Collection Management 



The 13-million-object collection of the National Postal Mu- 

 seum is selectively expanded each fiscal year. In accordance 

 with the collecting policy, the museum acquires rare or sig- 

 nificant United States and international philatelic and postal 

 history objects and routine amounts of U.S. stamp material 

 from the U.S. Postal Service, Bureau of Engraving and Print- 



ing, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In Fiscal Year 1999 

 the museum acquired a rare example of the first adhesive 

 postage stamp on cover (the 1831 Greek 40-lepta chatity tax 

 or postage due issue). And special emphasis was placed on 

 obtaining Titanic-related material for the exhibition "Posted 

 Aboard RMS Titanic. " 



Collection Management's agenda targets every aspect of 

 object care: research, retrieval, and distribution of object-re- 

 lated data and images; object storage, shipping, and 

 accountability; preservation and treatment; and observance 

 of the legalities of custodianship ovet acquisitions and loans. 

 Continued goals of the department are the greater accounta- 

 bility, utilization and visibility, and better long-term care of 

 the collection. 



In Fiscal Year 1999 the museum began its first coopera- 

 tive project with a Smithsonian Affiliate, The Women's 

 Museum: An Institute for the Future, located in Dallas, 

 Texas. Staff worked with contracted facilitatots to select mu- 

 seum objects suitable for that museum's inaugural 

 exhibition. 



More specialized collections became the focus of cata- 

 loging and rehousing efforts. Work continued on rehousing 

 the extensive U.S. certified plate proof collection. And with 

 financial support from the Center for Latino Initiatives, early 

 Honduran airmail proofs and overprinted postage stamps 

 were linked to accession records, described and archivally 

 housed for futute research use. Specialized collections of 

 mid-nineteenth to early twentieth-century Salvadoran phila- 

 telic objects were also professionally conserved and archivally 

 rehoused. 



With a commitment to expanding and better utilizing 

 object information, the Collection Management Department 

 contracted for the installation of the relational database, The 

 Museum System (edition 9.1). This system of related infor- 

 mation modules will allow multiple users to access, update, 

 and cteate information about every aspect of object and ob- 

 ject-ielated activities. It also promises a future for public 

 accessibility. Approximately 60,000 records were converted 

 to Access format for final conversion into TMS records. 



The lengthy assessment and stocking of the U.S. stamp 

 collection continued. This project, which ultimately intends 

 to build complete Master, Reference, and Exhibit collec- 

 tions, has a short-term goal of producing a new U.S. stamp 

 exhibit. In this period, one quarter of the exhibit material 

 was assembled. 



Department staff led a museum committee to assess the 

 need for collections supplementary ro rhe Registered Collec- 

 tion and to create standards and definitions for their 

 management. An eight-page draft, completed by Collection 

 Management staff, proposed definitions and policies to 

 address educational collections, exhibit props and nonacces- 

 sioned collections. This dtaft will be attached to the 

 museum's tevised Collection Management policy. 



Education Department 



The Education Department successfully attracred larger 

 numbers of visitors to our public programs, to hands-on days 



