NATIONAL SELF-GUIDE

9 Call 1 Moving the Mail Mail call is a moment where the frontline and home front connect. Discover The museum’s atrium has different vehicles that moved the mail. Look the great lengths taken to get messages and packages to and from military up to see the airplanes soaring overhead. Find the dogsled that sped 8 Alphabetilately personnel far from home. Read personal letters that reveal the emotions and mail through the Alaskan snow. A-Z offers an innovative way of looking at events of their time. Don’t miss , the mascot of the . the hobby of using an Don’t miss the USS Oklahoma Handstamp recovered from Pearl Harbor after illustrated alphabet to colorfully explore December 7, 1941. 2 Binding the Nation twenty-six aspects of . Enter the forest and follow the path mail carriers Don’t miss the Pony Express Cover: traveled from New York to in 1673. correspondence that travelled via the storied Throughout American history, mail brought news route in 1860. 9 2 to the furthest corners of the country. See if you can transport the mail as quickly, safely, and cheaply as possible on our Surface Table! Also discover the work of Postal Inspectors from 8 yesterday and today. Try your hand at solving 7 Stamp Gallery postal crimes and learn how to protect yourself Every stamp tells a story. Changing exhibits from mail fraud in POSTAL INSPECTORS: THE showcase a variety of stamps and their stories. SILENT SERVICE. Open March 22, 2012 to January 6, 2014. Currently on display: 3 Customers & Communities Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic See how the postal system works to get mail to This exhibit brings together for the first time every person in America. This exhibit highlights never before seen artifacts from two marvels of mail’s impact on city streets and rural routes. 20th century transportation. Highlights include a 7 1 3 very rare piece of mail sent from Titanic and 5 START 4 Systems at Work burnt mail salvaged from Hindenburg. HERE Unwrap the mystery of a letter after it enters the mail stream in this highly interactive exhibit. 6 US & International Take a journey to see how that process has changed over time. Whether by hand, machine, or Stamp Gallery MUSEUM SHOP cutting-tech software, the goal remains the same: This room holds thousands of stamps. The 6 Getting mail as fast and as efficiently as possible pull–out frames protect stamps from light to customers. damage. Pull one out to see the stamps inside. Don’t miss the 1917 5-cent Plate Proof Errors 4 STAMP embedded in a sheet of 2-cent stamps. We’ve STORE Stay connected with the Postal Museum: found one in US frame #38, hunt for the other 2. www.postalmuseum.si.edu/connect

PUBLIC RESTROOMS 5 Ford Education Center Access Arago, the museum’s online database through games, timelines, and special highlights. Look for the EXPLORE icon throughout the museum to find the objects featured at the Center; also test your mail DISCOVERY CENTER sorting skills and send yourself an e-stamp collection.

Smithsonian EXPLORE. DISCOVER. IMAGINE. CONNECT. POSTA L de Moving the Mail L i Meet Owney, the Mascot M 2 A u of the Railway Mail Service! U Moving the Mail N Owney’s jacket holds tags from S S G 1 Look around the Atrium for O - ways to move the mail. What many places and routes he visited. E e f I l Why did postal types of transportation can

U clerks give tags

T you find? Do you think any

M are still used to deliver to Owney? A s mail today?

N f id o K S r N M A I I 3 Binding the Nation T H O N Climb into the stagecoach S 8 Mail Call Binding the Nation 3 and head West! Listen to the stories of the other passengers. Was this a fun way to travel? 8 Mail Call How did you travel to the Listen to a “letter” in the words of a 6 museum today? Vietnam War soldier who recorded it. Moving the Mail Postcards, packages, letters, and audio tapes are just some of the ways people stay 1 in touch through the mail. 2 4 Customers & Communities Imagine how it felt to receive 4 Deliver mail in a big city. The mural on Stamp Gallery news from someone far from Customers & the wall shows all the ways mail got around home. Communities in a city 100 years ago. 7 Can you find all 17 Postal Workers in the mural? Make Stamp Gallery 7 5 sure to look in the Investigate the Smithsonian’s historic collection. Museum Systems at Work painted backdrop The index on the wall describes how the Store and under the street! Gallery is organized. Find a country that shares the first letter of your name and pull open i ts frame. Stamp Store Systems at Work 5 How talented are you at PUBLIC RESTROOMS sorting the mail? Travel ELEVATOR back in time to 1917 and try sorting packages as 6 quickly and as Play memory with stamps or mailboxes on accurately as Discovery possible! one of the five interactive screens. Then try Center sorting the mail from Colorado, Alaska, California and New Jersey.

Smithsonian AMERICA’S HISTORY IS IN THE MAIL National Postal Museum