By Winifred Gallagher  “The postal service is one of the oldest federal agencies,” says Daniel Piazza, a curator of philately at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. “Maybe for that reason, we tend to take it for granted. But we have always relied on it, whether for news from home, prescription medications or e-commerce.” Levi Mandel  From 1753 to 1774, as […]

Since this is the 200th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail and the 150th anniversary of the platting of Florence, I thought I’d give you a brief history lesson.  (If you found history dull in school, I hope this changes your mind a bit.) From 1822 to 1880 many, many folks came west on the Santa Fe Trail to what […]

By Maureen Timm  The first great invention developed by Edison in Menlo Park was the tin foil phonograph. While working to improve the efficiency of a telegraph transmitter, he noticed that the tape of the machine gave off a noise resembling spoken words when played at a high speed. This caused him to wonder if he could record a telephone […]

By Robert Reed  From lovely plates and delicate pitchers to decorative trinket boxes and figural animals, souvenir pottery was proudly displayed in American homes for decades.  Today many of the more interesting pieces, such as a plate honoring the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition or a ceramic dog labeled Wheatland, Wyo., are the subject of renewed interest among the current generation of collectors. […]

By Rosemary McKittrick  Humans are more easily fooled by decoys than birds are. That’s the old joke among decoy collectors. The work of master carver Elmer Crowell (1862-1951) just might be the exception. His work is housed in the collection of the Shelburne Museum. Some say Crowell was the best carver ever. Maybe it was his passion for hunting. Maybe […]