The Postal History Symposium, a national conference sponsored by the American Philatelic Society, American Philatelic Research Library and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, provides a forum for philatelists, academic scholars, public historians, and the interested public to discuss and present research that integrates philately or the history of postal operations into the broader context of American history. This year’s Symposium will explore how, through the application of new technologies for transporting the mail, the post office and the transportation industry have encouraged, supported, and benefited from each other’s growth and development.

The Symposium opens on Sunday, October 21 (immediately following the three-day Aerophilately 2007 philatelic exhibition) with an evening reception and plenary session featuring scholars of a variety of postal and transportation technologies. Monday’s papers explore the postal-transportation nexus in three moderated panels—Land, Sea, and Air. New to this year’s Symposium is the addition of poster presentations, six of which will be available for viewing throughout the event.

Following registration at 5:00 p.m. and viewing of NPM Exhibit of Amelia Earhart’s Personal Airmail Collection, the Plenary Session well get under way at 5:30 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session moderated by Daniel A. Piazza of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum Plenary speakers, who will moderate the three respective panels on Monday, will be:
• David M. Henkin, associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches nineteenth century United States history, author of The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America;
• Frank R. Scheer, curator of the Railway Mail Service Library in Boyce, Virginia, an archival collection pertaining to the history of worldwide Railway and Highway Post Offices, with a strong emphasis on the United States between 1862 and 1978;
• F. Robert van der Linden, Chairman of the Aeronautics Division at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC., curator of a major new NASM exhibit opening November 17, 2007, America by Air, and author of books including Air Lines and Air Mail: The Post Office and the Birth of the Commercial Aviation Industry.

Following a Continental breakfast and viewing of poster presentations Monday at 8:00 a.m. and a welcome by David L. Straight of the American Philatelic Society, Monday’s panels will include the following presentations:

Panel 1 – Land: “1845 Cultural Nexus in Transportation and Communication: Express, Railroad, and the Post Office” by Robert Dalton Harris and Diane DeBlois; “Taxi Mail During the Palestine Mandate” by Arthur H. Groten; and “Symbol of Progress and Forward Stride: The Highway Post Office” by Robert Cullen.

Panel 2 – Sea: “The Black Ball Line: The Early Years, 1818-1822” by James R. Pullin; “Experimental Air Mail and the SS Leviathan” by Roger A. Baldwin; and “Trans-Pacific Mail at the Beginning of World War II” with Richard Martorelli.

Panel 3 – Air: “The Mailman’s Airship: Postcards as Heralds of a New Air Age, 1890-1914” by Guillaume de Syon; “Zeppelin Posts and Politics at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair” by Cheryl R. Ganz; and “United States Autogiro Mail: A Bold Experiment” by Peter D. Martin.

Registration for the Second Annual Postal History Symposium is free, and all are welcome to attend.
To register, visit the Smithsonian National Postal Museum website at http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/symposium2007