About this item
Every stamp and piece of mail tells a story. In fact, each often tells multiple stories, ranging from concept to art design to production to usage, often with tales of politics, history, technology, biography, genealogy, economics, geography, disaster, and triumph. The lens of philately offers a fresh and engaging story of American history, culture, and identity, and it can also help deepen the understanding of world cultures. The William H. Gross Stamp Gallery, opened at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in September 2013, has many such stories to tell. Chief philately curator Cheryl R. Ganz guides readers through some of the gallery's nearly 20,000 objects that together illustrate the history of our nation's postal operations and postage stamps.
About the Author
Cheryl R. Ganz is the Chief Curator of Philately at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. She has curated exhibits, written for the museum website (postalmuseum.si.edu), and co-authored Delivering Hope: FDR & Stamps of the Great Depression (2009) and Fire & Ice: Hindenburg and Titanic (2012). Her area of expertise is mail flown by zeppelins. Ganz earned her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago in United States History and identifies as a social cultural historian. She authored The 1933 Chicago World's Fair: A Century of Progress (hardcover 2008, softbound 2012) and co-edited and contributed to Pots of Promise: Mexicans and Pottery at Hull-House, 1920-40 (2004). She received the Smithsonian Institution 2011 Secretary's Research Prize for The 1933 Chicago World's Fair.
