the september 11 victims compensation fund. the importance of the african-american experience to u.s. history. robert december 22 to the 26th at 7 pm eastern. history tv an tonight for lectures and history. virginia commonwealth university christopher saladino discusses the cold war nuclear arms race.

>> now, on "american artifacts", we visit the smithsonian national postal about its learn collections. the william h. gross.gallery. >> welcome to the smithsonian national postal museum. your right now is your standing in our newest gallery. gross s the william h. stamp gallery. it is the largest stamp gallery in the world. the images on the stands tell of the history, heritage, and heroes of this country. heritage, and heroes. it is pure education.

what we do in exhibits and education is try to teach people about history. >> our goal here is to give you visuals so you can personally connect to stamps. you where in the space, will find a stamp that has meaning to you. this is the world's first postage stamp. it is called the penny black cost one penny and is printed in black ink. they are not particularly rare, but the opportunity to see the is always nything exciting. >> just seven years later, the united states issued its first postage stamp. we have graphics of it here, but in the next gallery you will see some artwork. >> there we go from this

introductory gallery where visitors when some of the history of stamps, where they came from, and how they changed over the years, right over to the holy of the holy. we call this gallery the gems of american philately. you notice that it is pretty dark in here, that is because stands and paper, and inks on them are very fragile. control the light so that we can save these items for the next several hundred years. american ms of philately, we walk through the history of america looking at a few great pieces. this is the first cabinet. to it, a light p comes on so that you can see it better. the first ne of moment that kicked off a the 13 usness of

colonies leading towards the revolution. plus, we have only piece of to have survived postmarked july 4, 1776. postmarked to john hancock. so, in the introductory saw the first postage stamp, these are the united states first postage stamps. what we have on the left of actual drawings that the printing company submitted to the post office for approval. on the right, what we have is known use of any of these dams on a piece of mail. on july ps were issued 1.

in the 19th century, american went to hawaii, write urse they wanted to back home, bbut there was no established postage system. in 1850's, hawaii printed its first postage stamps. they are incredibly frail, very few have survived. for stamp collectors, they are one of the treasures that hopes to own. here in this case, we have all four varieties of the hawaii missionary stamps, plus an them on has three of it. the envelope was pulled out of the furnace. survival, it s helps understand how the stamps were put on the plate for printing. >> here we have a block of four of the most requested item in the collection.

this is the most famous united ever s postage stamp issued -- one of the world's most famous postage stamp -- the inverted jenny. one sheet of 100 of these deaths were accidentally printed in the bureau of engraving and printing with the image of the blue plane in the stamp appearing to fly upside down. become a legendary stamp. we are very lucky to have this of four on display. this is the sort of thing that visitors want to see. they want to see the ruby red slippers that american history. they want to see that inverted american postal museum. >> almost everyone who comes in

the pony has heard of express. in fact, in the lower level the a pony express exhibit. of the velope is one greatest pony express items. the pony ort time that express ran, it was very but one time the writer was intercepted by native americans. the rider wwas never found again, but they found his horse. one of the two surviving pieces on the intercepted ride of the 20 express. >> here's the only piece of mail postmarked on the moon. the stamps and the canceling devices, and the envelope was sent up on the craft. the astronauts actually postmarked this cover on the moon.

the remarkable thing about this, besides being a piece of on the moon -- the inverted k of jenny -- to hear, 1971 on the ked the mail moon, it is only 53 years from 1918 to 1971. it is a remarkable achievement of the 20th century. >> you know, the stamps were ready when they went to the moon. what they put on the envelope i called dye proofs. if you look at envelope, you see moon dust.

figure, the cleaning crew has in yet -- iin the early days, we used to think people are putting their hands the glass -- what we realize these are noise prints -- people want to get so close see these rarities. tell you here dan will about how the inverted jenny could possibly happen. >> the inverted jenny stamp was printed on a printing press like this one, here in 1918. this press is called a spider press because it has these long spindly arms. this is how the operator turns the wheel, and puts the paper through the press.

we're not entirely sure of how the printing error of the inverted jenny occurred. but we do know, on a test like this happened one of two ways. i did the plate was put in was de down, and the paper put incorrectly. or, the plate was put incorrectly and the paper was put in upside down. part of the legend and the tail so t make the inverted jenny fun -- however it happened, it is the greatest error in the history of the united states. >> now, why did we open up this brand-new gallery? the main reason is we have no more room. we have all this phenomenal stuff to show, and we had very few spaces downstairs in the museum. in, so we decided

that we would expand the museum and build the largest stamp gallery. william gross is a philanthropist, and he has a lot of stamps. we actually have 400 other donors that also contribute to the project. it was the outpouring of folks interested. we want to show the beauty stamps, and also the educational value of stands. the designers had a very difficult job. this new to design territory -- iit was an interesting challenge, i think it worked out beautifully. you go into gallery is where you learn about how stamps were used. they were used for

transportation. you can learn how to read an envelope. >> what we have done here in the section is we have divided several themes -- on land and sea, on space, and in times of adversity, how mail gets through in times of war, disaster. this is my favorite section in this part of the galley. it is all about how mail was ships and overland, starting in the 14th century. oldest have here is the is from 1390, it iit was mailed from damascus, syria to venice, italy. it was carried along the silk road. the contents of the letter are you would imagine up for silk road ried on the -- it discusses the cost of fabrics and spices.

it took just over a month to reach its destination. this case -- we have artifacts from the probably the to carry mail,ip titanic. that few people realize titanic was a moving post office. what we have on display here is one of the very few pieces of mail that survived titanic. there are more than 3000 mailbags on the ship. the majority went down with the before it it's on, went across the planet, the three stops at three ports in europe. in each one of those ports, some mail was taken off the ship.

all of the surviving pieces of mail are from one of those three points. this letter is addressed to berlin, germany. some of the most poignant relics of the disaster are pieces that were recovered from bodies of the ship's victims. on the five postal clerks of all five died -- only of two were recovered. the set of keys on the right -- mail bly to the registered safe -- came from austin scott woody's body. for many years in the united states, the primary method of was by mail overland rail, on trains.

this came to smithsonian institution by rail from new york. if you've ever been to the of history -- m this is a package that the hope diamond came from. the jeweler, harry winston in mail ork city, actually the hope diamond by mail. the wrapper -- there's $149.24 -- iinsurance up to $1 million. you can see all the markings, please delivered to the castle by 4 pm. natural history got the diamond, we got the rapper, sometimes i think we got the better end of the deal. cases had special pullout designed to protect materials from light -- it is part of our

conservation efforts. this grouping here, we called by air and space. it starts out with the wright brothers and then goes to outer space. it tells the story through the mail. this is a piece of mail that charles lindbergh flew across his solo flight. these were officially sent by is one t office, this people handed him a piece of mail and asked him to carry as a courtesy. of those rarities. seen the many of you lady lindy e was a -- i'm going to show you a little bit about her next. amelia erhardt was a stamp collector. on offer ed mail flights.

she went to stamp shows and collected. one of many famous stamp collectors. on the small, we tell the story of amelia earhart. this is something that when you come to the museum, allow time go into here and open up some of our stories we can actual historic footage, here interviews, and learn more about items in her personal album of mail. have her outfit. she designed clothes. in many cases she was forced to clothes for men, but often

able to redesign to fit her body. amelia is only one of the aviation stories that we tell. aviation is one of the greatest stories of the 20th century. a couple favorites -- one is a piece of mail that or not survived the hindenburg disaster.

>> you've all seen the humanity of the footage. 34 seconds from start to finish. there were 17,000 pieces of mail on board. couple hundred survived. -- led out of the wreckage who knows what all was lost on that ship. is the first cancel that held missile mail. have the pilots aviation goggles. he died because of these glasses.

they went all right, he tried to fix them, he lost control the plane and went down. you look at the conditions of those and you can imagine the terrifying last moments. >> as curators, we are proud to be able to include this case and i gallery. it is why the first permanent installations of artifacts from 7 to 11, 2001, here in washington, d.c.. it is a remarkable collection objects from the post office across the street of the world trade center. on the morning of the attack, clerks were in the office processing mail -- what we have is the mailbox from outside the office that survived the attack. the post marking device still september 11, 2001 date

slugs in it. we have a fire hose nozzle two, which symbolizes after the attacks, the post office became a command center are trying to fight the fires. the building never lost water for whatever reason, so firefighters try to put up the fire from the upper floors of the building. pieces we have a couple of mail that survived september 11. a couple members of her staff the church nt into street office to see what we could possibly save for history and the smithsonian. mail that examples of wasn't deliverable that we can keep our collection. this entire wall is what we're calling the national stamp collection.

it is about 4000 stamps and about of mail covering 100 years that tells the story the postage stamp -- but how it relates to the history of america. we took almost 7 years to put this collection together. curatorial team prepared this. it is a premier collection of the united states postage stamps. nation's collection -- and as citizens, all of you, it is your collection to. let me show you some highlights. we have an index that shows how time periods relate to american history. i know a lot of people are civil war buffs.

our goal -- when you look at stamps of the civil war, you will learn things that you the civil war.ut happened of course, when the confederate states of america, the union had to -- demonize all of its stamps. the confederate states of its own had to create stamps. encased postage. here, we have the first postage of the confederacy. they put their president, jefferson davis, on it. of course, in the times without television and video, this is how people learned what the

president looked like. put other presidents, jefferson on their stamps. an interesting idea. this is how people show their through the mail. or ther you are in the north the south, you would use envelopes to show i support the side. was a scarce.er they would even use roles of wallpaper, old invoices to create mail. in this collection, you'll see so many other great things including original artwork by franklin roosevelt -- the present united states was a stamp collector. he had a lot of influence and stamp design.

is here's a collection that on long-term loan to us from the united states postal service. postmaster wn as the general selection. it is a treasure trove. i've opened it up to show you here, too stamps that you may remember from the 1990's. these were big deal when they are issued in 1992 and 1994. the elvis presley stamp. maybe you remember standing in your favorite n design. finally, when it was all said and done, the design of the young elvis won. the stamp was issued in 1992. tell this issue was so popular

two years later the stamps of hollywood were issued. that is one of the great things collection -- aand only has the artwork that was used, it also has the preliminary designs that were not used. a great resource for collectors and the public, people interested in pop culture -- a tremendous treasure trove. its underside, stands and stamp collecting is no different. this is a collection of fakes and forgeries. just with any collectible, fakes and forgeries are problem. whatever open up to show you here are two frames. everything in the two frames are either a fake or forgery of the united states postage stamp.

we differentiate between a fakes and t and forgeries, by who is being defrauded. the point of a counterfeit it the postage office -- to get their letter into the mail cheaply. the first known example of this is from 1895. discovered when someone advertise them in the chicago tribune has discounted postage. we have fakes. six are different from counterfeits because they are created to defraud collectors, the post office. done here is has

to make it -- p what we have here is actually fake inverts. sometimes additional markings are added to covers to make the more valuable, perforations are added or removed. start off as ly actual stamps, but then someone modifies them. reward for me is the nose prints on the glass. that to me is the biggest reward. something that you selected and wrote up, had conserved, and placed on display, someone came

up and said, wow, and wanted to look at it. that is a good feeling. it is one of the reasons we do what we do. let other people appreciate things the same way that we do. to the success of a visit this gallery -- it's not just when they are in the gallery a good time, it is when they leave and see their family friends and say, wow, you would not believe what i did today. i saw an inverted jenny, you can only see it there. i learned what stamps look like from the countries where my great grandparents come from. history and l about geography, so many things have always been in front of me all along, by never thought about before. >> for more information about the smithsonian national postal

gross and the william h. visit their y, website postalmuseum.si.edu. you can watch "american artifacts" anytime online. this is american history tv, on weekend, every weekend c-span3. >> join american history tv as ight on the civil war historian damian shiels talks about patrick clayborn and the battle of franklin. mr. clayborn came to the united states in 1850. that is tonight at 6 pm eastern here on c-span3.