The conference focuses on polar philately and the Wilkes Expedition to Antarctica
The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum will host the 19th Maynard Sundman Lecture on Tuesday, November 1 at 4 p.m. ET online on Zoom. Admission is free, but reservations are required. The talk, “Polar Philately and the Wilkes Antarctic Expedition,” will be presented by Hal Vogel, retired Army Special Operations and Intelligence Officer and Professor Emeritus at Rowan University in New Jersey.
In 1838 the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) began its examination of Antarctica in what was to become the most memorable legacy of this worldwide adventure, leading many to remembered as “Wilkes’ Antarctic Expedition”. The expedition created what organized philately, including one of its specialties, polar philately, calls “archive mail,” or regular mail that serves as written evidence of the aspects and personalities of a historic event. Unfortunately, although discoveries of this type of mail from polar expeditions still occur, the (archive) mail is still unknown from a number of early expeditions. Mail from the Wilkes Antarctica expedition did not begin to surface until the 1980s.
Using the postal history of this expedition as an example, Vogel’s lecture will introduce the field of polar philately – its geographic scope, categories and time periods – and examine how the intriguing mail of this exciting polar expedition helps document its events. highly historical.
Vogel is a leading polar philatelist and the recipient of this year’s American Philatelic Society Luff Award for Distinguished Philatelic Research.
He began collecting polar materials and studying polar history in the 1950s, when he began to communicate with some of the last polar explorers from before World War II. He continued this work while later pursuing his doctorate in polar studies at the Department of History and Geography at Antioch University.
While graduating, he began writing a research column for Ice Cap News, the publication of the American Society of Polar Philatelists (ASPP), and has written a column for every issue since 1974. Including articles by column, he has published more than 300 articles on polar history, aerophilately, military postal history and polar philatelics in philatelic journals in the United States, Norway, Great Britain, Germany, France , Australia and New Zealand.
His most notable publications are the books The essence of polar philatelyedited by Alan Warren and published by ASPP in 2008, and Leading the Pack: Sample Postal History of Heroic Age Polar Expeditions, written with Serge Kahn and published in 2015 by the Museum of Stamps and Coins of Monaco. The latter won the prize of the Academy of European Philately for the best philatelic work published in Europe the same year. Vogel and Kahn are currently working on the second edition.
Vogel is a past president of the ASPP and a member of numerous national and international philatelic organizations. He has held elected and appointed positions with several of them, including serving on the boards of the Universal Ship Cancellation Society, the Military Postal History Society, and the Alaska Collectors Club.
A nationally accredited philatelic and literary judge since 1978, his own polar, military and aerophilatelic exhibits have won numerous awards, including the first grand prize ever awarded to a polar exhibit in a major competition. During the last exhibition season, four of its exhibits received grand gold medals, three grand prizes and other specialized prizes in at least six different exhibitions.
The National Postal Museum’s Maynard Sundman Lecture Series was established in 2002 with a gift from Sundman’s sons, David and Donald. Sundman Lectures feature talks from expert stamp and philatelic authors and philatelists.
The public can visit the museum’s website for additional information and registration instructions.
About the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum is dedicated to showcasing the colorful and engaging history of the national postal service and displaying one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of stamps and philatelic material in the world. It is located at 2 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington, DC, across from Union Station. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed December 25). For more information about the Smithsonian, call (202) 633-1000 or visit the museum’s website at www.postalmuseum.si.edu.