The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia - Smithsonian ...

4 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o h i s t o ry a n d t e c h n o l o g yeach object collected and, often through exhibiting andwriting, relates objects to each other, all celebrated becausethey exist and because I have collected them forsome reason.As a historian, however, I place objects, details, andfacts into a larger framework, asking how each relates tothe historical process. In other words, I put the researchin context and interpret it. 1 I must answer what historianscall the “So what?” question, and I must develop a thesisthat presents a fresh perspective. Further, as a curator, Imust seek strong stories that touch visitors’ lives and makethe onsite and online experience engaging and rewarding.By reading the current literature in both fields—collecting and history—I am able to apply ideas fromother philatelists, paper collectors, and historians to myown work, even if their topics do not relate specificallyto my own focus, that being zeppelins, aerophilately, andthe juxtaposition of art and industry during the Great Depression.For example, in his book The Postal Age, DavidHenkin examines mail users rather than the state postalsystem or the envelopes themselves. 2 As a result, he makesnew discoveries about how mail changed lives and howlifestyles changed mail handling in the nineteenth century.Henkin inspired me to examine the mail in my collectionthat the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin had flown from Germanyto Brazil to the United States and back to Germanyon the 1933 Chicago flight. 3 I was stunned to discover thatforty of sixty covers in my United States dispatches hadnames of Germanic origin for either the American senderor American addressee. Of course, German language immigrantscomprised the largest ethnic group in Chicago,almost thirteen percent of the city’s population in 1930.Even Ernst J. Kruetgen, the city’s postmaster, was of Germanheritage. So while other collectors also serviced mail,the Graf Zeppelin’s visit was a source of especial pride forthe German American community. This evidence provedsignificant when I studied the German American community’sreaction to the zeppelin visit. 4Case Study: Fifty-Cent Graf ZeppelinA Century of Progress StampGermans had been celebrating the progress of zeppelinssince Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin flew his first design,the LZ1, on July 2, 1900. The zeppelin had becomea symbol not only of German nationalism, but also ofthe nation’s economic resurgence. Zeppelin fever, reflectingthe pride and awe of the Germans for these masterpiecesof airship technology, ran rampant. German airshiptechnology first linked to nationalism in 1908 when aspontaneous public outpouring of funds followed the destructionof Zeppelin’s fourth dirigible, the LZ4. AfterWorld War I, the Zeppelin Company and many aviationsupporters promoted airships as the vehicles of the futurefor long distance travel and transport, connecting the airshiproutes to local airline routes. Air-minded Americansalso caught zeppelin fever, a contagious enthusiasm sweepingthe country as airships floated overhead. 5Approaching Chicago at daybreak on October 26,1933, Commander Hugo Eckener ordered the Graf Zeppelin,a 775-foot long German airship, to fly west beyondthe city and then to circle clockwise, although a northerlyroute from Indiana with an approach to Chicago from theeast over Lake Michigan would have been more expeditious.After circling above the city for about an hour, theGraf Zeppelin flew north to suburban Glenview for a briefexchange of passengers and mail.Adolph Hitler, leader of the National Socialist party,had become Chancellor of Germany earlier that year. TheGerman government had required the Zeppelin Companyto paint the National Socialists’ swastika banner, whichwas one of the two official German flags, on the portside of the upper and lower tail fins (Figure 1). 6 Ratherthan display the two red billboards featuring twenty-footswastikas, Eckener preferred to show Chicagoans thestarboard side of the craft, which featured the traditionaltri-color German flag. 7Willy von Meister, the United States special representativeof Luftschiffbau Zeppelin G.m.b.H., the ZeppelinCompany, was in the control car with Eckener duringthe approach to Chicago. He asked why Eckener had nottaken the shorter circle. “And let my friends in Chicagosee the swastikas?” asked Eckener, who had a doctorate inpsychology and was sensitive to the German community’sreaction.As a result of the arrival time, the choice of the flightpath, and the press’s selections of which photographs topublish to represent this flight, the local population sawmore images of the Graf Zeppelin with the swastika thanwithout it. In flying a route that brought the airship overLake Michigan, parallel to and east of Chicago at daybreak,the Graf Zeppelin became a silhouette against thesunrise. Photographers either could take photographs ofthe shadow side of the airship over the lake or, as it madeits circle over the fairgrounds and central business district,the sunlit side with the photogenic elements of the city inthe background. In order to photograph the Graf Zeppelinwith the fairgrounds in the same image, one newspaperphotographer shot his images from an airplane. He was