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

n u m b e r 5 5 • 4 5Examining cause and effect can inspire collectors andresearchers to ask new questions and, as a result, can offernew insights. As for me, thinking outside the traditionalphilatelic and collector box has allowed me to understandnot only how the United States government and post officehelped subsidize this 1933 flight but also the role ofthe Graf Zeppelin and the fifty-cent stamp as symbols ofprogress and goodwill during tough political times andeconomic strife.Notes1. For an understanding of ways to study a subject internally,externally, or in context, see John M. Staudenmaier,Technology’s Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (Cambridge:Society for the History of Technology and MIT Press,1985).2. David M. Henkin, The Postal Age: The Emergence ofModern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2007).3. This special triangular flight to Chicago was an extensionof the ninth and final 1933 transatlantic crossing of the GrafZeppelin. After flying from Germany to Brazil, the Graf Zeppelinmade stops in Miami, Akron, Chicago, and Akron beforereturning to Friedrichshafen, Germany by way of Seville, Spain.Although the Graf Zeppelin was the 127th design of the ZeppelinCompany, it was their 117th airship constructed.4. For an expanded study of this story, see: Cheryl R. Ganz,The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair: A Century of Progress (Champaign,Ill: University of Illinois Press, 2008).5. Peter Fritsche, A Nation of Fliers: German Aviation andthe Popular Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1992); Henry Cord Meyer, Airshipmen, Businessmen and Politics,1890–1940 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,1991); and Guillaume de Syon, Zeppelin! Germany and the Airship,1900–1939 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,2002). For “airmindedness” see Joseph J. Corn, The WingedGospel: America’s Romance with Aviation (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1983, 2001), 12.6. “Hoheitszeichen der Luftschiffe,” Reichsgesetzblatt 77(8July 1933):457, Graf Zeppelin files, Dieter Leder collection,Meersburg, Germany.7. Chicago Tribune, 26 Oct. 1933, 4; and LZA 016/385-6Fahrtberichte LZ127 [logbook], 1933, Archiv der LuftschiffbauZeppelin G.m.b.H., Friedrichshafen. Wilhelm von Meister, interviewwith author, Peapack, N. J., July 1976. Chicago DailyNews, 26 Oct. 1933, 4–5; and “Mid-Week Pictorial,” New YorkTimes, 4 November 1933, 7.8. Chicago Daily News, 26 Oct. 1933, 4–5; and “Mid-WeekPictorial,” New York Times, 4 November 1933, 7.9. Meister interview.10. Memorandum of conversation between Secretary Hulland the German Chargé, Herr Rudolf Leitner, 14 September1933. Acting Postmaster General to Cordell Hull, 18 September1933, National Archives, College Park, Maryland.11. The artists at the Bureau of Engraving and Printingused a 1929 photograph of the Graf Zeppelin from its landingat Mines Field in Los Angeles on the World Flight. At that timethe zeppelin carried no government flag on its fins. Stamp DesignFile, National Postal Museum Library, Smithsonian InstitutionLibraries, Washington D. C.; Graf Zeppelin postage stamp files,Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D. C.12. Chicago Daily News, 26 Oct. 1933, 1. On 26 March 1931the Reichspost and Luftschiffbau Zeppelin agreed to the ZeppelinCompany’s share of the postal revenue: 5/6 of the total fees paidfor mail carried by the airship. John Duggan, “Income from Carryingthe Zeppelin Mail,” Zeppelin 12(February 1997):12. For arrangementsof the United States fees for this flight, see E. R. Whiteto F. W. von Meister, Stamp Design File, National Postal MuseumLibrary, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington, D. C.13. For further information on Graf Zeppelin postal flights,see John Duggan and Jim Graue, Commercial Zeppelin Flights toSouth America (Valleyford, Wash.: J. L. Diversified, 1995); MichelZeppelin Specialized Catalogue (Germany: 2003); and Sieger ZeppelinpostSpezial-Katalog, 22nd edition (Germany: 2001).14. James Farley, Postmaster General, to Cordell Hull, Secretaryof State, 23 October 1933, National Archives, CollegePark, Maryland.15. For further information about the security issues, seeHugo Eckener, Im Zeppelin Über Länder und Meere: Erlebnisseund Erinnerungen (Flensburg, Germany: Verlagshaus ChristianWolff, 1949); Ganz, The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair; and J. GordonVaeth, Graf Zeppelin: The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 161–162.16. Invitation and Zeppelin Tag Fest Programm, Cheryl R.Ganz collection, Chicago, Ill.: (Chicago) Sentinel, 9 November1933, 13.17. Theodore Light, interview with author, tape recording,Morton Grove, Ill., 25 October 1993.18. The swastika clearly inspired racial pride and patrioticobedience in Nazi followers, but it antagonized or embarrassedmany German Americans, who, in 1933, formed one of the largestethnic groups in Chicago. For further information on the GermanAmerican reaction to the Graf Zeppelin visit to Chicago, seeGanz, The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. For more informationon German Americans, see John A. Hawgood, The Tragedy ofGerman-America: The Germans in the United States of Americaduring the Nineteenth Century – and After (New York: G. P. Putnam’sSons, 1940); Melvin G. Holli, “German American Ethnicand Cultural Identity from 1890 Onward,” in Ethnic Chicago: AMulticultural Portrait, ed. Melvin G. Holli and Peter d’A. Jones(Grand Rapids , Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995);and Leslie V. Tischauser, The Burden of Ethnicity: The GermanQuestion in Chicago, 1914–1941 (New York: Garland, 1990).