Founded in 2023, the National Postal Museum (NPM) Archives collects materials that strengthen and support the Museum's goal to be a global leader and advocate for the research, study, and exhibition of postal operations history, philately, and the mail. To this end the Archives appraises, acquires, describes, preserves, and makes accessible archival collections that document postal operations history, philately, the mail, and their roles in the United States and internationally.
Finding aids to Archives collections and digitized materials are available online through the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA) and the Smithsonian Collections Search Center (CSC). New finding aids and digitized content are added as they become available.
The Archives’ collections aim to represent the diversity of the lived American experience and will strive to encompass a wide spectrum of creators, collectors, subject matter, geography, time periods and media. Subject areas that the NPM and the Archives will collect include business history; civic groups and organizations history (i.e. nonprofit mailers, educational mailers, informal communities created/sustained through mail use); communications history; consumer history; diplomatic history; industries associated with the Post Office Department/United States Postal Service; labor history; letters and letter writing culture; military history; philately and the papers of philatelists; political history; popular culture history; Post Office Department/United States Postal Service operations history; stamp art, design, and production; technology history; tourism history; and transportation history.
As a newly established Archives, collections acquisitions, cataloging, digitization, and research activities are currently in their beginning stages.
Onsite Access
The NPM Archives is located within the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. Collections may be accessed by the general public, researchers, historians, philatelists, educators, students, and for the purposes of scholarly research, staff, exhibitions, film productions, school programs and projects, and other related research and educational activities.
The Archives is open to researchers by appointment only, Monday-Friday, 10:00 am to 4:00pm. Appointments must be scheduled a minimum of five business days in advance. To schedule an in-person research appointment at the NPM Archives, email NPM_Archives@si.edu.
To submit a reference inquiry to the NPM Archives, email NPM_Archives@si.edu.
