Lynn Heidelbaugh

Lynn Heidelbaugh is a curator specializing in the history of postal service in the U.S. Her research and collections acquisitions areas include postal operations, letters and letter writing culture, military mail, postal inspection service, and women in postal history.

Heidelbaugh has served as lead curator for several long-term and temporary exhibitions including Investigating Frauds in Baseball Memorabilia (2022); My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I (2017), for which she received a Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize; Behind the Badge: The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (2014); Mail Call: History of U.S. Military Mail (2011). She has co-curated projects In Her Words: Women’s Duty and Service in World War I (2018) and the virtual exhibition Tragedy at Tunnel 13 (2023).

In 2024, her co-edited volume Between Home and the Front: Civil War Letters of the Walters Family (Indiana University Press) received a Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize. Her publications include essays, such as: “Extra-ordinary Americans: Oral History, Workwear, and the US Postal Service” (co-authored) in Fashion in American Life (2024); “Solving Mail Mysteries: Clerks of the Dead Letter Office” in Smithsonian American Women: Remarkable Objects and Stories of Strength, Ingenuity, and Vision from the National Collection (2019); and, “Military Mail” in Every Stamp Tells a Story: The National Philatelic Collection (2014); “Letters Home” in Smithsonian Civil War: Inside the National Collection (2013). Her posts on the museum’s website featuring the collection range from “Women’s History in Postal Records” (blog, July 28, 2023) and “Researching Objects for New Acquisitions” (blog, May 28, 2021) to Object Spotlight articles such as: “Absentee Voting in the Civil War: Ohio Cover”; “Collect on Delivery Tag”; “Dead Letter Album”; “Farmers’ Bulletin Weather Reports”, “Laundry Box”; “Little America (Antarctica) Post Office Safe”; “Mr. Zap Puppet”; “Postal Savings CD”; and “V-Mail Letter Sheets”.

Favorite museum object: Letter carrier's door knocker (for its form and function)

Current research: curatorial department project to analyze the museum’s Early America objects; a collaborative oral history project on postal workwear