03/29/2012 (P1698)
Contact: Tara Murray

Call for Papers - Seventh Annual Postal History Symposium

November 2–4, 2012
American Philatelic Center • Bellefonte, Pennsylvania
Theme of the Symposium: "Blue & Gray: Mail and the Civil War"

Call for Papers Deadline • June 1, 2012

The Seventh Annual Postal History Symposium (www.stamps.org/Postal-History-Symposium) will be held in conjunction with a philatelic exhibition hosted by the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society (USPCS). The USPCS is a non-profit, volunteer-run association of collectors that promotes study of the stamps and postal history of the United States until 1894.

Panels will be interspersed with opportunities to view award-winning exhibitions of stamps and postal history and use the collection of the American Philatelic Research Library. There will be a reception and a keynote address on one evening.

Located 15 miles from State College, Pennsylvania, the American Philatelic Center is home to the 35,000-member American Philatelic Society, the largest stamp collecting organization in the nation, and the American Philatelic Research Library (APRL), dedicated to supporting and advancing postal and philatelic scholarship.

Papers

The symposium seeks papers that will address any aspect of the mail and post office related to the Civil War. The topic is not limited to just soldier’s mail or to the years of armed conflict. Papers may consider the political, economic, social, or cultural, as well as military aspects of the mail. Possible themes range from the role of the mail in the debate over slavery beginning with the 1835 burning of abolitionist mail in the Charleston, South Carolina Post Office through the reestablishment of postal service in the South during reconstruction. Papers on the mail and post office during this conflict are welcome from Union, Confederate, Border States, the west, and even foreign viewpoints. Proposals for symposium papers may be submitted either as individual papers or in panels.

Proceedings of the Symposium will be considered for publication by the Smithsonian Institution Press. Proposals Proposals should be no more than one page and be accompanied by a one-page curriculum vita with contact information (e-mail, phone, and address).

• Please e-mail complete proposals to [email protected].

• Notification of accepted papers will be issued in mid-July.

• Conference papers will be posted on the American Philatelic Society website and will be considered for possible publication.

• Conference co-chairs: Thomas Lera, Tara Murray, and David L. Straight.

Sponsored by
American Philatelic Society • American Philatelic Research Library
Smithsonian National Postal Museum

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