Hi there! My name is Heather, I’m the intern at Dunedin Historical Museum, and I’m taking over this blog! Let me tell you a little bit about myself and what I’ll be doing here… I studied Art History and Graphic Design at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, then I went on to study Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. While at Pitt, I worked for a year at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where I preserved collections materials and modernized their accession numbers. After that, I moved down to sunny Florida and after a lot of searching, I landed in beautiful Dunedin. Now, I’m working on my Master’s degree in Public History and interning at the museum, where I do a little bit of everything, never stop learning, and love what I do!
On the blog, I’ll look at objects in our collection and tell you a little bit about them so that you can learn what we do at the museum, from research to preservation and collections management to exhibit design to planning events and involving the community.
We finished working on our “100 Years of Banking in Dunedin” exhibit not too long ago, and I worked on that quite a bit, so let me start there. The first bank in Dunedin, Bank of Dunedin, opened in 1913. In 2013, members of the community opened a time capsule that was sealed in the bank in the 1963. So, it was basically an event that celebrated the 100-year history and the 50-year time capsule rolled into one. We created the exhibit to showcase the bank’s history and display the materials that came out of the time capsule to help tell its story.
At right: Original building which housed Bank of Dunedin as it looked in 1913
Part of our “Banking” exhibit. In this corner, we have the items that were removed from the time capsule in 2013
Items that came out of the time capsule in 2013
One of my favorite items on display in the exhibit is a stamp collection that came out of the time capsule. On the back of each set of stamps the following is written: “A.H. Grant, Executive Vice President, Bank of Dunedin, February 22, 1949.” Most of the stamps, themselves, don’t have dates on them, but they have denominations from $0.01 to $1.00. Only one stamp is dated and that one was printed in celebration of the Florida Centennial (1845-1945). Portraits of the U.S. presidents and other prominent historical figures appear on the stamps.
Stamp collection hanging in the “Banking” exhibit
From here, we need to learn more. Part of working at a museum is discovering what information an object holds beyond its face value. Luckily, there are a lot of great tools to help (especially online!). Through a simple Google search, I was able to find that the first five rows of stamps are all part of the 1938 Presidential Series. The monetary denomination mirrors the order of the presidents, as well. For example, George Washington appears on the $0.01 stamp, John Adams on the $0.02, etc. The Presidential Issue, as this collection came to be called (known as the “Prexies” by collectors), was thought up by President Roosevelt in 1933 with intention to honor all of the deceased past presidents. A competition was held to determine the design of the stamps and was won by Elaine Rawlinson of New York. When the collection was printed in 1938, it was the largest definitive series yet issued by the U. S. Post Office, having a total of 32 stamps.
1938 Presidential Issue stamps
The remaining three stamps in the bottom row are not a part of the 1938 series, though further research yielded more information. The “Everglades National Park” stamp on the left was part of the 1947 Commemorative Series. The middle “Moina Michael” stamp was part of 1948 Commemorative Series. Finally, the “Florida Centennial” stamp on the right was part of the 1945 Commemorative Series.
1938 Presidential Issue stamps, along with 1947, 1948, and 1945 Commemorative Issue stamps
Looking at objects and digging through history are two amazing things I get to do at the museum. In the next post, I’ll be discussing what I’ve been working on to prepare for our next, WWII-themed exhibit that opens at the end of May, and I will pull an object from our collection to show and discuss, as well.
Thanks for reading and please respond with any questions or suggestions you may have… and, of course, stop in and see us!
Dunedin Historical Museum 