Here are a few exhibits and museums you might be less aware of, all good for showing friends and out-of-town visitors, and all open at least through the holidays.
The National Postal Museum sounds like a snoozer, suited only to dedicated philatelists (if you don’t know, you aren’t one), but it’s a fascinating look at the way the Postal Service helped establish the country in its early days, and the exhibit dedicated to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is a gas. Did you know they arrest nearly 8,000 people a year for crimes ranging from mail fraud, mail theft, drug trafficking, assaults on postal workers and robberies of post offices? Get out; you did not. For that matter, did you know that “a village at the bottom of the Grand Canyon eats most of its mail?” All right; you’re just lying now.
The museum is at 2 Massachusetts Ave. in Northeast; it’s a Smithsonian museum, so admission is free, and it’s open every day but Christmas from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
(Image courtesy of Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum; photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum)
(Eric Long, National Air and Spac/Eric Long)
The centennial of many of the events of World War I are still coming up, so the exhibit at the Library of Congress of American artists’ paintings, drawings photos and cartoons on the war as it happened carry particular historical weight. They range from ornate recruitment and war-bond posters to battle photos that still pack a punch. The exhibit is in the Graphic Arts Galleries of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St., Southeast. It’s open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; you can see the pictures online as well.
(Courtesy Library of Congress)
WASHINGTON — The District is loaded with art and history museums, with dozens of exhibits that you, friends and out-of-town visitors can wander through for hours. Here are a few you might be less aware of, all open at least through the holidays.
Rick Massimo came to WTOP, and to Washington, in 2013 after having lived in Providence, R.I., since he was a child. He's the author of "A Walking Tour of the Georgetown Set" and "I Got a Song: A History of the Newport Folk Festival."
