Routes to a Nation Gallery Tour

Where: Historic Lobby. How did a collection of scattered colonies become a nation? Join one of the National Postal Museum's curators for a gallery tour exploring the communication networks that connected Americans during the colonial period and early republic. / / Learn about Benjamin Franklin's nearly forty-year postal career; how American revolutionaries challenged the royal postal system and established their own; and how merchants used transatlantic correspondence to participate in global commerce. / / Based on the new NPM book, Routes to a Nation, recently published by Smithsonian Books, this interactive tour highlights objects that reveal how mail shaped commerce, government, culture, and national identity. / / This 45-minute guided tour includes time for questions and discussion.