Stories from an American Postcard

As a child I collected post cards. My parents traveled a lot and sent me pictures from where they visited. I saved them all. As I got older, I began to buy postcards as remembrances of my trips. Post cards continued to interest me as an adult, and in my current position, they help document the work of law enforcement. But I had forgotten the amazing stories a post card can hold—especially one without a picture!

In the NLEM collection is a run-of-the-mill postcard mailed by the Chief of Police in Sacramento to the Chief of Police in San Francisco in August 1880. The card, originally one of many such cards sent to Chiefs of Police (and most likely Sheriffs), described at length the items taken during a robbery. But with a little more research, the post card brought to life two important California citizens: the man who sent the card—Matthew Karcher—and the man who received it—Patrick Crowley.

Geo. Bates and Co. robbery postcard, 1880. 2006.79.1. Collection of the NLEM, Washington, DC.

Matthew Karcher was an American success story. Born in Baden, Germany, in 1832, he emigrated to the United States and eventually made his way to Sacramento. That same year, 1851, he opened a bakery which he ran for 14 years until it was destroyed by flood and fire. Having a family and no work, he was offered a position on the Sacramento police force and accepted it. Apparently he did well, running for and being elected Chief of Police for almost 10 years. He later served as a deputy sheriff.

Patrick Crowley, the San Francisco Chief to whom Karcher sent the card, is an even larger figure in western law enforcement history. In a 1929 article on her father, Kate Hays Crowley stated, “the story of my father’s life as chief of police of San Francisco is the story of the organization of the department and its development into an efficient unit of protection of the life and property of a great city.” Crowley was elected Chief in 1866 and served until 1897; his tenure as Chief saw many changes in the city. His daughter wrote, “He was chief of less than a hundred men in a community where interested citizens believed it their duty to get out and take an active, and often violent part in righting the wrongs or wronging the rights of their time.”

Little did the Museum staff know when we acquired the post card that it would shed light on two important settlers, as well as important California peace officers. Karcher, the immigrant who realized the American dream , and Crowley, an individual who experience the dramatic growth of an American city—captured on a small postcard.

Object Lesson: Tractors as Life

How is museum learning different from learning in other settings? There are many answers to that question, but one important answer is that museum learning focuses on objects, not just ideas. It’s a unique approach, and it happens more often in daily life than you might think.

Here’s a case in point. A couple of months ago, I saw an antique tractor pull at the Montgomery County (MD) Fair. As I watched the tractors chug across the arena, I wondered whether any of them resembled the tractor my Great-aunt Leslie accidentally backed into the side of a barn when she was learning how to drive more than 60 years ago. She and my Grandpa (her brother, who repaired the damage) still laugh over the incident.

Back home, I called Grandpa to ask what kind of tractor his family owned on the Ewing farm. He told me it was a 1943 Farmall Model H, and then launched into a conversation about tractor manufacturers. My Grandma, who doesn’t like to talk about her childhood on the farm, volunteered that the early John Deere tractors were called “put-puts,” because of the sound the two-cylinder engines made.

Later, my parents and I talked about tractors. Dad remembered working with Grandma’s father, driving the tractor when he was 12 or 13 years old. I learned more about the serious accident that injured Great-grandpa just a few years later and about how a farm family without insurance or workers’ compensation survived.

A few weeks later, Grandpa attended an antique tractor show and snapped a photo of a tractor just like the one he’d used growing up. “I drove it thousands of hours!” he related in the caption.

And I learned all of this because of a tractor.

You may have had a similar conversation over a box of items saved from high school or with a child about the toys they loved as a baby. One object can spark conversations about many topics, and you talk about them because the object has meaning for you. As a museum educator, I’m committed to creating ways to allow visitors to talk about the Museum’s objects, not because they’re in the collection, but because they mean something to our visitors.

October Artifact Detective: Wild Bill Hickok Items

Please help us uncover some of the stories behind our objects. Leave a comment with anything you may know about the featured item. We welcome all information, and we’d appreciate sources and citations when possible. Thanks!

Collection of the NLEM, 2006.493.12c and a

What we know:
The badge pictures Wild Bill Hickok (Guy Madison) and Jingles (Andy Devine)
Both items relate to the television and radio show, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, which ran from 1951-1958.

What we want to know:
Was this sold as a cereal item?
Who made this?
What year is it from?
Are there any others like this out there?

Did you have one of these, or an item like it? What are your memories?

We are also looking for information and items related to portrayals of law enforcement in movies, television and radio. So, if you have an object or have any information, leave me a comment!

Perspectives from the Donor of the William Benson Collection

This post was written by a friend of the Museum, Officer Eric Stolzman, (Retired #490), Yale Department of Police Services.  Officer Stolzman served in New Haven, Conn. and donated his collection to the Museum in 2006.

Collecting has always been a passion of mine, instilled in me by my father when I was only nine or 10 years old. After he passed when I was 15, I felt the full influence of my father having belonged to the “Greatest Generation,” a generation defined by beliefs in honor, duty, and patriotism. Stories about my father and other contemporary family members abounded. I had one uncle in particular who served in the submarine service during World War II. Later, he worked for the CIA and shared his stories about traveling through Europe during the Cold War. I also vividly recall the individuals from national and international police agencies that were often at his home. My uncle was a collector of police memorabilia, and I would eventually strive to follow in his professional and collecting endeavors.

Photograph, Benson and his two daughters, Collection of the NLEM 2006.488.139

One of the most important groups of items I have ever collected reflects my desire to honor the memory of past officers, as well as explore the social mores of the past and how the lives and experiences of officers from several generations ago are still relevant to today’s officer. I discovered an officer named William Benson who started his career in 1888 with the Brooklyn Police Department in New York, which eventually merged with other boroughs to become the New York Police Department (NYPD).

Through contact with his family, I was able to obtain his Brooklyn uniformed photograph, appointment certificate, valor medals from two separate occasions, numerous NYPD police items , and a number of personal items, including his death certificate and a letter written about him by one of his daughters. With further investigation, I learned things about this man that even his relatives knew nothing about. You can imagine my pride as I shared this additional information with his family generations later. Benson retired in 1912 and died in 1935, but the memory of his service lives on because of the Museum’s vision to create a venue for displaying the history of men like him.

When I learned about plans to erect a museum representing the history of law enforcement, I contacted the National Law Enforcement Museum. Being informed that some 300,000 to 400,000 visitors per year are expected to visit the museum, I am honored by the inclusion of my collection and its contribution to our profession. The lives of officers, like Officer William Benson, can live on and teach others what I believe are the principles of our nation’s finest.

September Artifact Detective: "We Chirp for the Cleveland Press" Button

By Jeni Ashton, Associate Curator


The National Law Enforcement Museum has collected more than 8,000 artifacts to-date, so we can’t always devote as much time to researching individual objects as we would like. Please help us uncover some of the stories behind our objects. Leave a comment with anything you may know about the featured item. We welcome all information, and we’d appreciate sources and citations when possible. Thanks!

Button, c 1896,Collection of the NLEM 2008.34.1
What we know:
Produced circa 1896
“We Chirp for the Cleveland Press”
Made by The Whitehead & Hoag Company, Newark, NJ
Patented April 14 & July 21, 1896
Cleveland Press was an afternoon newspaper published in Cleveland, OH, from 1878-1982
We checked in with the Cleveland Press Collection at the Cleveland State University. They felt sure that this had something to do with the Cleveland Press but could not find a reference to any promotion like this button. The Special Collections Librarian there suggested that “maybe it was for some sort of early community watch? Or for kids as part of a news reporting feature from the juvenile crowd? The button has SOMETHING to do with reporting news to the Cleveland Press.”
According to the Cleveland Press Collection’s Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant by Charles Godfrey Leland (Ballantyne Press, 1889), the word “chirp” means “to inform or snitch.”
What we want to know:
Why were these buttons produced?
Who wore them?
What is the cause that the officer is chirping for?
Do any other pins like these exist?
We are also looking for information about the use of law enforcement images in the American media or law enforcement involvement with American newspapers. Please leave a comment if you have anything to share.

An Educator’s First Visit to the NLEM’s Collections Facility

By Dean MacLeod, Community Education Specialist

Have you ever been invited into the inner sanctum of a special place where you once might have suspected you’d have no business going? In early June, I made my first visit to the NLEM collections facility, just 30 minutes from our offices in downtown DC. There, I saw numerous artifacts that made me proud to be helping to build the NLEM: all manner of handcuffs, prisoner-made shivs and shanks (weapons) once seized as contraband, decades-old mug shots, Al Capone’s bullet-proof vest, and the box that holds Peter Weller’s Robocop 2 suit!

Okay, okay, I know you’re thinking, “It was just the box!”—but as an educator who doesn’t often see this side of museum practice, it was still pretty neat. It’s great to know that the Museum will be a place where we can tell the stories behind the material culture of our law enforcement officers, and in turn, demonstrate the important role they play to uphold the Constitution and shape our society.

Thoughts on the Memorial Collection

By Vanya Scott, Registrar/Collections Manager

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial is a powerful public commemoration of the fallen from those who make up the Thin Blue Line that protects American civil society. The message of the Memorial, acknowledging the honor and sacrifice of fallen law enforcement officers, resonates most powerfully in the individual stories that objects, photographs, and written messages reflect.

Dear Uncle Mark, I miss you. I fondly remember that fall when we picked the giant pumpkins in your garden. Todd can ride a 2-wheeler now. I love you. Love, Emily (1996)

Police Week 2009 was the first National Police Week I was privileged to attend. I found the profusion of objects of all types, including stuffed animals, patches, t-shirts, photographs, pins, plaques, flowers, candles, coins, figurines—the variety seemed endless—to be quite evocative and powerfully emotional. The National Law Enforcement Museum preserves objects from the Memorial wall that are left during National Police Week remembrance activities each year, carefully storing them in a secure and climate-controlled facility for future study. Police Week memorial collection objects have been saved since the 1990s, and after my experience at Police Week 2009, objects collected in earlier years suddenly hold new meaning for me. Each object bears witness to the mourner’s loss and has its own unique message, a message of private mourning placed in public context.

Jeff – It angers me that you died possibly thinking that no one was coming to help you. It angers me that you bled to death…the system failed you. It angers me that I have learned so much about you, through your wife, after your death…We never formally met, but I am your friend. We will do, and I will speak for all L.E.O.’s, anything and everything to see to it that the “Jeffrey Tackett Bill” will pass. You’re missed by many, many people. (1996)

As I moved through the Memorial during my weekly duties, I had a chance to meet many Police Week visitors. Several had attended the Memorial event year after year, and used this time to renew bonds with friends and colleagues. For others, Police Week 2009 was the first they had attended, and they were, without fail, greatly moved by the fellowship and goodwill they found here. What was interesting to me as a museum professional was how they all used this time at the Memorial to revisit and renew their bonds with the friend or loved one they had lost. Though not all chose to express this by leaving tribute objects or written messages, many, if not most, folks did. Sometimes the meaning of an object was a bit obscure, known mainly to the family or friends who placed it there. Other objects had messages that were quite clear in their commemorative intent. All, though, were unmistakable in their need to maintain the thread of affection with the one they lost.

Jimmy – You are my son, my friend. I will love and miss you forever. Mom (2007)

The objects collected from 2009 Police Week will join the objects collected from previous years’ commemorations. The Museum approaches the collection of tribute objects from the Memorial in a thoughtful, respectful way. Objects are preserved to make sure they remain intact and accessible for future generations to study and contemplate. The Memorial exists to honor the fallen heroes of law enforcement, and an important part of what the Museum does is to preserve the legacy that exists in tangible form.