About the Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History

The Spellman Museum is a non-profit educational institution located in its original 1961 home on the Regis College campus, featuring expansive galleries, philatelic library, museum store and an active United States Post Office annex. Known for its dynamic exhibits and programs that bring history, current affairs, pioneers, and exotic places to life through the medium of stamps, The Spellman is one of two philatelic museums in the United States, the other being the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum in Washington, DC.  The art, history, culture, and stories captured here on postage stamps engage constituents of all ages and backgrounds, fostering connections that are vital to an informed and enlightened populace.

In addition to vast collections of U.S. and international stamps, the Spellman is home to philatelic exhibits on a broad range of subjects including the 1773 Boston Tea Party, the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and breast cancer awareness. Local residents may also enjoy displays on postal history in and around Weston, including the Boston Post Road which runs through the town.

Founded in 1961 to House the Collection of Cardinal Francis Spellman

Cardinal Spellman traveled Europe extensively and loved to use stamps as souvenirs, having stamps signed to commemorate events in the church and in the world. Over his years spent in Europe, he shipped packages of stamps he collected to Sister Fidelma Conway, his Regis College colleague, in order to keep them safe. With the size of his collection larger than could easily be housed at Regis, ground was broken on the campus of Regis College in 1961 for the museum, which officially opened in 1963. Sister Fidelma Conway, CSJ, continued to act as caretaker for The Cardinal’s collection. In 1950, he wrote a sentiment by which the Museum continues to operate, “Stamps are miniature documents of human history. They are the means by which a country gives sensible expression to its hopes and needs; its beliefs and ideals.”