Postage stamps and postal history of the United States of America
Encyclopedia
This is a general historical outline of postage stamps and postal history
of the United States of America. The page rarely covers the subjects or topical aspects of individual Postage stamps issues at any length, and only when it is relevant to the issuance of the postage, as some events are solely responsible for the stamp being issued, as is the case with the first Lincoln stamp of 1866, issued on the anniversary of Lincoln's death one year later. This was not a regular issue. The issue was prompted by an event (subject) and only to that extent will the stamp's subject be addressed here.
The question of stamp subjects is, however, discussed in general terms: in particular, the evolving notions over the years of what images are appropriate on a stamp—and under what circumstances. Some attention is thus given to the historical evolution of commemorative stamps, introduced in 1893: at first appearing only infrequently and only in multi-stamp series honoring international expositions, but eventually produced in a continual stream of individual issues. Occasional notice is also taken of the manner in which commemorative and definitive stamps reflected aesthetic, cultural and ideological currents in the United States, particularly during the Roosevelt presidencies and the Cold War.
Chronicled here as well is the periodic introduction of new categories of postage stamps: issued either to allow stamps to be used in a new way (the encased postage stamps of 1862) or, more often, to cover new classes of mail or new methods of delivery. Finally, when necessary, the article touches upon in the evolution of stamp production as a physical process, and the history of Government involvement in it.
; today, the United States Postal Service
is a large government organization providing a wide range of services across the U.S. and its territories abroad.
In the American colonies
, informal independently-run postal routes began in Boston as early as 1639, with Boston to New York City
service starting in 1672.
Officially-sanctioned mail service began in 1692 when King William III
granted to an English nobleman a delivery "patent" that included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. (Years later, taxation implemented through the mandatory purchase of stamps was an issue that helped to spark the American Revolution.) The tax was repealed a year later, and very few were ever actually used in the thirteen colonies, but they saw service in Canada and the British Caribbean islands.
In the years leading up to the American Revolution
mail routes among the colonies existed along the few roads between Boston, New York and Philadelphia. In the middle 18th century individuals like Benjamin Franklin
and William Goddard
were the colonial postmasters who managed the mails then and were the general architects of a postal system that started out as an alternative to the Crown Post (the colonial mail system then) which was now becoming more distrusted as the American Revolution drew near. The postal system that Franklin and Goddard forged out of the American Revolution became the standard for the new U.S. Post Office and is a system whose basic designs are still used in the United States Post Office today.
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Before the introduction of stamps, it was the recipient of mail—not the sender—who generally paid the cost of postage, giving the fee directly to the postman on delivery. The task of collecting money for letter after letter greatly slowed the postman on his route. Moreover the addressee would not infrequently refuse a piece of mail, which then had to be taken back to the Post Office (post office budgets always allowed for an appreciable volume of unpaid-for mail). Only occasionally did a sender pay delivery costs in advance, an arrangement that usually required a personal visit to the Post Office. To be sure, postmasters allowed some citizens to run charge accounts for their delivered and prepaid mail, but bookeeping on these constituted another inefficiency.
Postage stamps revolutionized this process, leading to universal prepayment; but a precondition for their issue by a nation was the establishment of standardized rates for delivery throughout the country. If postal fees were to remain (as they were in many lands) a patchwork of many different jurisdictional rates, the use of stamps would produce only limited gains in efficiency, for postal clerks would still have to spend time calculating the rates on many letters: only then would senders know how much postage to put on them.
s in the UK
in May 1840 was received with great interest in the United States
(and around the world). Later that year, Daniel Webster rose in the U. S. Senate to recommend that the recent English postal reforms—standardized rates and the use of postage stamps—be adopted in America.
It would be private enterprise, however, that brought stamps to the U. S. On February 1, 1842 a new carrier service called "City Despatch Post" began operations in New York City, introducing the first adhesive postage stamp ever produced in the western hemisphere, which it required its clients to use for all mail. This stamp was a 3¢ issue bearing a rather amateurish drawing of George Washington http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/collection/3f1_1_collectionplan.html, printed from line engraved plates in sheets of 42 images. The company had been founded by Henry Thomas Windsor
, a London merchant who at the time was living in Hoboken, New Jersey. Alexander M. Greig was advertised as the post's "agent," and as a result, historians and philatelists have tended to refer to the firm simply as "Greig's City Despatch Post," making no mention of Windsor. In another innovation, the company placed mail-collection boxes around the city for the convenience of its customers.
A few months after its founding, the City Despatch Post was sold to the U.S. Government, which renamed it the "United States City Despatch Post." The government began operation of this local post on August 16, 1842, under an Act of Congress of some years earlier that authorized local delivery. Greig, retained by the Post Office to run the service, kept the firm's original Washington stamp in use, but soon had its lettering altered to reflect the name change. In its revised form, this issue accordingly became the first postage stamp produced under the auspices of a government in the western hemisphere.
An Act of Congress of March 3, 1845 (effective July 1, 1845), established uniform (and mostly reduced) postal rates throughout the nation, with a uniform rate of five cents for distances under 300 miles (500 km). However, Congress did not authorize the production of stamps for nationwide use until 1847; still, postmaster
s realized that standard rates now made it feasible to produce and sell "provisional" issues for prepayment of uniform postal fees, and printed these in bulk. Such provisionals included both prepaid envelopes and stamps, mostly of crude design, the New York Postmaster's Provisional being the only one of quality comparable to later stamps.
The provisional issues of Baltimore were notable for the reproduced signature of the city's postmaster—James Buchanan
. All provisional issues are rare, and several command prices above US$100,000. These cities issued provisional stamps in 1845 and 1846:
The 1845 Congressional act did, in fact, raise the rate on one significant class of mail: the so-called “drop letter”—i. e., a letter delivered from the same post office that collected it. Previously one cent, the drop letter rate became two cents.
immediately let a contract to the New York City engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The first stamp issue of the U.S. was offered for sale on July 1, 1847, in New York City, with Boston
receiving stamps the following day and other cities thereafter. They consisted of an engraved
5-cent red brown stamp depicting Benjamin Franklin
(the first postmaster of the US), and a 10-cent value in black
with George Washington
. Like all U.S. stamps until 1857, they were imperforate.
The 5-cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than 1 ounce and traveling less than 300 miles, the 10-cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or, twice the weight deliverable for the 5-cent stamp. Each stamp was hand engraved in what is believed to be steel, and laid out in sheets of 200 stamps. The 5-cent stamp is often found today with very poor impressions because the type of ink used contained small pieces of quartz that wore down the steel plates used to print the stamp. On the other hand, most 10-cent stamps are of strong impressions. A fresh and brilliantly printed 5-cent stamp is prized by collectors.
The use of stamps was optional: letters could still be sent requiring payment of postage on delivery. Indeed, the post office issued no 2-cent value for prepaying drop letters in 1847, and these continued to be handled as they had been. Nevertheless many Americans took up using stamps; about 3,700,000 of the 5¢ and about 865,000 of the 10¢ were sold, and enough of those have survived to ensure a ready supply for collectors, although the demand is such that a very fine 5¢ sells for around $500 as of 2003, and the 10¢ in very fine condition sells for around $1,400 in used form. Unused stamps are much scarcer, fetching around $6,000 and $28,000 respectively, if in very fine condition. One can pay as little as 5 to 10 percent of these figures if the stamps are in poor condition.
The post office had become so efficient by 1851 that Congress was able to reduce the common rate to three cents (which remained unchanged for over thirty years), necessitating a new issue of stamps. This rate, however, only applied to prepaid mail: a letter sent without a stamp still cost the recipient five cents—clear evidence that Congress envisioned making stamp use mandatory in the future (it did so in 1855). The 1-cent drop-letter rate was also restored, and Post Office plans did not at first include a stamp for it; later, however, an essay for a 6-cent Franklin double-weight stamp was converted into a drop-letter value. Along with this 1¢ stamp, the post office initially issued only two additional denominations in the series of 1851: 3¢ and 12¢, the three stamps going on sale that July and August. Since the 1847 stamps no longer conformed to any postal rate, they were declared invalid after short period during which the public could exchange old stamps for new ones. Ironically, however, within a few years the Post Office found that stamps in the old denominations were needed after all, and so, added a 10¢ value to the series in 1855, followed by a 5¢ stamp the following year. The full series included a 1¢ profile of Franklin in blue, a 3¢ profile of Washington in red brown, a 5¢ portrait of Thomas Jefferson
, and portraits of Washington for 10¢ green and 12¢ black values. The 1¢ stamp achieved notoriety, at least among philatelists, because production problems (the stamp design was too tall for the space provided) led to a welter of plate modifications done in piecemeal fashion, and there are no fewer than seven major varieties, ranging in price from $100 to $200,000 (the latter for the only stamp of the 200 images on the first plate that displays the design's top and bottom ornamentation complete). Sharp-eyed collectors periodically find the rare types going unrecognized.
1857 saw the introduction of perforation
, and in 1860 24¢, 30¢ and 90¢ values (with still more images of Washington and Franklin) were issued for the first time.
In February 1861, a congressional act directed that “cards, blank or printed. . .shall also be deemed mailable matter, and charged with postage at the rate of one cent an ounce.” Private companies soon began issuing post cards
, printed with a rectangle in the top right corner where the stamp was to be affixed. (The Post Office would not produce pre-stamped “postal cards” for another dozen years.)
threw the postal system into turmoil. On April 13, 1861, (the day after the firing on Fort Sumter
) John H. Reagan, postmaster-general of the Confederate States of America
, ordered local postmasters to return their US stamps to Washington DC (although it is unlikely that many did so), while in May the Union decided to withdraw and invalidate all existing US stamps, and to issue new stamps. Confederate post offices were left without legitimate stamps for several months, and while many reverted to the old system of cash payment at the post office, over 100 post offices across the South came up with their own provisional issues. Many of these are quite rare, with only single examples surviving of some types. Eventually the Confederate government issued its own stamps; see stamps and postal history of the Confederate States.
In the North, the new stamp designs became available in August, and old stamps were accepted in exchange until the end of the year. The whole process was very confusing to the public, and there are number of covers from 1862 and later with 1857 stamps and bearing the marking "OLD STAMPS NOT RECOGNIZED".
The 1861 stamps had in common the letters "U S" in their design. To make them differentiable from the older stamps at a glance, all were required to have their values expressed in Arabic numerals (in the previous series, Arabic numerals had appeared only on the 30¢ stamp). The original issue included all the denominations offered in the previous series: 1¢, 3¢, 5¢, 10¢, 12¢, 24¢, 30¢ and 90¢ stamps. Numerals apart, several of these are superficially similar to their earlier counterparts—particularly because Franklin, Washington and Jefferson still appear on the same denominations as previously. Differences in the design of the frames are more readily apparent.
A 2¢ stamp in black featuring Andrew Jackson
was issued in 1863 and is now known to collectors as the "Black Jack
". A black 15¢ stamp depicting the recently-assassinated Abraham Lincoln
was issued in 1866, and is generally considered part of the same series. Although it was not officially described as such, and the 15¢ value was chosen to cover newly-established fee for registered letter
s, many philatelists consider this to be the first memorial stamp ever issued.
The war greatly increased the amount of mail in the North; ultimately about 1,750,000,000 copies of the 3¢ stamp were printed, and a great many have survived to the present day, typically selling for 2-3 dollars apiece. Most are rose
-colored; pink
versions are much rarer and quite expensive, especially the "pigeon blood pink", which goes for $3,000 and up.
The stamps of the 1861 series, unlike those of the two previous issues, remained valid for postage after they had been superseded—as has every subsequent United States stamp.
to get mail to and from San Francisco, an important undertaking with the outbreak of the Civil War
, as a communication link between Union forces and San Francisco and the West Coast was badly needed. The Pony Express Trail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, was 1,840 miles long. Upon arrival in Sacramento, the U.S. mail was placed on a steamer and continued down the Sacramento River to San Francisco for a total of 1,966 miles. The Pony Express was a short-lived enterprise, remaining in operation for only 18 months. Consequently there is little surviving Pony Express mail today, only 250 examples known in existence. Information regarding the Pony Express is covered at length on the Pony Express
page.
During the 1860s, the postal authorities became concerned about postage stamp reuse
. Although there is little evidence that this occurred frequently, many post offices had never received any canceling devices. Instead, they improvised a canceling process by scribbling on the stamp with an ink pen ("pen cancel
lation"), or whittling designs in pieces of cork
, sometimes very creatively ("fancy cancel
s"), to mark the stamps. However, since poor-quality ink could be washed from the stamp, this method would only have been moderately successful. A number of inventors patented various ideas to attempt to solve the problem.
The Post Office eventually adopted the grill
, a device consisting of a pattern of tiny pyramidal bumps that would emboss the stamp, breaking up the fibers so that the ink would soak in more deeply, and thus be harder to clean off. While the patent survives (No. 70,147), much of the actual process of grilling was not well documented, and there has been considerable research trying to recreate what happened and when. Study of the stamps shows that there were eleven types in use, distinguished by size and shape (philatelists have labeled them with letters A-J and Z), and that the practice started some time in 1867 and was gradually abandoned after 1871. A number of grilled stamps are among the great rarities of US philately. The United States 1¢ Z grill
was long thought to be the rarest of all US stamps, with only two known to exist. In 1961, however, it was discovered that the 15¢ stamp of the same series also existed in a Z grill version; this stamp is just as rare as the 1¢, for only two examples of the 15¢ Z grill are known. Rarer still may be the 30¢ stamp with the I Grill, the existence of which was discovered only recently: as of October 2011, only one copy is known.
rider, the 3¢ a locomotive
, the 12¢ the steamship Adriatic
, the 15¢ the landing of Christopher Columbus
, and the 24¢ the signing of the Declaration of Independence
.
Other innovations in what has become known as the 1869 Pictorial Issue
included the first use of two-color printing on U.S. stamps, and as a consequence the first invert error
s. Although popular with collectors today, the unconventional stamps were not very popular among a population who was accustomed to postage that bore classic portrayals of Washington, Franklin and other forefathers. Consequently the Post Office recalled all remaining stocks after one year.
. After the 1869 fiasco with pictorial stamp issues, the new Postmaster-General decided to base a series of stamps on the "heads, in profile, of distinguished deceased Americans" using "marble busts of acknowledged excellence" as models. George Washington was returned to the normal-letter-rate stamp: he had played that role in the issues of 1851 and 1861 and would continue to do so in every subsequent definitive set until the Presidential Series of 1938. The various subjects on the remaining denominations included both presidents and other notables, such as Henry Clay
and Oliver Hazard Perry
. National first printed these, then in 1873 Continental received the contract—and the plates that National used. Continental added secret marks to the plates of the lower values, distinguishing them from the previous issues. The American Bank Note Company acquired Continental in 1879, and took over the contract printing similar designs on softer papers
and with some color changes. Major redesigning, however, came only in 1890, when the American Bank Note Company issued a new series in which stamp-size was reduced by about 10% (the so-called "Small Bank Notes").
In 1873, the Post Office began producing a pre-stamped post card. One side was printed with a Liberty-head one-cent stamp design, along with the words “United States Postal Card” and three blank lines provided for the mailing address. Six years later, it introduced a series of seven Postage Due
stamps in denominations ranging from 1¢ to 50¢, all printed in the same brownish-red color and conforming to the same uniform and highly utilitarian design, with their denominations rendered in numerals much larger than those found on definitive stamps. The design remained unchanged until 1894, and only four different postage due designs have appeared to date.
In 1883, the first-class letter rate was reduced from 3¢ to 2¢, prompting a redesign of the existing 3¢ green Washington stamp, which now became a 2¢ brown issue.
in the Americas. The Post Office got in on the act, issuing a series of 16 stamps depicting Columbus and episodes in his career, ranging in value from 1¢ to $5 (a princely sum in those days). They are often considered the first commemorative stamp
s issued by any country.
The stamps were interesting and attractive, designed to appeal to not only Postage stamps collectors but to historians, artists and of course the general public who bought them in record numbers because of the fanfare of the Columbian Exposition of the World's Fair of 1892 in Chicago, Illinois.
They were quite successful (a great contrast to the pictorials of 1869), with lines spilling out of the nation's post offices to buy the stamps. They are prized by collectors today with the $5 denomination, for example, selling for between $1,500 to $12,500 or more, depending upon the condition of the stamp being sold.
Another release in connection with the Columbian series was a reprint of the 1888 Special Delivery stamp, now colored orange (reportedly, to prevent postal clerks from confusing it with the 1¢ Columbian). After sales of the series ceased, the Special Delivery stamp reappeared in its original blue.
competed for the postage stamp printing contract, and won it on the first try. For the postage issues of the 1894 series, the Bureau took over the plates of the 1890 small banknote series but modified them by adding triangles to the upper corners of the designs. Three new designs were needed, because the Post Office elected to add $1, $2 and $5 stamps to the series (previously, the top value of any definitive issue had been 90¢). On many of the 1894 stamps, perforations are of notably poor quality, but the Bureau would soon make technical improvements. In 1895 counterfeit
s of the 2¢ value were discovered, which prompted the BEP to begin printing stamps on watermark
ed paper for the first time in U.S. postal history. The watermarks imbedded the logo U S P S into the paper in double-lined letters. The Bureau's definitive issues of the 1890s consisted of 13 different denominations ranging from 1 cent to 5 dollars, and may be differentiated by the presence or absence of this watermark, which would appear on all U. S. Postage stamps between 1895 and 1910. The final issue of 1898 altered the colors of many denominations to bring them into conformity with the recommendations of the Universal Postal Union (an international body charged with facilitating the course of transnational mail). The aim was to ensure that in all its member nations, stamps of similar value would appear in the same color. Accordingly, U. S. 1¢ stamps were now green and 5¢ stamps were now blue, while 2¢ and 3¢ stamps remained, respectively, red and purple. U. S. postage continued to reflect this color coding quite strictly until the mid-1930s.
opened in Omaha, Nebraska
, and the Post Office was ready with the Trans-Mississippi Issue
. The nine stamps were originally to be two-toned, with black vignettes surrounded by colored frames, but the BEP, its resources overtaxed by the needs of the Spanish-American War
, simplified the printing process, issuing the stamps in single colors. They were received favorably, though with less excitement than the Columbians; but like the Columbians, they are today prized by collectors, and many consider the $1 "Western Cattle in Storm
" the most attractive of all U.S. stamps.
Collectors, still smarting from the expense of the Columbian stamps, objected that inclusion of $1 and $2 issues in the Trans-Mississippi series presented them with an undue financial hardship. Accordingly, the next stamp series commemorating a prominent exposition, the Pan-American Exposition
held in Buffalo, New York
in 1901, was considerably less costly, consisting of only five stamps ranging from in value 1¢ to 10¢. The result, paradoxically, was a substantial increase in Post Office profits; for, while the higher valued Columbians and Trans-Mississippis had sold only about 20,000 copies apiece, the public bought well over five million of every Pan-American denomination.In the Pan-American series http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1901.htm the Post Office realized the plan for two-toned stamps that it had been obliged to abandon during the production of the Trans-Mississippi issue. Upside-down placement of some sheets during the two-stage printing process resulted in the so called Pan-American invert
errors on rare copies of the 1¢, 2¢ and 4¢ stamps.
s released over the previous several decades. Among the prominent departures from tradition in these designs was that the names of the subjects were printed out, along with their years of birth and death. (Printed names and birth and death dates are more typically a feature of Commemorative stamps.) Unlike any definitive stamps ever issued before, the 1902-03 issues also had ornate sculptural frame work about the portrait often including allegorical figures of different sorts, with several different types of print used to denote the country, denominations and names of the subjects. This series of postage stamps were the first definitive issues to be entirely designed and printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and their Baroque revival style is much akin to that of the Pan-American commemoratives the Bureau had issued in 1901. There are fifteen demominations ranging from 1-cent to 5-dollars. The 2-cent George Washington stamp appeared with two different designs (the original version was poorly received) while each of the other values has its own individual design. This was the first U. S. definitive series to include the image of a woman: Martha Washington, who appeared on the 8-cent stamp.
~ Selected Issues: ~
in St. Louis, Missouri
in 1904 prompted a set of five stamps http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1904.htm, while a trio of stamps commemorated the Jamestown Exposition
, held in Norfolk, Virginia
in 1907 http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1907.htm.
craze, and almost every antique shop in the U.S. will have some postcards with green 1¢ or red 2¢ stamps from this series. In 1910 the Post Office began phasing out the double-lined watermark, replacing it by the same U S P S logo in smaller single-line letters. Watermarks were discontinued entirely in 1916.
Toward the beginning of the Washington-Franklin era, in 1909, the Post Office issued its first individual commemorative stamps—three single 2¢ issues honoring, respectively, the Lincoln Centennial, the Alaska-Yukon Exposition, and the Hudson-Fulton anniversaries http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1909.htm. A four-stamp series commemorating the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California
appeared in 1913 http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1913.htm, but no further commemoratives were issued until after World War I.
It was also in 1913, in January, that the Post Office introduced domestic parcel post
service (a belated development, given that international parcel post service between the United States and other countries began in 1887). A series of twelve Parcel Post stamps intended for this service had already been released in December 1912, ranging in denomination from 1¢ to $1. All were printed in red and designed in the wide Columbian format. The eight lowest values illustrated aspects of mail handling and delivery, while higher denominations depicted such industries as Manufacturing, Dairying and Fruit Growing. Five green Parcel Post Postage Due stamps appeared concurrently. It soon became obvious that none of these stamps was needed: parcel postage could easily be paid by definitive or commemorative issues, and normal postage due stamps were sufficient for parcels. When original stocks ran out, no reprints appeared, nor were replacements for either group ever contemplated.
On November 3, 1917, the normal letter rate was raised from 2¢ to 3¢ in support of the war effort. The rate hike was reflected in the first postwar commemorative—a 3¢ "victory" stamp released on March 3, 1919 (not until July 1 would postal fees return to peacetime levels).
, while the higher values included an "American Indian
" (Hollow Horn Bear
), the Statue of Liberty
, Golden Gate
(without the bridge, which had yet to be built), Niagara Falls
, a bison
, the Lincoln Memorial
and so forth. Higher values of the series (from 17¢ through $5) were differentiated from the cheaper stamps by being designed in horizontal (landscape) rather than vertical format, an idea carried over from the "big Bens" of the Washington-Franklin series. Stamp printing was switching from a flat plate press to a rotary press while these stamps were in use, and most come in two perforations as a result; 11 for flat plate, and 11x10.5 for rotary. In 1929, theft problems in the Midwest led to the Kansas-Nebraska overprints on the regular stamps. (See also: Fourth Bureau issue
).
From 1924 on, commemorative stamps appeared every year. The 1920s saw a number of 150th anniversaries connected with the American Revolutionary War
, and a number of stamps were issued in connection with those. These included the first US souvenir sheet, for the Battle of White Plains
sesquicentennial, and the first overprint
, reading "MOLLY / PITCHER
", the heroine of the Battle of Monmouth
.
. The first among these was the Liberty Bell 150th Anniversary Issue of 1926, designed by Clair Aubrey Huston, and engraved by J.Eissler & E.M.Hall, two among America's most renowned master engravers. The 'Two Cent Reds' were among the last stamps used to carry a letter for 2 cents, the rate changing to 3 cents on July 6, 1932. There the rate remained for 26 years until it finally changed to 4 cents in 1958.
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The German zeppelin
s were of much interest during this period, and in 1930 the Department issued special stamps to be used on the Pan-American flight of Graf Zeppelin
.
Although the Graf Zeppelin stamps
are today highly prized by collectors as masterpieces of the engraver's art, in 1930 the recent stock market crash meant that few were able to afford these stamps (the $4.55 value for the set represented a week's food allowance for a family of four). Less than 10 percent of the 1,000,000 of each denomination issued were sold and the remainders were incinerated (the stamps were only available for sale to the public from April 19, 1930, to June 30, 1930). It is estimated that less than 8 percent of the stamps produced survive today and they remain the smallest U.S. issue of the 20th century (only 229,260 of these stamps were ever purchased, and only 61,296 of the $2.60 stamp were sold).
In 1932 a set of 12 stamps was issued to celebrate the George Washington's 200th birthday 1932 Washington Bicentennial
. For the 2¢ value, which satisfied the normal letter rate, the most familiar Gilbert Stuart image of Washington had been chosen. After postal rates rose that July, this 2¢ red Washington was redesigned as a 3¢ stamp and issued in the purple color that now became ubiquitous among U. S. commemoratives.
, the former Democratic Party Committee Chairman. Many designs of the 1930s were inspired or altered according to Roosevelt's advice. In 2009-10, the US National Postal Museum
exhibited six Roosevelt sketches that were developed into stamp issues: the 6-cent eagle airmail stamp and five miscellaneous commemoratives, which honored the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, the Mothers of America, Susan B. Anthony, Virginia Dare and the Northwest Territories' rise to statehood. A steady stream of commemoratives appeared during these years, including a striking 1934 issue of ten stamps presenting iconic vistas of ten National Parks—a set that has remained widely beloved. (In a memorable sequence from Philip Roth
’s novel The Plot Against America
, the young protagonist dreams that his National Parks stamps, the pride and joy of his collection, have become disfigured with swastika overprints.) Choosing an orange color for the 2¢ Grand Canyon tableau instead of the standard 2¢ carmine red, the Post Office departed from U. P. U. color-coding for the first time.
With a philatelist in the White House, the Post Office catered to collectors as never before, issuing seven separate souvenir sheets between 1933 and 1937. In one case, a collectors’ series had to be produced as the result of a miscalculation. Around 1935, Postmaster Farley removed sheets of the National Parks set from stock before they had been gummed or perforated, giving these and unfinished examples of ten other issues to President Roosevelt and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes
(also a philatelist) as curiosities for their collections. When word of these gifts got out, public outcries arose. Some accused Farley of a corrupt scheme to enrich Roosevelt and Ickes by creating valuable rarities for them at taxpayer expense. Stamp aficionados, in turn, demanded that these curiosities be sold to the public so that ordinary collectors could acquire them, and Farley duly issued them in bulk. This series of special printings soon became known as “Farley’s Follies.” As the decade progressed, the purples used for 3¢ issues, although still ostensibly conforming to the U. P. U. code, displayed an increasingly wide variety of hues, and one 1940 issue, a 3¢ stamp commemorating the Pony Express, dispensed with purple entirely, appearing in a rust brown earth tone more suitable to the image of a horse and rider departing from a western rural post office.
, known as "Prexies" for short, came out in 1938. The series featured all 29 U.S. presidents through Calvin Coolidge
, each of whom appeared in profile as a small sculptural bust. Values of 50¢ and lower were mono-colored; on the $1, $2, and $5 stamps the presidents' images were printed in black on white, surrounded by colored lettering and ornamentation. Up through the 22¢ Cleveland stamp, the denomination assigned to each president corresponds to his position in the presidential roster: thus the first president, Washington, is on the 1¢ value, the seventeenth, Andrew Johnson, is on the 17¢ value, etc. Additional stamps depict Franklin (½¢), Martha Washington
(1½¢), and the White House
(4½¢). Many of the values were included merely to place the presidents in proper numerical order and did not necessarily correspond to a postal rate; and one of the (difficult) games for Prexie collectors is to find a cover with, for instance, a single 16¢ stamp that pays a combination of rate and fees valid during the Prexies' period of usage. Many such covers remain to be discovered; some sellers on eBay
have been surprised to discover an ordinary-seeming cover bid up to several hundred dollars because it was one of the sought-after solo usages. The Presidential issue remained in distribution for many years. Not until 1954 did the Post Office begin replacing its values with the stamps of a new definitive issue, the Liberty series.
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Authors: Washington Irving
- James Fenimore Cooper
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Louisa May Alcott
- Samuel Clemens
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Poets: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- John Greenleaf Whittier
- James Russell Lowell
- Walt Whitman
- James Whitcomb Riley
----
Educators: Horace Mann
- Mark Hopkins
- Charles Elliot
- Frances E. Willard
- Booker T. Washington
----
Scientists: John James Audubon
- Dr. Crawford W. Long - Luther Burbank
- Dr. Walter Reed
- Jane Addams
----
Composers: Stephen Collins Foster - John Philip Sousa
- Victor Herbert
- Edward A. MacDowell
- Ethelbert Nevin
----
Artists: Gilbert Charles Stuart
- James McNeil Whistler - Augustus Saint-Gaudens
- Daniel Chester French
- Frederick Remington
----
Inventors Eli Whitney
- Samuel F. B. Morse
- Cyrus Hall McCormick - Elias Howe
- Alexander Graham Bell
.
The thirteen stamps present full color images of the national flags
of Poland
, Czechoslovakia
, Norway
, Luxembourg
, the Netherlands
, Belgium
, France
, Greece
, Yugoslavia
, Albania
, Austria
, Denmark
, and Korea
, with the names of the respective countries written beneath. To the left of each flag appears the image of the phoenix
, which symbolizes the renewal of life, and to its right appears a kneeling female figure with arms raised, breaking the shackles of servitude.
The stamps with flags of European countries were released at intervals from June to December 1943, while the Korea flag stamp was released in November 1944.
Because of the elaborate process necessary for the full-color printing, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing contracted with a private firm, the American Bank Note Company
, to produce the series—the first U. S. stamps to be printed by a private company since 1893. Uniquely among U. S. issues, the sheets lack the plate numbers usually printed on the selvage surrounding the stamps. In the places where the numbers normally appear on each sheet, the name of the country is substituted, engraved in capital letters.
stamp program followed a consistent pattern for many years: a steady stream of commemorative issues sold as single stamps at the first-class letter rate. For many of these issued in honor of individuals, the Post Office employed the same format, enlarged size, general design style and red-violet hue used in the 1940 Famous Americans series. Indeed, as has been noted, the Postal Service had become increasingly lax about employing the purple recommended by the Universal Postal Union for 3¢ stamps, and after the war, departures from the color code in commemoratives veritably became the rule rather than the exception (although U. P. U. colors would continue to be used in the definitive issues of the next decades). Beginning in 1948, Congressional Representatives and Senators began to push the Post Office for stamps proposed by constituents, leading to a relative flood of stamps honoring obscure persons and organizations. Stamp issue did not again become well regulated until the formation of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee
(CSAC) in 1957.
The Liberty issue
of 1954, deep in the Cold War
, took a much more political slant than previous issues. The common first-class stamp was a 3¢ Statue of Liberty
in purple, and included the inscription "In God We Trust
", the first explicit religious reference on a U.S. stamp (ten days before the issue of the 3¢ Liberty stamp, the words "under God" had been inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance). The Statue of Liberty appeared on two additional higher values as well, 8¢ and 11¢, both of which were printed in two colors. The other stamps in the series included liberty-related statesmen and landmarks, such as Patrick Henry
and Bunker Hill
, although other subjects, (Benjamin Harrison
, for example) seem unrelated to the basic theme.
In 1957 the American Flag was featured on a U. S. stamp for the first time. The Post Office had long avoided this image, fearing accusations that, in issuing stamps on which they would be defacing the flag by cancellation marks, they would be both committing and fomenting desecration. However, protests against this initial flag issue were muted, and the flag has remained a perennially popular U. S. stamp subject ever since.
The 3¢ rate for first-class had been unchanged since 1932, but by 1958 there were no more efficiency gains to keep the lid on prices, and the rate went to 4¢, beginning a steady series of rate increases that reached 44¢ as of May 11, 2009.
The Prominent Americans series
superseded the "Liberties" in the 1960s and proved the last definitive issue to conform to the Universal Postal Union color code. In the 1970s, they were replaced by the Americana series
, in which colors became purely a matter of designer preference.
In 1971 the Post Office was reorganized, becoming the United States Postal Service
(USPS). However, it is still heavily regulated, with, for instance, the CSAC continuing to decide which commemorative stamps to issue.
Airmail in the United States Post Office emerged in three stages beginning with the 'pioneer period' where there were many unofficial flights carrying the mail prior to 1918, the year the US Post Office assumed delivery of all Air Mail. The US Post office began contracting out to the private sector to carry the mail (Contract Air Mail, CAM) on February 15, 1926. In 1934 all US Air Mail was carried by the U.S. Army for six months, after which the contract system resumed.
Selected examples:
was a 10 cent stamp from the Christmas issue of 1974. It was not considered successful, and the surviving stamps, though not rare, are all gradually becoming discolored due to the adhesive used. Self-adhesives were not issued again until 1989, gradually becoming so popular that , only a handful of types are offered with the traditional gum (now affectionately called "manual stamps" by postal employees).
The increasing frequency of postal rate increases from the 1970s on, and the necessity to wait for these to be approved by Congress, made it problematic for the Postal Service to provide stamps matching the increased costs in a timely manner. Until it was known, for example, whether the new first-class rate would be 16c or, instead, 15c, no denominated stamp could be printed. The Postal Service found a way to bypass this problem in 1978. Preparatory to that year’s increase, an orange colored stamp with a simple eagle design appeared bearing the denomination "A" instead of a number; and the public was informed that this stamp would satisfy the new first-class rate, whatever it turned out to be. Subsequent rate increases resulted in B, C and D stamps, which bore the same eagle design but were printed, respectively, in purple, buff-brown and blue-green. When it came time for an E stamp in 1987, the Postal Service commissioned a more elaborate design: a color picture of the globe as seen from space (E for Earth). Rises since have prompted F for Flower, G for Old Glory and H for Hat stamps, all appropriately illustrated. The F stamp in 1991 was accompanied by an undenominated "make-up" stamp with no pictorial design beyond a frame, which enclosed the words "This U. S. stamp, along with 25c of additional U. S. postage, is equivalent to the 'F' stamp rate."
The Great Americans series
and the Transportation coils
began appearing in 1980 and 1981, respectively. The transportation coils were used steadily for some 20 years, while Great Americans still appear regularly .
The increasing use of email
and other technologies during the 1990s led to a decline in the amount of first-class mail, while bulk mail increased. A large variety of commemorative stamps continue to appear, but more and more of them just go to collectors, while the stamps of the average person's daily mail are non-denominated types issued specifically for businesses.
In 2005, after 111 years of producing American postage stamps, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing ended its involvement with the postal service.
On April 12, 2007, the Forever stamp went on sale for 41 cents, and is good for mailing one-ounce First-Class letters anytime in the future—regardless of price changes. The postage on such letters is currently 44 cents (as of May 11, 2009). In 2011, the Post Office began issuing all new stamps for First-Class postage—both definitives and commemoratives—as Forever stamps: denominations were no longer included on them.
On February 25, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
ruled 2-1 that the Frank Gaylor, sculptor of the Korean War Veterans Memorial
was entitled to compensation when an image of that sculpture was used on a 37 cent postage stamp because he had not signed away his intellectual property
rights to the sculpture when it was erected. The appeals court rejected arguments that the photo was transformative
. In 2006 sculptor Frank Gaylord enlisted Fish & Richardson
to make a pro bono
claim that the Postal Service had violated his Intellectual property
rights to the sculpture and thus should have been compensated. The Postal Service argued that Gaylord was not the sole sculptor (saying he had received advice from federal sources—who recommended that the uniforms appear more in the wind) and also that the sculpture was actually architecture
. Gaylord won all of his arguments in the lower court except for one: the court ruled the photo was fair use
and thus he was not entitled to compensation. Gaylord appealed and won the case on appeal. The case can now either be appealed to the United States Supreme Court or damages can be assessed by the lower court.
Later in the year, automated stamp and bank automatic teller machines began dispensing thinner stamps. The thin stamps were to make it easier for automated stamp machines to dispense and to make the stamps more environmentally friendly.From WRGB
On June 14, 2008, in Washington, DC, the Postal Service™ issued the first set of 10 designs in the 42–cent Flags of Our Nation stamps. The stamps were designed by Howard E. Paine of Delaplane, Virginia. Two sets of ten stamps will be issued each year through 2010 for a total of sixty stamp designs. Currently the Flags of Our Nation stamps program has been issued five sets.
Postal history
Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of postage stamps and covers and associated material illustrating historical episodes of postal systems...
of the United States of America. The page rarely covers the subjects or topical aspects of individual Postage stamps issues at any length, and only when it is relevant to the issuance of the postage, as some events are solely responsible for the stamp being issued, as is the case with the first Lincoln stamp of 1866, issued on the anniversary of Lincoln's death one year later. This was not a regular issue. The issue was prompted by an event (subject) and only to that extent will the stamp's subject be addressed here.
The question of stamp subjects is, however, discussed in general terms: in particular, the evolving notions over the years of what images are appropriate on a stamp—and under what circumstances. Some attention is thus given to the historical evolution of commemorative stamps, introduced in 1893: at first appearing only infrequently and only in multi-stamp series honoring international expositions, but eventually produced in a continual stream of individual issues. Occasional notice is also taken of the manner in which commemorative and definitive stamps reflected aesthetic, cultural and ideological currents in the United States, particularly during the Roosevelt presidencies and the Cold War.
Chronicled here as well is the periodic introduction of new categories of postage stamps: issued either to allow stamps to be used in a new way (the encased postage stamps of 1862) or, more often, to cover new classes of mail or new methods of delivery. Finally, when necessary, the article touches upon in the evolution of stamp production as a physical process, and the history of Government involvement in it.
Early postal history
Most often postal services began in the first half of the 17th century serving the first American coloniesThirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
; today, the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
is a large government organization providing a wide range of services across the U.S. and its territories abroad.
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
, informal independently-run postal routes began in Boston as early as 1639, with Boston to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
service starting in 1672.
Officially-sanctioned mail service began in 1692 when King William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
granted to an English nobleman a delivery "patent" that included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. (Years later, taxation implemented through the mandatory purchase of stamps was an issue that helped to spark the American Revolution.) The tax was repealed a year later, and very few were ever actually used in the thirteen colonies, but they saw service in Canada and the British Caribbean islands.
In the years leading up to the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
mail routes among the colonies existed along the few roads between Boston, New York and Philadelphia. In the middle 18th century individuals like Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
and William Goddard
William Goddard (US patriot/publisher)
William Goddard was an American patriot and printer born in New London, Connecticut who lived through the era of the American Revolution. Goddard served as an apprentice printer under James Parker and then in 1762 became an early American publisher who eventually founded several newspapers during...
were the colonial postmasters who managed the mails then and were the general architects of a postal system that started out as an alternative to the Crown Post (the colonial mail system then) which was now becoming more distrusted as the American Revolution drew near. The postal system that Franklin and Goddard forged out of the American Revolution became the standard for the new U.S. Post Office and is a system whose basic designs are still used in the United States Post Office today.
Post offices and postmarks
In 1775, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General, the U.S. Post Office was born. So important was the Postmaster General that in 1829 this position was included among those in the President's Cabinet. As America began to grow and new towns and villages began to appear, so too did the Post Office along with them. The dates and postmarks generated from these places often has provided the historian with a window into a given time and place in question. Each postmark is uniquely distinctive with its own name of state and town, in addition to its distinctive date. Post Offices that existed along railroad lines and at various military posts have their own special historical aspect. Mail and postmarks generated from prisoner of war camps during the Civil War, or from aboard Naval ships, each with a U.S. Post Office aboard, can and have offered amazing insights into United States history and are avidly sought after by historians and collectors alike.----
Mail before postage stamps
Postage stamps revolutionized this process, leading to universal prepayment; but a precondition for their issue by a nation was the establishment of standardized rates for delivery throughout the country. If postal fees were to remain (as they were in many lands) a patchwork of many different jurisdictional rates, the use of stamps would produce only limited gains in efficiency, for postal clerks would still have to spend time calculating the rates on many letters: only then would senders know how much postage to put on them.
Provisional issue stamps
The introduction of postage stampPostage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s in the UK
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
in May 1840 was received with great interest in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(and around the world). Later that year, Daniel Webster rose in the U. S. Senate to recommend that the recent English postal reforms—standardized rates and the use of postage stamps—be adopted in America.
It would be private enterprise, however, that brought stamps to the U. S. On February 1, 1842 a new carrier service called "City Despatch Post" began operations in New York City, introducing the first adhesive postage stamp ever produced in the western hemisphere, which it required its clients to use for all mail. This stamp was a 3¢ issue bearing a rather amateurish drawing of George Washington http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/collection/3f1_1_collectionplan.html, printed from line engraved plates in sheets of 42 images. The company had been founded by Henry Thomas Windsor
Henry Thomas Windsor
Henry Thomas Windsor was the owner of "The City Despatch Post Company" of New York which issued the first Stamp in the USA. A black/grey three cent stamp depicting the head of George Washington....
, a London merchant who at the time was living in Hoboken, New Jersey. Alexander M. Greig was advertised as the post's "agent," and as a result, historians and philatelists have tended to refer to the firm simply as "Greig's City Despatch Post," making no mention of Windsor. In another innovation, the company placed mail-collection boxes around the city for the convenience of its customers.
A few months after its founding, the City Despatch Post was sold to the U.S. Government, which renamed it the "United States City Despatch Post." The government began operation of this local post on August 16, 1842, under an Act of Congress of some years earlier that authorized local delivery. Greig, retained by the Post Office to run the service, kept the firm's original Washington stamp in use, but soon had its lettering altered to reflect the name change. In its revised form, this issue accordingly became the first postage stamp produced under the auspices of a government in the western hemisphere.
An Act of Congress of March 3, 1845 (effective July 1, 1845), established uniform (and mostly reduced) postal rates throughout the nation, with a uniform rate of five cents for distances under 300 miles (500 km). However, Congress did not authorize the production of stamps for nationwide use until 1847; still, postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
s realized that standard rates now made it feasible to produce and sell "provisional" issues for prepayment of uniform postal fees, and printed these in bulk. Such provisionals included both prepaid envelopes and stamps, mostly of crude design, the New York Postmaster's Provisional being the only one of quality comparable to later stamps.
The provisional issues of Baltimore were notable for the reproduced signature of the city's postmaster—James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....
. All provisional issues are rare, and several command prices above US$100,000. These cities issued provisional stamps in 1845 and 1846:
- Alexandria, VirginiaAlexandria, VirginiaAlexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
("ALEXANDRIA POST OFFICE" in circle) - Annapolis, MarylandAnnapolis, MarylandAnnapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
(eagle in circle) - Baltimore, Maryland (James Buchanan signature)
- Boscawen, New HampshireBoscawen, New HampshireBoscawen is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,965 at the 2010 census.-History:The native Pennacook tribe called the area Contoocook, meaning "place of the river near pines." On June 6, 1733, Governor Jonathan Belcher granted it to John Coffin and 90...
("PAID / 5 / CENTS") - Brattleboro, VermontBrattleboro, VermontBrattleboro, originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States, located in the southeast corner of the state, along the state line with New Hampshire. The population was 12,046 at the 2010 census...
(shaded box with postmaster initials inside) - Lockport, New YorkLockport (city), New YorkLockport is a city in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 21,165 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from a set of Erie canal locks within the city. Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County and is surrounded by the town of Lockport...
("LOCKPORT N.Y." in oval) - Millbury, MassachusettsMillbury, MassachusettsMillbury is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,261 at the 2010 census. The town is part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.-History:...
(woodcut of George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
) - New Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
("POST OFFICE" in box, P.M. signature) - New York, New York ("POST OFFICE" over Washington portrait)
- Providence, Rhode IslandProvidence, Rhode IslandProvidence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
("POST OFFICE / PROV. R.I." in shaded box) - St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
(Missouri coat of arms)http://www.theswedishtiger.com/xprovb.htm
The 1845 Congressional act did, in fact, raise the rate on one significant class of mail: the so-called “drop letter”—i. e., a letter delivered from the same post office that collected it. Previously one cent, the drop letter rate became two cents.
First national postage stamps
Congress finally provided for the issuance of stamps by passing an act on March 3, 1847, and the Postmaster-GeneralUnited States Postmaster General
The United States Postmaster General is the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Postal Service. The office, in one form or another, is older than both the United States Constitution and the United States Declaration of Independence...
immediately let a contract to the New York City engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The first stamp issue of the U.S. was offered for sale on July 1, 1847, in New York City, with Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
receiving stamps the following day and other cities thereafter. They consisted of an engraved
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
5-cent red brown stamp depicting Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
(the first postmaster of the US), and a 10-cent value in black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
with George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
. Like all U.S. stamps until 1857, they were imperforate.
The 5-cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than 1 ounce and traveling less than 300 miles, the 10-cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or, twice the weight deliverable for the 5-cent stamp. Each stamp was hand engraved in what is believed to be steel, and laid out in sheets of 200 stamps. The 5-cent stamp is often found today with very poor impressions because the type of ink used contained small pieces of quartz that wore down the steel plates used to print the stamp. On the other hand, most 10-cent stamps are of strong impressions. A fresh and brilliantly printed 5-cent stamp is prized by collectors.
The use of stamps was optional: letters could still be sent requiring payment of postage on delivery. Indeed, the post office issued no 2-cent value for prepaying drop letters in 1847, and these continued to be handled as they had been. Nevertheless many Americans took up using stamps; about 3,700,000 of the 5¢ and about 865,000 of the 10¢ were sold, and enough of those have survived to ensure a ready supply for collectors, although the demand is such that a very fine 5¢ sells for around $500 as of 2003, and the 10¢ in very fine condition sells for around $1,400 in used form. Unused stamps are much scarcer, fetching around $6,000 and $28,000 respectively, if in very fine condition. One can pay as little as 5 to 10 percent of these figures if the stamps are in poor condition.
The post office had become so efficient by 1851 that Congress was able to reduce the common rate to three cents (which remained unchanged for over thirty years), necessitating a new issue of stamps. This rate, however, only applied to prepaid mail: a letter sent without a stamp still cost the recipient five cents—clear evidence that Congress envisioned making stamp use mandatory in the future (it did so in 1855). The 1-cent drop-letter rate was also restored, and Post Office plans did not at first include a stamp for it; later, however, an essay for a 6-cent Franklin double-weight stamp was converted into a drop-letter value. Along with this 1¢ stamp, the post office initially issued only two additional denominations in the series of 1851: 3¢ and 12¢, the three stamps going on sale that July and August. Since the 1847 stamps no longer conformed to any postal rate, they were declared invalid after short period during which the public could exchange old stamps for new ones. Ironically, however, within a few years the Post Office found that stamps in the old denominations were needed after all, and so, added a 10¢ value to the series in 1855, followed by a 5¢ stamp the following year. The full series included a 1¢ profile of Franklin in blue, a 3¢ profile of Washington in red brown, a 5¢ portrait of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, and portraits of Washington for 10¢ green and 12¢ black values. The 1¢ stamp achieved notoriety, at least among philatelists, because production problems (the stamp design was too tall for the space provided) led to a welter of plate modifications done in piecemeal fashion, and there are no fewer than seven major varieties, ranging in price from $100 to $200,000 (the latter for the only stamp of the 200 images on the first plate that displays the design's top and bottom ornamentation complete). Sharp-eyed collectors periodically find the rare types going unrecognized.
1857 saw the introduction of perforation
Perforation
A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes are called a perforation...
, and in 1860 24¢, 30¢ and 90¢ values (with still more images of Washington and Franklin) were issued for the first time.
In February 1861, a congressional act directed that “cards, blank or printed. . .shall also be deemed mailable matter, and charged with postage at the rate of one cent an ounce.” Private companies soon began issuing post cards
Postcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
, printed with a rectangle in the top right corner where the stamp was to be affixed. (The Post Office would not produce pre-stamped “postal cards” for another dozen years.)
Issues of the Civil War era
The outbreak of the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
threw the postal system into turmoil. On April 13, 1861, (the day after the firing on Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter is a Third System masonry coastal fortification located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots initiating the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter.- Construction :...
) John H. Reagan, postmaster-general of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, ordered local postmasters to return their US stamps to Washington DC (although it is unlikely that many did so), while in May the Union decided to withdraw and invalidate all existing US stamps, and to issue new stamps. Confederate post offices were left without legitimate stamps for several months, and while many reverted to the old system of cash payment at the post office, over 100 post offices across the South came up with their own provisional issues. Many of these are quite rare, with only single examples surviving of some types. Eventually the Confederate government issued its own stamps; see stamps and postal history of the Confederate States.
In the North, the new stamp designs became available in August, and old stamps were accepted in exchange until the end of the year. The whole process was very confusing to the public, and there are number of covers from 1862 and later with 1857 stamps and bearing the marking "OLD STAMPS NOT RECOGNIZED".
A 2¢ stamp in black featuring Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
was issued in 1863 and is now known to collectors as the "Black Jack
Black Jack (stamp)
Black Jack or Blackjack was the 2-Cent denomination United States postage stamp issued from July 1, 1863 to 1870, is generally referred to as the "Black Jack" due to the large portraiture of the United States President, Andrew Jackson on its face printed in pitch black...
". A black 15¢ stamp depicting the recently-assassinated Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
was issued in 1866, and is generally considered part of the same series. Although it was not officially described as such, and the 15¢ value was chosen to cover newly-established fee for registered letter
Registered mail
Registered mail describes letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and need a chain of custody that provides more control than regular mail. The posted item has its details recorded in a register to enable its location to be tracked, sometimes with added insurance to cover loss...
s, many philatelists consider this to be the first memorial stamp ever issued.
The war greatly increased the amount of mail in the North; ultimately about 1,750,000,000 copies of the 3¢ stamp were printed, and a great many have survived to the present day, typically selling for 2-3 dollars apiece. Most are rose
Rose
A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows...
-colored; pink
Pink
Pink is a mixture of red and white. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century....
versions are much rarer and quite expensive, especially the "pigeon blood pink", which goes for $3,000 and up.
The stamps of the 1861 series, unlike those of the two previous issues, remained valid for postage after they had been superseded—as has every subsequent United States stamp.
Pony Express
In 1860 the U.S. Post Office incorporated the services of the Pony ExpressPony Express
The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
to get mail to and from San Francisco, an important undertaking with the outbreak of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, as a communication link between Union forces and San Francisco and the West Coast was badly needed. The Pony Express Trail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, was 1,840 miles long. Upon arrival in Sacramento, the U.S. mail was placed on a steamer and continued down the Sacramento River to San Francisco for a total of 1,966 miles. The Pony Express was a short-lived enterprise, remaining in operation for only 18 months. Consequently there is little surviving Pony Express mail today, only 250 examples known in existence. Information regarding the Pony Express is covered at length on the Pony Express
Pony Express
The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
page.
Encased postage stamps
Widespread hoarding of coins during the Civil War created a shortage, prompting the use of stamps for currency. To be sure, the fragility of stamps made them unsuitable for hand-to-hand circulation, and to solve this problem, John Gault invented the encased postage stamp in 1862. A normal U. S. stamp was wrapped around a circular cardboard disc and then placed inside a coin-like circular brass jacket. A transparent mica window in the jacket allowed the face of the stamp to be seen. Denominations between 1-cent and 30-cents are known. Raised lettering on the metal backs of the jackets often advertised the goods or services of business firms; these included the Aerated Bread Company; Ayers Sarsaparilla and Cathartic Pills; Burnett’s Cocoaine; Sands Ale; Drake’s Plantation Bitters; Buhl & Co. Hats and Furs; Lord & Taylor; Tremont House, Chicago; Joseph L. Bates Fancy Goods; White the Hatter, New York City; and Ellis McAlpin & Co. Dry Goods, Cincinnati.Grills
During the 1860s, the postal authorities became concerned about postage stamp reuse
Postage stamp reuse
In the earlier days of the postage stamp, postal officials worried much about the problem of postage stamp reuse, and invented a number of schemes to mark or deface the stamps....
. Although there is little evidence that this occurred frequently, many post offices had never received any canceling devices. Instead, they improvised a canceling process by scribbling on the stamp with an ink pen ("pen cancel
Pen cancel
thumb|A pen cancel on a Russian [[postage stamp]].In philately, a pen cancel is a cancellation of a postage or revenue stamp by the use of a pen, marker or crayon.- Usage :...
lation"), or whittling designs in pieces of cork
Cork (material)
Cork is an impermeable, buoyant material, a prime-subset of bark tissue that is harvested for commercial use primarily from Quercus suber , which is endemic to southwest Europe and northwest Africa...
, sometimes very creatively ("fancy cancel
Fancy cancel
A fancy cancel is a postal cancellation that includes an artistic design. Although the term may be used of modern machine cancellations that include artwork, it primarily refers to the designs carved in cork and used in 19th century post offices of the United States.When postage stamps were...
s"), to mark the stamps. However, since poor-quality ink could be washed from the stamp, this method would only have been moderately successful. A number of inventors patented various ideas to attempt to solve the problem.
The Post Office eventually adopted the grill
Grill (philately)
A grill on a postage stamp is an embossed pattern of small indentations intended to discourage postage stamp reuse. They were supposed to work by allowing the ink of the cancellation to be absorbed more readily by the fibers of the stamp paper, making it harder to wash off the cancellation.- In the...
, a device consisting of a pattern of tiny pyramidal bumps that would emboss the stamp, breaking up the fibers so that the ink would soak in more deeply, and thus be harder to clean off. While the patent survives (No. 70,147), much of the actual process of grilling was not well documented, and there has been considerable research trying to recreate what happened and when. Study of the stamps shows that there were eleven types in use, distinguished by size and shape (philatelists have labeled them with letters A-J and Z), and that the practice started some time in 1867 and was gradually abandoned after 1871. A number of grilled stamps are among the great rarities of US philately. The United States 1¢ Z grill
Z Grill
The Benjamin Franklin Z Grill, or simply "Z-Grill", is a 1-cent postage stamp issued by the United States Postal Service in February 1868 depicting Benjamin Franklin. While stamps of this design were the common 1-cent stamps of the 1860s, the Z-Grill is distinguished by having the so-called "Z"...
was long thought to be the rarest of all US stamps, with only two known to exist. In 1961, however, it was discovered that the 15¢ stamp of the same series also existed in a Z grill version; this stamp is just as rare as the 1¢, for only two examples of the 15¢ Z grill are known. Rarer still may be the 30¢ stamp with the I Grill, the existence of which was discovered only recently: as of October 2011, only one copy is known.
1869
In 1868 the Post Office contracted with the National Bank Note Company to produce new stamps with a variety of designs. These came out in 1869, and were notable for the variety of their subjects; the 2¢ depicted a Pony ExpressPony Express
The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
rider, the 3¢ a locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
, the 12¢ the steamship Adriatic
SS Adriatic
SS Adriatic may refer to one of several notable steamships named after the Adriatic Sea:, operated by the Black Ball Line in the mid-19th century, and was among the first ships to be depicted on a postage stamp when used on a 12c value of the United States in 1869, operated by the White Star Line...
, the 15¢ the landing of Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
, and the 24¢ the signing of the Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
.
Other innovations in what has become known as the 1869 Pictorial Issue
1869 Pictorial Issue
The 1869 Pictorial Issue is a series of definitive United States postage stamps released during the first weeks of the Grant administration. Ten stamps in denominations between one-cent and ninety-cents were initially offered in the series, with eight of these introduced on March 19 and 20, 1869...
included the first use of two-color printing on U.S. stamps, and as a consequence the first invert error
Invert error
In philately, an invert error occurs when part of a postage stamp is printed upside-down. Inverts are perhaps the most spectacular of a postage stamp errors, not only because of the striking visual appearance, but because they are almost always quite rare, and highly valued by stamp...
s. Although popular with collectors today, the unconventional stamps were not very popular among a population who was accustomed to postage that bore classic portrayals of Washington, Franklin and other forefathers. Consequently the Post Office recalled all remaining stocks after one year.
Bank Notes
The postage stamps issued in the 1870s and 1880s are collectively known as the "Bank Notes" because they were produced by the National Bank Note Company, the Continental Bank Note Company, then the American Bank Note CompanyAmerican Bank Note Company
The American Bank Note Company was a major worldwide engraver of national currency and postage stamps. Currently it engraves and prints stock and bond certificates.-History:Robert Scot, the first official engraver of the young U.S...
. After the 1869 fiasco with pictorial stamp issues, the new Postmaster-General decided to base a series of stamps on the "heads, in profile, of distinguished deceased Americans" using "marble busts of acknowledged excellence" as models. George Washington was returned to the normal-letter-rate stamp: he had played that role in the issues of 1851 and 1861 and would continue to do so in every subsequent definitive set until the Presidential Series of 1938. The various subjects on the remaining denominations included both presidents and other notables, such as Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
and Oliver Hazard Perry
Oliver Hazard Perry
United States Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island , the son of USN Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and Sarah Wallace Alexander, a direct descendant of William Wallace...
. National first printed these, then in 1873 Continental received the contract—and the plates that National used. Continental added secret marks to the plates of the lower values, distinguishing them from the previous issues. The American Bank Note Company acquired Continental in 1879, and took over the contract printing similar designs on softer papers
Postage stamp paper
Postage stamp paper is the foundation or substrate of the postage stamp to which the ink for the stamp's design is applied to one side and the adhesive is applied to the other...
and with some color changes. Major redesigning, however, came only in 1890, when the American Bank Note Company issued a new series in which stamp-size was reduced by about 10% (the so-called "Small Bank Notes").
In 1873, the Post Office began producing a pre-stamped post card. One side was printed with a Liberty-head one-cent stamp design, along with the words “United States Postal Card” and three blank lines provided for the mailing address. Six years later, it introduced a series of seven Postage Due
Postage due
Postage due is the term used for mail sent with insufficient postage. A postage due stamp is a stamp added to an underpaid piece of mail to indicate the extra postage due.- Background :...
stamps in denominations ranging from 1¢ to 50¢, all printed in the same brownish-red color and conforming to the same uniform and highly utilitarian design, with their denominations rendered in numerals much larger than those found on definitive stamps. The design remained unchanged until 1894, and only four different postage due designs have appeared to date.
In 1883, the first-class letter rate was reduced from 3¢ to 2¢, prompting a redesign of the existing 3¢ green Washington stamp, which now became a 2¢ brown issue.
Special Delivery
In 1885 the Post Office established a Special Delivery service, issuing a ten-cent stamp depicting a running messenger, along with the wording “secures immediate delivery at a special delivery office.” Initially, only 555 such offices existed but the following year all U. S. Post Offices were obliged to provide the service—an extension not, however, reflected on the Special Delivery stamp until 1888, when the words “at any post office” appeared on its reprint. (On stamps of future years, the messenger would be provided the technological enhancements of a bicycle [1902] a motorcycle [1922] and a truck [1925]. Although the last new U. S. Special Delivery stamp appeared issued in 1971, the service was continued until 1997, by which time it had largely been supplanted by Priority Mail delivery, introduced in 1989.) The 1885 Special Delivery issue was the first U. S. postage stamp designed in the double-width format. Eight years later, this shape would be chosen for the Columbian Exposition commemoratives, as it offered appropriate space for historical tableaux. The double-width layout would subsequently be employed in many United States Commemoratives.Columbian Issue
The World Columbian Exposition of 1893 commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
in the Americas. The Post Office got in on the act, issuing a series of 16 stamps depicting Columbus and episodes in his career, ranging in value from 1¢ to $5 (a princely sum in those days). They are often considered the first commemorative stamp
Commemorative stamp
A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event or person. The subject of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike definitive stamps which normally depict the subject along with the...
s issued by any country.
The stamps were interesting and attractive, designed to appeal to not only Postage stamps collectors but to historians, artists and of course the general public who bought them in record numbers because of the fanfare of the Columbian Exposition of the World's Fair of 1892 in Chicago, Illinois.
They were quite successful (a great contrast to the pictorials of 1869), with lines spilling out of the nation's post offices to buy the stamps. They are prized by collectors today with the $5 denomination, for example, selling for between $1,500 to $12,500 or more, depending upon the condition of the stamp being sold.
Another release in connection with the Columbian series was a reprint of the 1888 Special Delivery stamp, now colored orange (reportedly, to prevent postal clerks from confusing it with the 1¢ Columbian). After sales of the series ceased, the Special Delivery stamp reappeared in its original blue.
Bureau issues
Also during 1893, the Bureau of Engraving and PrintingBureau of Engraving and Printing
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is a government agency within the United States Department of the Treasury that designs and produces a variety of security products for the United States government, most notable of which is paper currency for the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve itself is...
competed for the postage stamp printing contract, and won it on the first try. For the postage issues of the 1894 series, the Bureau took over the plates of the 1890 small banknote series but modified them by adding triangles to the upper corners of the designs. Three new designs were needed, because the Post Office elected to add $1, $2 and $5 stamps to the series (previously, the top value of any definitive issue had been 90¢). On many of the 1894 stamps, perforations are of notably poor quality, but the Bureau would soon make technical improvements. In 1895 counterfeit
Counterfeit
To counterfeit means to illegally imitate something. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product...
s of the 2¢ value were discovered, which prompted the BEP to begin printing stamps on watermark
Watermark
A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...
ed paper for the first time in U.S. postal history. The watermarks imbedded the logo U S P S into the paper in double-lined letters. The Bureau's definitive issues of the 1890s consisted of 13 different denominations ranging from 1 cent to 5 dollars, and may be differentiated by the presence or absence of this watermark, which would appear on all U. S. Postage stamps between 1895 and 1910. The final issue of 1898 altered the colors of many denominations to bring them into conformity with the recommendations of the Universal Postal Union (an international body charged with facilitating the course of transnational mail). The aim was to ensure that in all its member nations, stamps of similar value would appear in the same color. Accordingly, U. S. 1¢ stamps were now green and 5¢ stamps were now blue, while 2¢ and 3¢ stamps remained, respectively, red and purple. U. S. postage continued to reflect this color coding quite strictly until the mid-1930s.
Turn of the 20th century
In 1898, the Trans-Mississippi ExpositionTrans-Mississippi Exposition
The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition was a world's fair held in Omaha, Nebraska from June 1 to November 1 of 1898. Its goal was to showcase the development of the entire West, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. The Indian Congress was held concurrently...
opened in Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
, and the Post Office was ready with the Trans-Mississippi Issue
Trans-Mississippi Issue
Black Bull redirects here, for the F-Zero machine, see F-Zero RacersThe Trans-Mississippi Issue, or "Trans-Miss" for short, is a set of nine commemorative postage stamps issued by the United States to mark the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition held in Omaha, Nebraska...
. The nine stamps were originally to be two-toned, with black vignettes surrounded by colored frames, but the BEP, its resources overtaxed by the needs of the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, simplified the printing process, issuing the stamps in single colors. They were received favorably, though with less excitement than the Columbians; but like the Columbians, they are today prized by collectors, and many consider the $1 "Western Cattle in Storm
Western Cattle in Storm
Western Cattle in Storm is a $1 stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Office as part of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Issue. Western Cattle in Storm is one of nine commemorative postage stamps in the series, which marked the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition held in Omaha, Nebraska...
" the most attractive of all U.S. stamps.
Collectors, still smarting from the expense of the Columbian stamps, objected that inclusion of $1 and $2 issues in the Trans-Mississippi series presented them with an undue financial hardship. Accordingly, the next stamp series commemorating a prominent exposition, the Pan-American Exposition
Pan-American Exposition
The Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied of land on the western edge of what is present day Delaware Park, extending from Delaware Ave. to Elmwood Ave and northward to Great Arrow...
held in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
in 1901, was considerably less costly, consisting of only five stamps ranging from in value 1¢ to 10¢. The result, paradoxically, was a substantial increase in Post Office profits; for, while the higher valued Columbians and Trans-Mississippis had sold only about 20,000 copies apiece, the public bought well over five million of every Pan-American denomination.In the Pan-American series http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1901.htm the Post Office realized the plan for two-toned stamps that it had been obliged to abandon during the production of the Trans-Mississippi issue. Upside-down placement of some sheets during the two-stage printing process resulted in the so called Pan-American invert
Pan-American invert
As part of the Pan-American Exposition held in Buffalo in 1901 the United States Post Office Department issued a series of six commemorative stamps. The stamps were issued with ornate colored frames enclosing a black-and-white image of various means of transportation. In the standard American...
errors on rare copies of the 1¢, 2¢ and 4¢ stamps.
Definitive issues of 1902-1903
The definitive stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office in 1902 - 1903 were markedly different in their overall designs from the regular definitive stampDefinitive stamp
A definitive stamp is a postage stamp, that is part of a regular issue of a country's stamps available for sale by the postal service for an extended period of time...
s released over the previous several decades. Among the prominent departures from tradition in these designs was that the names of the subjects were printed out, along with their years of birth and death. (Printed names and birth and death dates are more typically a feature of Commemorative stamps.) Unlike any definitive stamps ever issued before, the 1902-03 issues also had ornate sculptural frame work about the portrait often including allegorical figures of different sorts, with several different types of print used to denote the country, denominations and names of the subjects. This series of postage stamps were the first definitive issues to be entirely designed and printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and their Baroque revival style is much akin to that of the Pan-American commemoratives the Bureau had issued in 1901. There are fifteen demominations ranging from 1-cent to 5-dollars. The 2-cent George Washington stamp appeared with two different designs (the original version was poorly received) while each of the other values has its own individual design. This was the first U. S. definitive series to include the image of a woman: Martha Washington, who appeared on the 8-cent stamp.
Commemorative issues, 1904-1907
In these years, the postal service continued to produce commemorative sets in conjunction with important national expositions. The Louisiana Purchase ExpositionLouisiana Purchase Exposition
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...
in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
in 1904 prompted a set of five stamps http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1904.htm, while a trio of stamps commemorated the Jamestown Exposition
Jamestown Exposition
The Jamestown Exposition was one of the many world's fairs and expositions that were popular in the United States in the early part of the 20th century...
, held in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
in 1907 http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1907.htm.
The Washington-Franklin era
1908 saw the beginning of the long-running Washington-Franklin series of stamps. Although there were only two central images, a profile of Washington and one of Franklin, many subtle variants appeared over the years; for the Post Office experimented with half-a-dozen different perforation sizes, two kinds of watermarking, three printing methods, and large numbers of values, all adding to several hundred distinct types identified by collectors. Some are quite rare, but many are extremely common; this was the era of the postcardPostcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
craze, and almost every antique shop in the U.S. will have some postcards with green 1¢ or red 2¢ stamps from this series. In 1910 the Post Office began phasing out the double-lined watermark, replacing it by the same U S P S logo in smaller single-line letters. Watermarks were discontinued entirely in 1916.
Toward the beginning of the Washington-Franklin era, in 1909, the Post Office issued its first individual commemorative stamps—three single 2¢ issues honoring, respectively, the Lincoln Centennial, the Alaska-Yukon Exposition, and the Hudson-Fulton anniversaries http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1909.htm. A four-stamp series commemorating the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
appeared in 1913 http://www.1847usa.com/ByYear/1913.htm, but no further commemoratives were issued until after World War I.
It was also in 1913, in January, that the Post Office introduced domestic parcel post
Parcel post
Parcel post is a service of a postal administration for sending parcels through the post. It is generally one of the less expensive ways to ship packages that are too heavy to be sent by regular letter post and is usually a slower method of transportation....
service (a belated development, given that international parcel post service between the United States and other countries began in 1887). A series of twelve Parcel Post stamps intended for this service had already been released in December 1912, ranging in denomination from 1¢ to $1. All were printed in red and designed in the wide Columbian format. The eight lowest values illustrated aspects of mail handling and delivery, while higher denominations depicted such industries as Manufacturing, Dairying and Fruit Growing. Five green Parcel Post Postage Due stamps appeared concurrently. It soon became obvious that none of these stamps was needed: parcel postage could easily be paid by definitive or commemorative issues, and normal postage due stamps were sufficient for parcels. When original stocks ran out, no reprints appeared, nor were replacements for either group ever contemplated.
On November 3, 1917, the normal letter rate was raised from 2¢ to 3¢ in support of the war effort. The rate hike was reflected in the first postwar commemorative—a 3¢ "victory" stamp released on March 3, 1919 (not until July 1 would postal fees return to peacetime levels).
The 1920s and 1930s
The stamps of the 1920s were dominated by the Series of 1922, the first new design of definitive stamps to appear in a generation. The lower values mostly depicted various Presidents, with the 5c particularly intended as a memorial of the recently-deceased Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, while the higher values included an "American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
" (Hollow Horn Bear
Hollow Horn Bear
Hollow Horn Bear was a Brulé Sioux leader during the Indian Wars on the Great Plains of the United States....
), the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
, Golden Gate
Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is the North American strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge...
(without the bridge, which had yet to be built), Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
, a bison
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
, the Lincoln Memorial
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...
and so forth. Higher values of the series (from 17¢ through $5) were differentiated from the cheaper stamps by being designed in horizontal (landscape) rather than vertical format, an idea carried over from the "big Bens" of the Washington-Franklin series. Stamp printing was switching from a flat plate press to a rotary press while these stamps were in use, and most come in two perforations as a result; 11 for flat plate, and 11x10.5 for rotary. In 1929, theft problems in the Midwest led to the Kansas-Nebraska overprints on the regular stamps. (See also: Fourth Bureau issue
Fourth Bureau issue
The Fourth Bureau Issue, also known as the Series of 1922, was a definitive series of postage stamps issued by the United States between 1922 and 1938. The series comprises 27 different designs with denominations ranging from one-half cent to 5 dollars...
).
From 1924 on, commemorative stamps appeared every year. The 1920s saw a number of 150th anniversaries connected with the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, and a number of stamps were issued in connection with those. These included the first US souvenir sheet, for the Battle of White Plains
Battle of White Plains
The Battle of White Plains was a battle in the New York and New Jersey campaign of the American Revolutionary War fought on October 28, 1776, near White Plains, New York. Following the retreat of George Washington's Continental Army northward from New York City, British General William Howe landed...
sesquicentennial, and the first overprint
Overprint
An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a postage stamp or banknote after it has been printed. Post offices most often use overprints for internal administrative purposes such as accounting but they are also employed in public mail...
, reading "MOLLY / PITCHER
Molly Pitcher
Molly Pitcher was a nickname given to a woman said to have fought in the American Revolutionary War, who is generally believed to have been Mary Ludwig Hays...
", the heroine of the Battle of Monmouth
Battle of Monmouth
The Battle of Monmouth was an American Revolutionary War battle fought on June 28, 1778 in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The Continental Army under General George Washington attacked the rear of the British Army column commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton as they left Monmouth Court...
.
Two Cent Red Sesquicentennial issues of 1926–1932
During this period the US Post Office issued more than a dozen 'Two Cent Reds' commemorating the 150th anniversaries of Battles and Events that occurred during the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. The first among these was the Liberty Bell 150th Anniversary Issue of 1926, designed by Clair Aubrey Huston, and engraved by J.Eissler & E.M.Hall, two among America's most renowned master engravers. The 'Two Cent Reds' were among the last stamps used to carry a letter for 2 cents, the rate changing to 3 cents on July 6, 1932. There the rate remained for 26 years until it finally changed to 4 cents in 1958.
----
The German zeppelin
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
s were of much interest during this period, and in 1930 the Department issued special stamps to be used on the Pan-American flight of Graf Zeppelin
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was a German built and operated passenger-carrying hydrogen-filled rigid airship which operated commercially from 1928 to 1937. It was named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who was a Graf or Count in the German nobility. During its operating life,...
.
Although the Graf Zeppelin stamps
1930 Graf Zeppelin stamps
The 1930 Graf Zeppelins were a set of three commemorative postage stamps issued by the United States in 1930. Although the stamps were valid for postage shipped via the Zeppelin Pan American flight from Germany to the United States , the set was marketed to collectors and was largely intended to...
are today highly prized by collectors as masterpieces of the engraver's art, in 1930 the recent stock market crash meant that few were able to afford these stamps (the $4.55 value for the set represented a week's food allowance for a family of four). Less than 10 percent of the 1,000,000 of each denomination issued were sold and the remainders were incinerated (the stamps were only available for sale to the public from April 19, 1930, to June 30, 1930). It is estimated that less than 8 percent of the stamps produced survive today and they remain the smallest U.S. issue of the 20th century (only 229,260 of these stamps were ever purchased, and only 61,296 of the $2.60 stamp were sold).
In 1932 a set of 12 stamps was issued to celebrate the George Washington's 200th birthday 1932 Washington Bicentennial
1932 Washington Bicentennial
The 1932 Washington Bicentennial are postage stamps issued by the United States government in 1932 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of President George Washington's birth...
. For the 2¢ value, which satisfied the normal letter rate, the most familiar Gilbert Stuart image of Washington had been chosen. After postal rates rose that July, this 2¢ red Washington was redesigned as a 3¢ stamp and issued in the purple color that now became ubiquitous among U. S. commemoratives.
The New Deal Era
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt became President. He was notable not only as an avid collector in his own right (with a collection estimated at around 1 million stamps), but also for taking an interest in the stamp issues of the Department, working closely with Postmaster James FarleyJames Farley
James Aloysius Farley was the first Irish Catholic politician in American history to achieve success on a national level, serving as Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and as Postmaster General simultaneously under the first two...
, the former Democratic Party Committee Chairman. Many designs of the 1930s were inspired or altered according to Roosevelt's advice. In 2009-10, the US National Postal Museum
National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum, located opposite Union Station in Washington, D.C., USA, was established through joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution and opened in 1993. The museum is located across the street from Union Station, in the building that...
exhibited six Roosevelt sketches that were developed into stamp issues: the 6-cent eagle airmail stamp and five miscellaneous commemoratives, which honored the Byrd Antarctic Expedition, the Mothers of America, Susan B. Anthony, Virginia Dare and the Northwest Territories' rise to statehood. A steady stream of commemoratives appeared during these years, including a striking 1934 issue of ten stamps presenting iconic vistas of ten National Parks—a set that has remained widely beloved. (In a memorable sequence from Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
’s novel The Plot Against America
The Plot Against America
The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternate history in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh.-Plot introduction:...
, the young protagonist dreams that his National Parks stamps, the pride and joy of his collection, have become disfigured with swastika overprints.) Choosing an orange color for the 2¢ Grand Canyon tableau instead of the standard 2¢ carmine red, the Post Office departed from U. P. U. color-coding for the first time.
With a philatelist in the White House, the Post Office catered to collectors as never before, issuing seven separate souvenir sheets between 1933 and 1937. In one case, a collectors’ series had to be produced as the result of a miscalculation. Around 1935, Postmaster Farley removed sheets of the National Parks set from stock before they had been gummed or perforated, giving these and unfinished examples of ten other issues to President Roosevelt and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes
Harold L. Ickes
Harold LeClair Ickes was a United States administrator and politician. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for 13 years, from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest serving Cabinet member in U.S. history next to James Wilson. Ickes...
(also a philatelist) as curiosities for their collections. When word of these gifts got out, public outcries arose. Some accused Farley of a corrupt scheme to enrich Roosevelt and Ickes by creating valuable rarities for them at taxpayer expense. Stamp aficionados, in turn, demanded that these curiosities be sold to the public so that ordinary collectors could acquire them, and Farley duly issued them in bulk. This series of special printings soon became known as “Farley’s Follies.” As the decade progressed, the purples used for 3¢ issues, although still ostensibly conforming to the U. P. U. code, displayed an increasingly wide variety of hues, and one 1940 issue, a 3¢ stamp commemorating the Pony Express, dispensed with purple entirely, appearing in a rust brown earth tone more suitable to the image of a horse and rider departing from a western rural post office.
Presidential Issue of 1938
The famous Presidential IssuePresidential Issue
The Presidential Issue, nicknamed the Prexies by collectors, is the series of definitive postage stamps issued in the United States in 1938, featuring all 29 U.S. presidents from George Washington through Calvin Coolidge...
, known as "Prexies" for short, came out in 1938. The series featured all 29 U.S. presidents through Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
, each of whom appeared in profile as a small sculptural bust. Values of 50¢ and lower were mono-colored; on the $1, $2, and $5 stamps the presidents' images were printed in black on white, surrounded by colored lettering and ornamentation. Up through the 22¢ Cleveland stamp, the denomination assigned to each president corresponds to his position in the presidential roster: thus the first president, Washington, is on the 1¢ value, the seventeenth, Andrew Johnson, is on the 17¢ value, etc. Additional stamps depict Franklin (½¢), Martha Washington
Martha Washington
Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington is considered to be the first First Lady of the United States...
(1½¢), and the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
(4½¢). Many of the values were included merely to place the presidents in proper numerical order and did not necessarily correspond to a postal rate; and one of the (difficult) games for Prexie collectors is to find a cover with, for instance, a single 16¢ stamp that pays a combination of rate and fees valid during the Prexies' period of usage. Many such covers remain to be discovered; some sellers on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
have been surprised to discover an ordinary-seeming cover bid up to several hundred dollars because it was one of the sought-after solo usages. The Presidential issue remained in distribution for many years. Not until 1954 did the Post Office begin replacing its values with the stamps of a new definitive issue, the Liberty series.
Famous Americans Series of 1940
- In 1940 the US Post Office issued a set of 35 stamps, issued over the course of approximately ten months, commemorating America's famous Authors, Poets, Educators, Scientists, Composers, Artists and Inventors. The Educators included Booker T. Washington, who now became the first African-American to be honored on a U. S. Stamp. This series of Postage issues was printed by the Bureau of Engraving and PrintingBureau of Engraving and PrintingThe Bureau of Engraving and Printing is a government agency within the United States Department of the Treasury that designs and produces a variety of security products for the United States government, most notable of which is paper currency for the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve itself is...
. These stamps were larger in size than normal definitive issues, with only 280 stamp images contained on the printing plate (400 images was standard for the Presidential series). Notable also is the red-violet color chosen for the 3¢ stamps, a brighter hue than the traditional U. P. U. purple.
----
Authors: Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
- James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
- Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
- Samuel Clemens
----
Poets: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
- John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
- James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets...
- Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
- James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the Hoosier Poet and Children's Poet for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively...
----
Educators: Horace Mann
Horace Mann
Horace Mann was an American education reformer, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was...
- Mark Hopkins
Mark Hopkins (educator)
Mark Hopkins was an American educator and theologian.-Life and career:Great-nephew of the theologian Samuel Hopkins, Mark Hopkins was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts...
- Charles Elliot
Charles Elliot
Sir Charles Elliot, KCB , was a British naval officer, diplomat, and colonial administrator. He became the first administrator of Hong Kong in 1841 while serving as both Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China...
- Frances E. Willard
Frances Willard (suffragist)
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution...
- Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
----
Scientists: John James Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...
- Dr. Crawford W. Long - Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science.He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 54-year career. Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables...
- Dr. Walter Reed
Walter Reed
Major Walter Reed, M.D., was a U.S. Army physician who in 1900 led the team that postulated and confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by a particular mosquito species, rather than by direct contact...
- Jane Addams
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace...
----
Composers: Stephen Collins Foster - John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
- Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
- Edward A. MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...
- Ethelbert Nevin
----
Artists: Gilbert Charles Stuart
Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Charles Stuart was an American painter from Rhode Island.Gilbert Stuart is widely considered to be one of America's foremost portraitists...
- James McNeil Whistler - Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
- Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
- Frederick Remington
----
Inventors Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South...
- Samuel F. B. Morse
Samuel F. B. Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.-Birth and education:...
- Cyrus Hall McCormick - Elias Howe
Elias Howe
Elias Howe, Jr. was an American inventor and sewing machine pioneer.-Early life & family:Howe was born on July 9, 1819 to Dr. Elias Howe, Sr. and Polly Howe in Spencer, Massachusetts. Howe spent his childhood and early adult years in Massachusetts where he apprenticed in a textile factory in...
- Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
World War II
During the war, production of new U. S. 3 cent commemoratives all but ground to a halt. Among the three issues that appeared in 1942 was the celebrated Win the War stamp, which enjoyed enormously wide use, owing partly to patriotism and partly to the relative unavailability of alternatives. It presents an eagle posed in a "V" shape for victory surrounded by 13 stars. The eagle is grasping arrows, but has no olive branch. A notable commemorative set did, indeed, appear in 1943-44, but its stamps, all valued at 5 cents, were not competitive with the Win the War issue. This was the Overrun Countries series (known to collectors as the Flag set), produced as a tribute to the thirteen nations that had been occupied by the Axis PowersAxis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
.
The thirteen stamps present full color images of the national flags
FLAGS
The FLAGS pipeline is a natural gas pipeline in the North Sea which is used to transport liquids and associated gas from the following fields:* Cormorant A* North Cormorant* North West Hutton...
of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, and Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, with the names of the respective countries written beneath. To the left of each flag appears the image of the phoenix
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
, which symbolizes the renewal of life, and to its right appears a kneeling female figure with arms raised, breaking the shackles of servitude.
The stamps with flags of European countries were released at intervals from June to December 1943, while the Korea flag stamp was released in November 1944.
American Bank Note Company
The American Bank Note Company was a major worldwide engraver of national currency and postage stamps. Currently it engraves and prints stock and bond certificates.-History:Robert Scot, the first official engraver of the young U.S...
, to produce the series—the first U. S. stamps to be printed by a private company since 1893. Uniquely among U. S. issues, the sheets lack the plate numbers usually printed on the selvage surrounding the stamps. In the places where the numbers normally appear on each sheet, the name of the country is substituted, engraved in capital letters.
Post-World War II
The post-World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
stamp program followed a consistent pattern for many years: a steady stream of commemorative issues sold as single stamps at the first-class letter rate. For many of these issued in honor of individuals, the Post Office employed the same format, enlarged size, general design style and red-violet hue used in the 1940 Famous Americans series. Indeed, as has been noted, the Postal Service had become increasingly lax about employing the purple recommended by the Universal Postal Union for 3¢ stamps, and after the war, departures from the color code in commemoratives veritably became the rule rather than the exception (although U. P. U. colors would continue to be used in the definitive issues of the next decades). Beginning in 1948, Congressional Representatives and Senators began to push the Post Office for stamps proposed by constituents, leading to a relative flood of stamps honoring obscure persons and organizations. Stamp issue did not again become well regulated until the formation of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee
Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee
The United States Postal Service's Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee evaluates potential subjects for U.S. postage stamps and reports its recommendations to the Postmaster General, who makes the final decision.-Purpose:...
(CSAC) in 1957.
The Liberty issue
Liberty Issue
The Liberty issue was a definitive series of postage stamps issued by the United States between 1954 and 1965. It offered twenty-four denominations, ranging from a half-cent issue showing Benjamin Franklin to a five dollar issue depicting Alexander Hamilton...
of 1954, deep in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, took a much more political slant than previous issues. The common first-class stamp was a 3¢ Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
in purple, and included the inscription "In God We Trust
In God We Trust
"In God We Trust" was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. It is also the motto of the U.S. state of Florida. The Legality of this motto has been questioned because of the United States Constitution forbidding the government to make any law respecting the establishment of a...
", the first explicit religious reference on a U.S. stamp (ten days before the issue of the 3¢ Liberty stamp, the words "under God" had been inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance). The Statue of Liberty appeared on two additional higher values as well, 8¢ and 11¢, both of which were printed in two colors. The other stamps in the series included liberty-related statesmen and landmarks, such as Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry was an orator and politician who led the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779 and subsequently, from 1784 to 1786...
and Bunker Hill
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, mostly on and around Breed's Hill, during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War...
, although other subjects, (Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States . Harrison, a grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at age 21, eventually becoming a prominent politician there...
, for example) seem unrelated to the basic theme.
In 1957 the American Flag was featured on a U. S. stamp for the first time. The Post Office had long avoided this image, fearing accusations that, in issuing stamps on which they would be defacing the flag by cancellation marks, they would be both committing and fomenting desecration. However, protests against this initial flag issue were muted, and the flag has remained a perennially popular U. S. stamp subject ever since.
The 3¢ rate for first-class had been unchanged since 1932, but by 1958 there were no more efficiency gains to keep the lid on prices, and the rate went to 4¢, beginning a steady series of rate increases that reached 44¢ as of May 11, 2009.
The Prominent Americans series
Prominent Americans series
The Prominent Americans series is a set of definitive stamps issued by the United States Post Office Department between 1965 and 1978....
superseded the "Liberties" in the 1960s and proved the last definitive issue to conform to the Universal Postal Union color code. In the 1970s, they were replaced by the Americana series
Americana series
The Americana series was a series of United States definitive postage stamps issued between 1975 and 1981. Denominations ranged from one cent to five dollars. It superseded the Prominent Americans series, and was in turn superseded by the Great Americans series and the Transportation coils...
, in which colors became purely a matter of designer preference.
In 1971 the Post Office was reorganized, becoming the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
(USPS). However, it is still heavily regulated, with, for instance, the CSAC continuing to decide which commemorative stamps to issue.
Air Mail
Airmail in the United States Post Office emerged in three stages beginning with the 'pioneer period' where there were many unofficial flights carrying the mail prior to 1918, the year the US Post Office assumed delivery of all Air Mail. The US Post office began contracting out to the private sector to carry the mail (Contract Air Mail, CAM) on February 15, 1926. In 1934 all US Air Mail was carried by the U.S. Army for six months, after which the contract system resumed.
Abraham Lincoln postage issues
-
- On April 14, 1866, one year to the day after Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
's assassination, the U.S. Post Office issued its first postage stamp honoring the fallen President. It is considered by some as America's first commemorative stamp. From that point on Lincoln's portrayal appeared on a variety of US postage stamps and today exists on more than a dozen issues. Lincoln is also honored on commemorative stamps issued by Costa Rica and Nicaragua. With the exceptions of George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
and Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
Lincoln appears on US Postage more than any other famous American.
- On April 14, 1866, one year to the day after Abraham Lincoln
Modern U.S. stamps
The first self-adhesive stampSelf-adhesive stamp
A self-adhesive stamp is a postage stamp with a pressure sensitive adhesive that does not require moistening in order to adhere to paper. They are usually issued on a removable backing paper....
was a 10 cent stamp from the Christmas issue of 1974. It was not considered successful, and the surviving stamps, though not rare, are all gradually becoming discolored due to the adhesive used. Self-adhesives were not issued again until 1989, gradually becoming so popular that , only a handful of types are offered with the traditional gum (now affectionately called "manual stamps" by postal employees).
The increasing frequency of postal rate increases from the 1970s on, and the necessity to wait for these to be approved by Congress, made it problematic for the Postal Service to provide stamps matching the increased costs in a timely manner. Until it was known, for example, whether the new first-class rate would be 16c or, instead, 15c, no denominated stamp could be printed. The Postal Service found a way to bypass this problem in 1978. Preparatory to that year’s increase, an orange colored stamp with a simple eagle design appeared bearing the denomination "A" instead of a number; and the public was informed that this stamp would satisfy the new first-class rate, whatever it turned out to be. Subsequent rate increases resulted in B, C and D stamps, which bore the same eagle design but were printed, respectively, in purple, buff-brown and blue-green. When it came time for an E stamp in 1987, the Postal Service commissioned a more elaborate design: a color picture of the globe as seen from space (E for Earth). Rises since have prompted F for Flower, G for Old Glory and H for Hat stamps, all appropriately illustrated. The F stamp in 1991 was accompanied by an undenominated "make-up" stamp with no pictorial design beyond a frame, which enclosed the words "This U. S. stamp, along with 25c of additional U. S. postage, is equivalent to the 'F' stamp rate."
The Great Americans series
Great Americans series
The Great Americans series is a set of definitive stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, starting on December 27, 1980 with the 19¢ stamp depicting Sequoyah, and continuing through 2002, the final stamp being the 78¢ Alice Paul self-adhesive stamp. The series, noted for its simplicity...
and the Transportation coils
Transportation coils
The Transportation coils series is a set of definitive stamps issued by the United States Postal Service between 1981 and 1995. Officially dubbed the "Transportation Issue" or "Transportation Series", they have come to be called the "transportation coils" because all of the denominations were...
began appearing in 1980 and 1981, respectively. The transportation coils were used steadily for some 20 years, while Great Americans still appear regularly .
The increasing use of email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and other technologies during the 1990s led to a decline in the amount of first-class mail, while bulk mail increased. A large variety of commemorative stamps continue to appear, but more and more of them just go to collectors, while the stamps of the average person's daily mail are non-denominated types issued specifically for businesses.
In 2005, after 111 years of producing American postage stamps, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing ended its involvement with the postal service.
On April 12, 2007, the Forever stamp went on sale for 41 cents, and is good for mailing one-ounce First-Class letters anytime in the future—regardless of price changes. The postage on such letters is currently 44 cents (as of May 11, 2009). In 2011, the Post Office began issuing all new stamps for First-Class postage—both definitives and commemoratives—as Forever stamps: denominations were no longer included on them.
On February 25, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
-Vacancies and pending nominations:-List of former judges:-Chief judges:Notwithstanding the foregoing, when the court was initially created, Congress had to resolve which chief judge of the predecessor courts would become the first chief judge...
ruled 2-1 that the Frank Gaylor, sculptor of the Korean War Veterans Memorial
Korean War Veterans Memorial
The Korean War Veterans Memorial is located in Washington, D.C.'s West Potomac Park, southeast of the Lincoln Memorial and just south of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall...
was entitled to compensation when an image of that sculpture was used on a 37 cent postage stamp because he had not signed away his intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
rights to the sculpture when it was erected. The appeals court rejected arguments that the photo was transformative
Transformativeness
Transformativeness is a concept used in United States copyright law to describe a characteristic of some derivative works that makes them transcend or place in a new light the underlying works on which they are based...
. In 2006 sculptor Frank Gaylord enlisted Fish & Richardson
Fish & Richardson
Fish & Richardson P.C. is a national law firm practicing intellectual property law.Fish is the 109th largest firm in the United States. Fish has over 350 attorneys, of which 96 percent are dedicated to intellectual property law. Fish is one of the most sought-after firms for both patent...
to make a pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
claim that the Postal Service had violated his Intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
rights to the sculpture and thus should have been compensated. The Postal Service argued that Gaylord was not the sole sculptor (saying he had received advice from federal sources—who recommended that the uniforms appear more in the wind) and also that the sculpture was actually architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. Gaylord won all of his arguments in the lower court except for one: the court ruled the photo was fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
and thus he was not entitled to compensation. Gaylord appealed and won the case on appeal. The case can now either be appealed to the United States Supreme Court or damages can be assessed by the lower court.
Later in the year, automated stamp and bank automatic teller machines began dispensing thinner stamps. The thin stamps were to make it easier for automated stamp machines to dispense and to make the stamps more environmentally friendly.From WRGB
New stamps
Twelve criteria for new stamps and postal stationery include that "events of historical significance shall be considered for commemoration only on anniversaries in multiples of 50 years." For many years, these included the restriction that "no postal item will be issued sooner than five years after the individual's death," with an exception provided for stamps memorializing recently deceased U.S. Presidents. In September 2011, however, the postal service announced that, in an attempt to increase flagging revenues, stamps would soon offer images of celebrated living persons, chosen by the Committee in response to suggestions submitted by the public via surface mail and social networks on the internet. The revised criterion reads: "The Postal Service will honor living men and women who have made extraordinary contributions to American society and culture."On June 14, 2008, in Washington, DC, the Postal Service™ issued the first set of 10 designs in the 42–cent Flags of Our Nation stamps. The stamps were designed by Howard E. Paine of Delaplane, Virginia. Two sets of ten stamps will be issued each year through 2010 for a total of sixty stamp designs. Currently the Flags of Our Nation stamps program has been issued five sets.
Timeline
- 1639: First American Post Office set up in Boston
- 1672: New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
City mail service to BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts - 1674: Mail service in ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
- 1683: William PennWilliam PennWilliam Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
begins weekly service to PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and MarylandMarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
villages and towns - 1693: service between colonies began in VirginiaVirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
- 1775: First postmaster general appointed: Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
- 1799: U.S. Congress passes law authorizing death penalty for mail robbery
- 1813: First mail carried by steamboatSteamboatA steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
- 1832: First official railroad mail service
- 1847: First U.S. postage stamps issued
- 1857: perforated stamps introduced
- 1860: Pony ExpressPony ExpressThe Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
started - 1861: Mailing of post cards permitted
- 1873: Pre-stamped "postal cards" introduced
- 1879: Postage Due stamps introduced
- 1885: Special Delivery service introduced
- 1893: First commemorative event stamps: World's Columbian ExpositionWorld's Columbian ExpositionThe World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago - 1913: Domestic parcel post delivery began
- 1918: First airmail stamps used
- 1920: Transcontinental mail between New York and San Francisco
- 1955: Certified MailCertified MailCertified Mail is a type of Special Service mail offered by the United States Postal Service and other postal services that allows the sender proof of mailing, as well as proof of delivery. Certified Mail also provides the sender with a copy of the recipient's signature, which is obtained at the...
service introduced - 1958: Well-known artists begin designing stamps
- 1963: ZIP CodeZIP CodeZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
s introduced - 1983: ZIP + 4 code introduced
- 1989: Priority Mail introduced
- 1997: Special Delivery discontinued
See also
- Airmails of the United StatesAirmails of the United StatesAirmails of the United States or U.S. Air Mail relates to the servicing of flown mails by the U.S. postal system within the United States, its possessions, and/or territories, marked as "Via Air Mail" , appropriately franked, and afforded any then existing class or sub-class of U.S...
- Constitutional Post
- History of United States postage rates
- List of people on stamps of the United States
- Pony ExpressPony ExpressThe Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
- Postage stamps and postal history of the Confederate StatesPostage stamps and postal history of the Confederate StatesThe postage stamps and postal system of the Confederate States of America carried the mail of the Confederacy for a brief period in American history. Early in 1861 when South Carolina territory no longer considered itself part of the Union and demanded that the U.S. Army abandon Fort Sumter, plans...
- Revenue stamps of the United StatesRevenue stamps of the United StatesRevenue stamps have been in use in the United States since colonial times and continue to be issued today.-First stamps:The first revenue stamps used in the America were British colonial issues...
- US Presidents on US postage stamps
- US space exploration history on US stamps
- US Regular Issues of 1922-1931
- Washington-Franklin IssuesWashington-Franklin IssuesThe Washington - Franklin Issues are a series of definitive U.S. Postage stamps depicting George Washington and Benjamin Franklin produced by the U.S. Post Office between 1908 and 1922...
- Federal Duck StampFederal Duck StampThe federal duck stamp was created through a wetlands conservation program. President Herbert Hoover signed the Migratory Bird Conservation Act in 1929 to authorize the acquisition and preservation of wetlands as waterfowl habitat....
- Artists of stamps of the United StatesArtists of stamps of the United StatesThis article lists people whose artwork has been featured on stamps of the United States. For this purpose "featured" is not limited to complete works but includes any identifiable representation of their works. Thus the "Geophysical Year" stamp of 1958 is considered to feature the work of...