West - A History of America in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps

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A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN THIRTY-SIX

POSTAGE STAMPS

To Rayna, with love

CONTENTS

AUTHORS NOTE

LIKE MANY MEN of my ageIve just hit sixtyI collected stamps as a boy. The adventure then was about geographical space. Stamps took me to all sorts of places Id never been to: coral islands in the Pacific; mountainous European principalities; African plains where lions and giraffes roamed; space itself, with its sputniks and cosmonauts. When I became an adolescent, other aspects of life became more pressing, and the stamp album disappeared into the family attic. Many years later, it was rediscovered, and I fell for philately all over again, but now with a different focus: It was all to do with time. Each of these little pieces of paper, it seemed to me, was a time-travel machine that could whisk me back to another era. It could do so with its design, with the way it was made, with the political/national story it was intended to telland, of course, with the story of each individual stamp. Someone stuck this 2 stamp with George Washington on it on a letter in 1884. What was America like then? What was Americans life like? Who was the letter sent to and why?

Hence this book. It has grown naturally out of a collection that I slowly filled with pages of notes on the history of the stamps themselves and on the eras that they took me back to. I hope you, as a reader, will enjoy making thirty-six of these journeys with me.

I should say a few words to nonphilatelists who might read this book, explaining some technical terms (though dont worry, Im not going to get too technical). Stamps can be divided into two types, definitives and commemoratives. Definitives are the ordinary stamps we buy at the post office and stick on letters. They are on sale all the time, or at least for a number of years until a new series replaces them. Commemoratives are special stamps, issued to commemorate a special event and only on sale for a short while. Years ago, commemoratives were rare: As you will see from the main text, the first U.S. one was issued in 1893, to commemorate (belatedly) the 400th anniversary of Columbuss arrival on San Salvador. Modern commemoratives dont necessarily commemorate anythingthey just look nice, as the USPS has worked out that well buy a stamp simply because we like its appearance.

Stamps come in two conditions, mint and used. A mint stamp has never been stuck on an envelope or put through the postand is usually, though not always, worth more than a used one. Used, rather obviously, means postmarked. A special kind of postmark makes a first day cover, or FDC: All stamps are formally issued on a specific day, and if the stamp is on an envelope and stamped with this day, that makes it an FDC. Such envelopes may often have special designs or cachets on them, hammering home the message that they were posted on the day the stamp or stamps first went on sale to the public.

Philatelists often talk about such-and-such an issue, meaning a set of stamps issued at a particular time. The 1893 Columbus stamps are sometimes called the Columbus issue or the Columbian issue. Stamps from the definitive set produced the following year, the first to be printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, are called the first Bureau issue. And so on.

Each stamp in this book is shown with its Scott catalog number. This catalog is the reference book for philatelists, in which each stamp is lovingly numbered (and its many varieties explicated).

I had a clear plan when writing this book, that each chapter would be about the era in which the stamp is issued. I found this difficult to keep to, however, as it is hard to write a book on American history that doesnt start in, or around, 1765. (The fact that the Revolution was effectively ignited by a law called the Stamp Act makes this even harder in my case.) So 1765 it is. However, the United States didnt issue stamps until 1847. Ive cheated here: The first few chapters show stamps that feature the historical figure who inspired the chapter but that were actually issued later. What I have kept is historical sequence: The thirty-six stamps are all in temporal order (except one, as you will find out as you read this book).

I would like to thank some other people who have made the book a reality. My agent, Diane Banks, and my editor at Picador, Stephen Morrison, must come first, but others have contributed, too. Daniel Piazza at the Smithsonian was a mine of information, an excellent host when I visited the National Postal Museum, and also kindly provided images of the stamps for our use. Earl Toops shared both his enthusiasm for U.S. stamps and a wonderful set of albums and catalogs, as well as coming up with some great suggestions for subjects. LeeAnn Falciani produced this fine jacket. (Every time I look at it, I hear a Sousa march strike up.) Peter Horoszko did sterling work on getting permission to use the images, as well as other editorial jobs; India Cooper was an excellent copyeditor, respecting the text but ever-vigilant for errors; Casey Maloney has been an enthusiastic and assiduous publicist. Don Sundman of the Mystic Stamp Company and Denis Tucker gave me useful steers when looking for information. And, of course, back home, Rayna and Imogen gave unfailing support and encouragement. Thank you, and anyone else involved that I havent been able to mention by name.

Finally, please get in touch if you have enjoyed the bookor if you disagree (or strongly agree) with anything Ive said! I can be contacted via my Web site, www.chriswest.info.

Thats enough intro. Its time to clamber into the first of these thirty-six little rectangular time-travel machines and get moving

ONE

Smithsonian National Postal Museum

LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS!

George III of Great Britain Revenue Stamp, 1765

T HE U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA began with a stamp. This one.

There had been, of course, other American beginnings. Nobody knows exactly when the countrys first human inhabitants crossed the frozen Bering Strait from Siberia, or how many waves of such immigration took place: Three is the currently accepted figure, and 15,000 B.C. an estimated date for the first arrivalinto a land of giant bears, mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers, most of which soon became extinct. We do know that around the year 1000, the Vikings crossed the Atlantic in 50-foot ships to trade for wood and furs. Their main ports of call were in Canada, but a Norse coin has been found in Maine.

Christopher Columbus landed on October 12, 1492on an island he named San Salvador. He never actually set foot on mainland North America, but despite this, he became lauded as the discoverer of the continent, as a magnificent 1893 stamp issue, the nations first commemorative set, attests. Amerigo Vespucci, after whom the continent was named in 1507, never visited mainland North America, either (and never even got to appear on a U.S. stamp).