Sixty-five years ago this month, a new stamp celebrated a pioneering automated Post Office in Providence, RI.
The Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, which had formed only three years earlier in 1957, had decided against issuing the stamp because they considered the theme too self-referential, but they were overruled by Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield. His instincts proved correct: More than 833,000 of the stamps were sold on the facility’s opening day alone.
Self-referential themes were not without precedent — Special Delivery stamps with the image of a messenger boy were issued in 1885, and a set of 1913 Parcel Post stamps included representations of postal workers — but the success of the 1960 issue paved the way for several postal-themed releases to follow in the ’60s and beyond, including:
• City Mail Delivery, a 1963 stamp that celebrated 100 years of free city mail delivery from 1863 to 1963. The artwork by Norman Rockwell shows a letter carrier with a handlebar mustache carrying an umbrella in the rain, with a boy and dog underfoot.
• The USPS eagle, released on July 1, 1971, the day the Postal Service was born. The stamp depicted the new organization’s corporate seal designed by Raymond Loewy, a well-known industrial artist, and sold for eight cents. First-day-of-issue cancellations of the stamp at small Post Offices are considered rarities.
• Postal Service Employees, a set of 10 designs released in 1973 that included colorful midcentury drawings of letter carriers, retail associates, rural carriers and more.
• Rural Free Delivery, a 1996 stamp celebrating the 100th anniversary of rural free delivery. The stamp was issued in Charleston, WV, at the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association’s 92nd national convention.
Fast-forward 50-plus years and USPS has done it again: In July, the organization released 250 Years of Delivering, a pane of 20 illustrated se-tenant stamps that follow a letter carrier as she completes her route through the four seasons. The artwork was created by graphic novelist Chris Ware, who co-designed the pane with Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS.
Ware told the Stamps Forever website that the experience of researching the stamps deepened his appreciation for postal employees, “who work so extraordinarily hard in conditions both physical and psychological … They’re all amazing people.”
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