"We bring you 'Voices from America,'" said announcer William Harlan Hale at the start of a 15-minute shortwave radio broadcast that was transmitted into Germany on February 1, 1942. "Today, and …
Be well. Stay safe. Fight for justice.
Work for peace.
In April of 2020, not long after the COVID-19 pandemic began, I had an inexplicable urge to dig into my late father’s stamp collection, which had been sitting unexamined on my shelves since about 2012. I created a challenge for myself: each day find a stamp that was somehow connected to that day, write a short blurb about it, and post it on Facebook with a picture of the stamp. I thought I’d do that for a few weeks. But the pandemic continued and what started as short blurbs became a year of daily essays that not only discussed historic events, famous people, and obscure Americana but also recounted personal and family stories and examined how these decades-old stamps shed light on a host contemporary challenges. Thanks to my daughter Rebecca, every one of those 365 essays – from the early succinct ones to the later rambling ones – are collected on this website, where you can view them by date, by broad category, or by whether they were my “personal favorites.” I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
Historical Figures & Events
Delving into the people and events that shaped history
Culture & Society
Exploring Americana artifacts and other obscure areas of US history
Contemporary Issues
Discussing the pandemic, 2020 politics, and other recent happenings
Personal & Family Lore
Recounting stories from my childhood, “adulthood,” and family’s history
Featured Essays
Author favorites
Today, when violent right-wing fascists have attacked the US Capital, I find it heartening to see that on January 6, 1941, at a time when the Nazis and other fascists …
You would think that after writing 337 #stampoftheday posts, that a stamp could no longer surprise me. While you'd usually be right. Today you are wrong. The stamp that surprised me …
"Register - Vote" is the uncannily timely message from today's #stampoftheday, a 5-cent stamp issued on August 1, 1964. I have mixed reactions to this stamp. Obviously, I agree with its basic …
Very few stamps were issued during first years of World War II and most that were issued related directly to the war and the war effort. But one of the …
Today's #stampoftheday manages to simultaneously diminish both a notable woman and the state of New Jersey. Issued in 1928, the stamp was issued to mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle …