A 5-cent stamp picturing Ulysses S. Grant that was issued on June 11, 1895 “should” be today’s #stampoftheday. But since Grant was the subject of the May 28 #stampoftheday I’m going to reach back a few days to the wonderfully illustrative, 4-cent “American Women” stamp that I overlooked on June 2nd, which was the 60th anniversary of its issuance.

As the wonderful Mystic Stamp website notes in a delightfully nondescript, unironic, and unusually short description, the stamp “pays tribute to American women and their accomplishments. It shows a mother and daughter before a book, surrounded by symbols of areas where women have made contributions in Education, Civic Affairs, and Arts & Industry.”

However, and yet again, closer examination produces an amazing tale. When the stamp was issued, the Post Office had issued more than 1,150 stamps in about 113 years since the first U.S. stamp was issued in 1847. Women were featured on 2.4 percent of these stamps—27 in all.

Moreover, the same two women were featured on 10 of those 27 stamps. The first woman to appear on a US stamp was Queen Isabella of Spain who appeared on six stamps issued in 1893 in conjunction with the 1893 World Colombian Exposition in Chicago. The second woman to appear on a stamp (and the first American woman to do so) was Martha Washington, who appeared on a 1902 stamp that was part of a series that featured several presidents, a few famous senators (e.g. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay), and some military heroes. Martha reappeared again in 1923 and 1938, when she was part of two series that mainly honored presidents.

Only five other women were pictured on stamps issued before 1940: Pocahontas (1907), Susan B. Anthony (1936), Virginia Dare (1937), “The Greatest Mother” (1931) and James Whistler’s portrait of his mother (1934).

Three women were among the 35 “famous Americans” honored on stamps issued in 1940: Jane Addams, Louisa May Alcott, Francis. E. Willard (an educator who led the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union).

Then there was an 8-year gap until 1948, when stamps were issued honoring Clara Barton, Julia Gordon Low, and Moina Michael, a humanitarian best known for the idea of using poppies as a symbol of remembrance for those who served in World War I. 1948 also saw the release of stamps honoring Gold Star Mothers and (in a move that has to define irony) one on “The Progress of Women.”

And only three stamps issued in the 1950s pictured women: Betsy Ross (1952), Susan B. Anthony (1955), and “Service Women” (1952). And that brings us to the 1960 “American Women” stamp, which, of course, features a white woman and child.

As best I can tell, no stamp portrayed a black woman until 1978 when the postal service issued a 13-cent stamp with a picture of Harriet Tubman. This, by the way, was only the 11th (of more than 1,700 stamps issued up to that time) that pictured a black person. The first black to be portrayed was Booker T. Washington on a 1940 stamp that was part of the Famous Americans series. A stamp marked passage of the 13th amendment was also issued in 1940. And then no black was portrayed until 1948 when George Washington Carver was pictured on a 3-cent stamp. Seven more years passed until the next portrayal of a black, a 1956 stamp marking the centennial of Booker T. Washington’s birth. And then seven more years passed, until a 1963 stamp marking the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the primacy of the civil rights movement in 1960s, only two other stamps featuring blacks were issued over the rest of the 1960s, one showing Frederick Douglass (1967) and one portraying musician W.C. Handy (1969). Three more stamps featuring blacks were issued in the 1970s before the Tubman stamp. These portrayed painter Henry Ossawa Tanner (1973), poet Paul Dunbar (1975), and Salem Poor, a Revolutionary War here who had purchased his freedom and become a soldier (1975).

Among the many things that are striking about this list is the lack of black political and civic leaders. Martin Luther King, for example, didn’t appear on a stamp until 1979 and Malcolm X didn’t get portrayed until 1999. And the next portrayal of a black women didn’t come until 1985 with a stamp honoring Mary McLeod Bethune, a mid-20th century educator and activist.

The Grant stamp that started this post, by the way, is interesting because it was part of the first series issued on watermarked paper (done in response to the discovery of a stamp counterfeiting ring that had produced at least 70,000 bogus copies of the 1894 series of stamps (which included a 5-cent Grant stamp).

The stamps featuring women and blacks weren’t counterfeit. But the lack of women and blacks (and a similarly sorry history of portraying Hispanics) clearly is bogus.

Stay safe, be well, fight for justice and work for peace.