Stamp of the Day

June 2020

The Best and Worst of the Boy Scouts

Another rainy day in Maine so I’m again sitting on the screened in porch thinking about how to write about today’s #stampoftheday, which, because it honors the Boy Scouts of America, is producing a range of reactions including nostalgia, anger, revulsion, and puzzlement. A mid-century classic that was the first of several honoring the Boy […]

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The Post Office Disses Both New Jersey and Women

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 of Monmouth, particularly the role played by Molly Pitcher at that battle. But as you can see, it does so by printing the name

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Harvey Wiley’s Radical Ideas About Science and Public Policy

The radical idea that the federal government can and does use science and facts to address potentially fatal threats to people’s health is the message sent by today’s #stampoftheday, which also reminds us about the powers likely to resist this approach. The stamp itself is a 3-cent stamp issued on June 27, 1956 to commemorate

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Dwight, Liz and the St. Lawrence Seaway

The St. Lawrence Seaway, a famous transport project that didn’t produce expected economic benefits and created unexpected environmental problems, is the subject of today’s #stampoftheday. The stamp, is a 4-cent stamp, jointly issued with a similar Canadian stamp, on June 26, 1959, the day that Queen Elizabeth II and President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally opened

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The Statue of Liberty Continues to Welcome Immigrants

The ongoing importance of immigration is a timely message conveyed by today’s #stampoftheday, which, oddly enough, comes one day after the president’s most recent anti-immigrant action. (If you missed it, yesterday he issued an executive order that blocks the entry of many foreign workers, expands an April executive order denying green cards to applicants in

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The Graf Zeppelin Takes Us on a Trip Past Two Milestones

The Graf Zeppelin hydrogen powered rigid airship pictured on today’s #stampoftheday takes us on a journey past two aviation-related milestones, both from the 1930s. On June 23, 1931, Wiley Post, a famous aviator and his navigator Harold Getty, took off from Roosevelt Field to begin a record-setting 8-day around-the-world flight (with stops in Harbour Grace,

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Petty Politics, Shameful Omissions, and Noble Goals–All in A Stamp Showing the Polish Flag

A stamp featuring the Polish flag whose release event featured a notable omission, petty politics, and an unusual (for the times) privatization of a key government service, is today’s #stampoftheday. Issued on June 22, 1943, the stamp is the first in a series of 5-cent stamps that honored each of the 12 European countries occupied

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Was the Old Man in the Mountain Trying to Tell Us Something

A message about the slow but inexorable ways that change occurs is offered by today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp. Issued on June 21, 1955, the stamp shows New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain rock formation, which collapsed in 2003d despite decades of efforts to prevent that decline. The 40-foot-tall “face” in New Hampshire’s White

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