I have no idea why a stamp honoring “American Sokol,” an obscure gymnastics organization was the popular stamp issued in 1965. But I do know that Sokol has a pretty interesting history.

In 1965, stamp collectors sent more than 12.5 million separate items – mainly special envelopes – to the different post offices around the country where they were cancelled on the day that one of the year’s 18 new stamps, 3 postcards, or 4 pre-stamped envelopes was issued.

The most popular of these was today’s #stampoftheday: a 5-cent stamp, issued on February 15, 1965 that marked the “Centennial of the Sokols” as well as “Physical Fitness.” (Unfortunately, I don’t have one of those first-day cancellations for this stamp.)

This is fairly surprising, when you consider the other people, events, and causes honored by the 17 other stamps issued in 1965.

To begin with, the Sokols stamp was competing a stamp honoring Abraham Lincoln, a perennial stamp favorite and two more honoring men making their second appearance on stamps, Paul Revere (who had appeared on a pre-stamped postcard in 1971) and Robert Fulton (whose steamship had appeared on a 1909 stamp). Moreover, the field included four stamp newcomers: Dante “I’ll show you Hell!” Alighieri, John Singleton Copley, Herbert Hoover, and Adlai Stevenson.

As if that competition wasn’t stiff enough, there also were stamps marking three truly “modest” milestones: Christmas, signing of the Magna Carta, and the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. In addition, four, more stamps marked lesser-known milestones: the settlement of Florida, the Battle of New Orleans, and the ever-popular founding of the International Telecommunications Union.

But wait, there was more! Sokols had to compete against a stamp honoring the “Crusade Against Cancer,” as well as one marking the “International Cooperation Year,” that was a stalking horse for the ever-popular founding of United Nations. And, finally, there was the absolutely fearsome, “Stopping Traffic Accidents,” which had a prominent image of a traffic light.

Stiff competition indeed.

Nevertheless, the Sokols stamp beat them all, garnering 864,848 cancellations, which easily outpaced second-place Churchill, who had 773,850 and third-place Stevenson, who had 755,656.

Adding to the Sokols’ rout is the fact that one its first day of issue, the Post Office sold a little more than $200,000 in Sokols stamps (about $1.6 million in today’s dollars). That was more than twice the amount racked up by the Salvation Army, the second-most lucrative stamp, which brought in a little more than $100,000.

To be fair, the Sokols’ stamps also touted physical fitness, which had been a particular priority of the late John F. Kennedy. And it included a picture of the statue of a discus thrower that was given to the US by the Italian government in 1956. The statue, which stands in front of the State Department, is a copy of a famed Greek statue.

Using the image of statue from Italy that was based on a Greek statue may seem a bit odd for a stamp honoring an organization started in 1862 in Prague by Miroslav Tyr?, an Czech nationalist. Tyr?, who combined his experience working as a therapeutic gymnastics trainer with nationalist ideologies and his academic training in philosophy, called his new entity Sokol, the Czech word for falcon. As the American Sokol website explains, “the Falcon, is a bird who, by his swiftness and energy, symbolizes the active, vigorous, strenuous, real Spartan life, which is the ideal of Sokol programs.”

Sokol, which is based upon the principle of “a strong mind in a sound body,” focused heavily on gymnastics, but also provided lectures, discussions, and group outings that encouraged physical, moral, and intellectual training. All of this was loosely based on the practices of athletes and warriors in ancient Greece (which, perhaps, explains the statue on the stamp). It also was also directly influenced by the German Turnverein (also called the Turners) that were founded in 1811 (and which were honored in a US postage stamp issued in 1949.)

The Sokol movement spread rapidly and played an important role in growing Czech nationalism. The movement also spread quickly among Czech immigrants to the US who formed the first US Sokol on February 14, 1865 in St. Louis. By 1878, the US had 13 Sokol chapters and at one point, there were 120 separate Sokol groups in the US. More than 1,000 Sokol members participated in a “slet,” a mass gymnastics demonstration, at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. And by 1937 more than 20,000 adults in America belongs to a Sokol.

From its start, the movement had both had both internal divisions about its relationship with politics and, more notably, battles with external forces concerned about its ties to Czech nationalism. It wasn’t until 1887 that the Austro-Hungarian rulers allowed separate Sokol clubs to come together as a formal organization. In the early 1900s, many progressive members of Sokols were purged or left to join gymnastic societies aligned with the Social Democrats. Sokols flourished in the independent country of Czechoslovakia created after World War I. At their peak between the war, more than 630,000 people were members; and more than 300,000 participated in a massive slet held in 1938, just before the Munich Agreement allowing Nazis to occupy large parts of the country. During that occupation, Sokols were banned and brutally suppressed. Sokol returned briefly after World War II but were again suppressed after Communists took control of Czechoslovakia in 1948.

There has been a modest revival of the group since the end of the Cold War; a 1994 “slet” in Prague drew about 23,000 people and another in 2018 drew about 13,000. The movement still exists in the US as well. The American Sokol website lists about 30 units, most of them in the Midwest or Great Plains states, but a few in Washington, DC, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and California.

It’s quite a story, but it still doesn’t explain why, in 1965, Sokols were more popular than Dante, Churchill, beating cancer, or stopping traffic accidents. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

Be well, stay safe, fight for justice and work for peace.