Stamp of the Day

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Searching for Peace with the LIONS Club

“Search for peace,” a good message at any time, seems particularly important in this troubled summer. So it’s nice that today’s #stampoftheday is a 5-cent “Search for Peace” stamp issued on July 5, 1967. Although the stamp was issued at the height of the Vietnam War (and increasing protests against that war), it wasn’t a […]

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Honoring School Teachers and Other Educators

With the calendar turning to July, it seems appropriate that today’s #stampoftheday honors school teachers (and other educators), who hopefully are getting a well-deserved break after an especially tumultuous spring and what is likely to be a very challenging fall. Of course, none of what it means to be a teacher today was envisioned when

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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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Frederick Douglass Keeps Teaching Us About Emancipation, Lincoln, and Race Relations

For at least two reasons, it seems appropriate that my father’s collection lacks the stamp I want to highlight as the #stampoftheday on Juneteenth, which marks the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the Confederacy was announced in Galveston, Texas, the last holdout of the rebel forces. With that announcement, slavery

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Hopefully the COVID Vaccine Won’t Take as Long as the Polio Vaccine

A multi-year effort to find a vaccine and treatment for a much-feared disease is the subject of today’s #stampoftheday, which was issued on June 15, 1957. The disease was polio, a virus that paralyzes muscles and destroys nerve cells that was common in the US during the first half of the 20th century. The first

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Oklahoma: Where Many Oddities Come “Sweepin’ Down the Plain”

Oklahoma, “where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain” (and where many strange and unsettling things also have happened), takes center stage as today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp, issued on June 14, 1957, to mark the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma becoming the nation’s 46th state. Issued in conjunction with Oklahoma’s Semi-Centennial Exposition, which ran from

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