Is there anything interesting to say about a stamp honoring the 150th anniversary of Ohio becoming a state and a stamp honoring the 100th anniversary of when the Washington Territory was created? That's the question I've been pondering this evening as I've been getting ready to write about the two stamps, which, since they were both …
Topic: Culture & Society
Exploring Americana artifacts and other obscure areas of US history
Before there were Google Maps, before there was MapQuest, there was something my daughters called "GrannieQuest." GrannieQuest was a remarkable, personalized navigation service. If you were driving somewhere, you would call my mother and ask for directions. You would quickly get accurate, detailed directions (told from memory) even if it had been years since my mother …
The first stamp to picture Native Americans was issued in 1893, almost 69 years after then Secretary of War John Calhoun created the Bureau of Indian Affairs on March 11, 1824. Initially part of the War Department, BIA has been part of the Interior Department since 1849. So there's a kind of notable irony in …
Six years ago today, I got on an airplane in Boston to head to Los Angeles. Later that day, the National Weather Service officially reported that the winter 2014-2015 was the snowiest year since we started keeping track of such things. We had, at that point received 108.6 inches, breaking a record set in 1994-1995 …
I can't remember the last time I was in a museum. Not that I'm a frequent or regular museum goer but I do periodically go and almost always glad I went. But I'm really not sure what the last time was. Could it really have been the Ansel Adams show at the Museum of Fine Arts …
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 is a 5-cent stamp, issued in May 1907, that portrays Pocahontas, who died on March 21, 1617. It was one of three issued in conjunction …
When President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, he continued a bizarre pattern that began in 1840 and (much to Joe Biden's relief) apparently ended in 1980. Consider: William Henry Harrison, who was elected in 1840 died (probably from drinking bad water) in April 1841. Abraham Lincoln, who was elected to his first term in …
Who has appeared on the most US postage stamps? It's not a trick question. Rather, not surprisingly, the answer is George Washington, who was, famously, "first in war, first in peace," (and for the many years that Washington Senators baseball team existed, "last in the American League.") Washington not only appeared on many stamps, in a …
I spent the better portion of today cooking and trying to remember to think about freedom. I was cooking - and trying to think about freedom - because Passover starts tonight and it really is a Passover like no other. While we're doing something very low key tonight with our daughters, tomorrow we're hosting a large …