It’s time for a Thaddeus Stevens postal stamp!

Stamps–Telling great tales in the smallest of spaces

By Sharon Lakey

Don Gal­lagher is a man on a mis­sion; he thinks it is the right time to get Thad­deus Stevens on a first class for­ev­er stamp. But he needs a lot of help to fur­ther the cause. He came by the Choate-Sias one day last week and shared his enthu­si­asm for the project. “Now, since the movie Lin­coln has been released, a lot more peo­ple are inter­est­ed in Thad­deus and the role he played in the pas­sage of the civ­il rights amend­ments,” said Don.

He is a vet­er­an stamp cam­paign­er, hav­ing led suc­cess­ful stamp cam­paigns twice before. He is par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of the work he did for the Hawai­ian Duke Kahanamoku, who Wikipedia relates was an Amer­i­can com­pe­ti­tion-swim­mer cred­it­ed with spread­ing the sport of surf­ing . Although Don was not able to be present at the offi­cial release of the stamp, he says he “was ably rep­re­sent­ed by Peter Cole, chair of the Oahu chap­ter of the Surfrid­er Foun­da­tion, and Carl Her­rman, the art direc­tor who designed the Duke stamp.” The paint­ing for the stamp was done by the por­trait artist, Michael Deas. (Click here for a YouTube video of the think­ing that goes into actu­al­ly pro­duc­ing a stamp.)

Don shared a let­ter he wrote in Jan­u­ary, encour­ag­ing peo­ple to join in a post­card cam­paign to sup­port the cause. The let­ter was to a par­tic­u­lar indi­vid­ual, but if we insert “Dear Thad­deus Stevens fans” in the salu­ta­tion, the infor­ma­tion can be use­ful for all of us who wish to sup­port such a cam­paign. Here it is…

Dear Thad­deus Stevens fans,

I like to cor­re­spond with let­ters, because my envelopes can illus­trate how stamps remain impor­tant ways to tell great tales in the small­est of spaces. If you would like to learn more about the ways postal sub­jects are select­ed and how they become com­mem­o­ra­tive stamps click here. There is also an inter­est­ing 28-minute PBS doc­u­men­tary enti­tled “Amer­i­can Stamps” that you can view on YouTube by click­ing here.

The address for writ­ing to the Cit­i­zens’ Stamp Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (CSAC) is:

Thaddeus Stevens Stamp

Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee

c/o Stamp Development, U.S. Postal Service

475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Room 3300

Washington, DC 20260–3501

My salu­ta­tion is usu­al­ly: Jean Pick­er Firsten­berg, Chair and Dis­tin­guished Mem­bers of the CSAC. Please ask that Stevens be remem­bered on a first-class “for­ev­er” com­mem­o­ra­tive. The Postal Ser­vice also issues stamps of oth­er denom­i­na­tions, but those have lim­it­ed cir­cu­la­tion and receive less pub­lic­i­ty than the more pop­u­lar first-class postage stamps.

I’ve tried to meet or cor­re­spond with every liv­ing historian/author who’s writ­ten about Thad­deus Stevens and the impor­tance of his lead­er­ship dur­ing Civ­il War and Recon­struc­tion times. All are stamp pro­po­nents, favor­ing a com­mem­o­ra­tive stamp being issued for Stevens. But we’ve yet to con­vince CSAC mem­bers and must still clear­ly demon­strate to the Postal Ser­vice that there’s inter­est across the nation to buy, use and col­lect a stamp hon­or­ing “The Great Commoner.”

Let­ters and post cards are the only way the pub­lic can dis­play sup­port for a stamp…Every let­ter and post card to CSAC matters—especially weighty are those who have long stud­ied Stevens.

With sin­cere thanks,

Don Gal­lagher, a “Stamp for Stevens” volunteer

Read­ers in the Danville area can pick up a pre-print­ed post card at the Choate-Sias House on Hill Street dur­ing open hours—noon to 7:00 on Tues­days and Thurs­days. They require one to write a per­son­al note to the com­mit­tee in sup­port of Stevens and a first-class stamp.