In 1938, the U.S. Post Office Department announced that it was considering issuing a series of stamps recognizing 10 famous Americans. The original plan was to solicit suggestions from the public and pick the top 10 recommendations. By the spring of 1939, so many names had been suggested that postal officials decided to increase the number of stamps from 10 to 35. There would be seven categories in the series--authors, poets, artists, educators, inventors, composers, and scientists, with five denominations in each series--1¢, 2¢, 3¢, 5¢, and 10¢. With each category, stamp subjects would be assigned a denomination based on their order of birth, with the person with the oldest birth date to be shown on the 1¢ stamp and the youngest on the 10¢ stamp. In terms of the postal uses of the stamps, the 1¢ rate was valid for letters dropped off at a post office addressed to someone with a box at that post office, the 2¢ rate for local (within a city) delivery of a letter as well as postcards to any address in the United States, and the 3¢ rate for letters mailed to addresses outside of the city. The 5¢ and 10¢ principally were used in combination with other stamps for letters over 3 ounces in weight, air mail, and other more expensive mailing purposes.

The first stamp in the series--the 1¢ Washington Irving stamp in the famous authors category--was issued Jan. 29, 1940. Noted Georgian physician Dr. Crawford Long was honored with the 2¢ stamp in the famous scientists category issued Apr. 8, 1940. Long's daughter, Eugenia Long Harper, was presented with the first sheet of the stamp honoring her father at first day of issue ceremonies held by the Post Office Department in Jefferson, Ga., where Long had performed the first operation using anesthesia.

The second stamp in the Famous Americans series with a Georgia tie was the 1¢ Eli Whitney stamp in the category of great inventors. This commemorative stamp was issued Oct. 7, 1940, in Savannah, Ga., which was near the Mulberry Grove Plantation, where Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793.

Technically, a third stamp in the series also had a Georgia tie. The 5¢ stamp in the famous artists category honored Daniel Chester French. In the early 1900s, French sculpted the James Edward Oglethorpe statue in Savannah. Later, French also carved the Abraham Lincoln memorial statue in Washington, D.C., from giant marble slabs quarried in Georgia.
 
 

1¢ Washington Irvin

2¢ James Fenimore Cooper

3¢ Ralph Waldo Emerson

5¢ Louisa May Alcott

10¢ Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
 
 

1¢ Henry Longfellow

2¢ John Greenleaf Whittier

3¢ James Russell Lowell

5¢ Walt Whitman

10¢ James Whitcomb Riley
 
 

1¢ Horace Mann

2¢ Mark Hopkins

3¢ Charles Eliot

5¢ Frances Willard

10¢ Booker T. Washington
 
 

1¢ John James Audubon

2¢ Dr. Crawford Long

3¢ Luther Burbank

5¢ Dr. Walter Reed

10¢ Jane Addams
 
 

1¢ Stephen Foster

2¢ John Philip Sousa

3¢ Victor Herbert

5¢ Edward MacDowell

10¢ Ethelbert Nevin
 
 

1¢ Gilbert Stuart

2¢ James Whistler

3¢ Augustus Saint-Gaudens

5¢ Daniel Chester French

10¢ Frederic Remington
 
 

1¢ Eli Whitney

2¢ Samuel F.B. Morse

3¢ Cyrus McCormick

5¢ Elias Howe

10¢ Alexander Graham Bell
 
 
 
 

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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