annieb123's Review of The American Stamp

by Laura Goldblatt and Richard Handler

More than three thousand different images appeared on United States postage stamps from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Limited at first to the depiction of a small cast of characters and patriotic images, postal iconography gradually expanded as the Postal Service sought to depict the country’s history in all its diversity. This vast breadth has helped make stamp collecting a widespread hobby and made stamps into consumer goods in their own right.

Examining the canon of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American stamps, Laura Goldblatt and Richard Handler show how postal iconography and material culture offer a window into the contested meanings and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship. They argue that postage stamps, which are both devices to pay for a government service and purchasable items themselves, embody a crucial tension: is democracy defined by political agency or the freedom to buy? The changing images and uses of stamps reveal how governmental authorities have attempted to navigate between public service and businesslike efficiency, belonging and exclusion, citizenship and consumerism. Stamps are vehicles for state messaging, and what they depict is tied up with broader questions of what it means to be American.

Goldblatt and Handler combine historical, sociological, and iconographic analysis of a vast quantity of stamps with anthropological exploration of how postal customers and stamp collectors behave. At the crossroads of several disciplines, this book casts the symbolic and material meanings of stamps in a wholly new light.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The American Stamp is a well written, mostly layman accessible monograph on the history and context of stamps/postage in American culture. Released 3rd Jan 2023 by the Columbia University Press, it's 368 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.

Dr. Laura Goldblatt has taken what could've been the tweediest, driest, most academic treatise and made it both accessible and interesting. The subject matter is admittedly academic, there's enough annotation and chapter notation and bibliography to satisfy the staunchest pedant but at the same time, there's a clear and compelling historical and sociological narrative. The book's not lavishly illustrated, the included photos and facsimiles are in black and white, but nevertheless, there's a distinct and followable thread throughout showing correlations between the rise of the mail service and postage stamps to the growth and shaping of the United States.

There were quite a lot of surprising revelations for me in this book about stamps, the actual logistics of mail delivery, infrastructure and how it relates to democracy, lifestyle, philately, and more. Throughout the book, the author & contributor have included numerous photographs and illustrations (in black & white/grayscale) which I enjoyed very much.

Well written, meticulously annotated and researched, with a clear and engaging narrative. Four and a half stars. Definitely a niche selection, but the best and most comprehensive example of parallel comparative study of social change as reflected in stamp subjects and imagery that I've seen (it's not a huge field, I think).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Reading updates

3 January, 2023: Started reading

3 January, 2023: Finished reading

3 January, 2023: Reviewed