Postage Stamps and Censorship
Postage stamps serve as both a means of validating postal payment and a canvas for commemorating significant cultural, historical, and social themes. However, the designs on these stamps often come under scrutiny from both government and public entities, leading to censorship and controversy. In many countries, including the United States, stamp designs are reviewed by advisory committees, such as the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC), before they are approved for public release. Despite this initial review, some stamps have sparked protests or censorship after their issuance, often due to objections related to political, religious, or sensitive visual content. Historical examples illustrate this phenomenon, such as the redesign of a stamp featuring Liberty after it drew criticism for its nudity and the suppression of a stamp depicting the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima due to backlash from various stakeholders. Additionally, incidents like lawsuits against the Postal Service over intellectual property rights highlight the complex interplay between artistic expression and legal considerations in stamp design. The evolution of stamp selection criteria over time reflects a growing awareness of the need to navigate these controversies sensitively, aiming to balance artistic representation with public reception.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Postage Stamps and Censorship
DEFINITION: Government-issued adhesive or imprinted designs affixed to mail to indicate payment of postal charges
SIGNIFICANCE: Typically designed to commemorate persons and events or to celebrate ideas, postage stamps have often been targets of both private and government censors.
Most designs on postage stamps are reviewed by government advisory committees before the stamps are issued to the public. In the United States, an eleven-to-sixteen-member body called the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) is appointed by the Postmaster General to review stamp designs. The CSAC recommends subjects for postage stamps to the Postmaster General and approves or disapproves the artwork for each. All countries participating in the United Nations' Universal Postal Union have similar arrangements.
Occasionally, an advisory committee approves a stamp design that becomes the subject of protests or censorship after the stamp is printed and released. Protests against stamp designs have ranged from objections to nudity to complaints about political, religious, and commercial content. In the United States, for example, a public outcry arose in 1887 when a stamp depicting the female figure of Liberty was issued. This stamp had been approved and printed before someone publicly noticed that Liberty’s breasts were uncovered. The stamp was redesigned with a draping over Liberty’s chest. During the 1930s, a Dallas, Texas, stamp dealer was jailed for exhibiting French stamps in his store with reproductions of famous French paintings, including several depicting nude women.
In February 1952, the U.S. Post Office issued a three-cent stamp featuring the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in a design commemorating the 125th anniversary of American rail transportation. This ostensibly harmless design provoked a lawsuit by a Pennsylvania trucking company requesting an injunction against the stamp because, it alleged, the stamp would unlawfully advertise one of its competitors. Production of the stamp was suspended, and the matter was discussed on the floor of Congress. A federal judge eventually dismissed the case on the grounds that “it is not for the Courts to interfere in matters entrusted by Congress to the discretion of executive officers.” Nevertheless, this incident had a clear impact on later commemorative stamps. Stamps commemorating the poultry, trucking, and automobile industries of the 1950s, for example, are known as phantom stamps because their designers carefully blended models into generic designs to avoid the appearance of the government's favoring any particular commercial companies.
In 1994, the U.S. government was pressured into suppressing a stamp designed to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. That stamp depicted the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan; news of its forthcoming release raised an outcry from both the Japanese government and members of the U.S. Congress. Eventually, the stamp was replaced by one depicting Harry S. Truman, who had been president of the United States at the end of the war.
In the early 2000s, the sculptor who constructed a portion of the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Frank Gaylord, sued the Postal Service for using his intellectual property after an image of the memorial was featured on a stamp without his permission. Following a lawsuit, the Postal Service CSAC began using increasingly commercialized stamp images selected using standardized selection criteria.
Bibliography
"Censorship!" PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/warletters-censorship. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
"Censorship." Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, postalmuseum.si.edu/research-articles/montgomery-blair-the-civil-war/censorship. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
Cull, Nicholas J., et al. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. ABC-CLIO, 2003.
Fiset, Louis. "U.S. Censorship of Enemy Alien Mail in World War II." Prologue Magazine, 2001, www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/spring/mail-censorship-in-world-war-two-1. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.