S is for "Seal" and "Seward."
Today I want to tell the story (using some of the essays and proofs from my Alaska-Yukon-Pacific exhibit) of how political pressure turned a beautiful seal into an ugly politician, resulting in a stamp which has been branded an aesthetic failure ever since it was issued. The story begins in the waning months of Theodore Roosevelt’s administration, when the backers of Seattle’s AYP Exposition, which was due to open on June 1, 1909, approached Postmaster General Meyer to issue a set of stamps to publicize their endeavor. This, after all, had been done earlier in the century for the Buffalo, St. Louis and Jamestown extravaganzas. Why not for Seattle? Much to their surprise, Meyer refused, but he did authorize a single 2c stamped envelope.
The Bureau’s designer of stamps, postal stationery and banknotes at that time was Clair Aubrey Huston. Huston designed for the stamped envelope a very handsome seal on a block of ice. His design was approved by the Postmaster General and sent to the Mercantile Corporation, which was the Post Office Department’s envelope contractor at the time. Alas, in early 1909, the Mercantile Corporation informed the Department that they were so back-logged that they would be unable to manufacture the envelopes in time for the opening of the Exposition. (So much for private enterprise.) The Department then decided that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing would rush the design and production of a single adhesive stamp, which we now know as Scott #370. Huston’s first seal essay was for a stamp the size of the then-current Washington-Franklin definitives. He made a black and white ink-and-wash drawing of a classically simple frame, and for the vignette, pasted in a photo of the seal he had designed for the envelope:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/taodave/?action=view¤t=AYPfirstessay.jpg
Huston’s second seal essay (confusingly numbered three in Scott and Brazer) was for a larger stamp, the size of the Jamestown Exposition commemorative of 1907. He modelled an ink-and wash frame containing a veritable forest of acanthus leaves, and again pasted in a photo of the envelope’s seal vignette:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/taodave/?action=view¤t=AYPsecondessay.jpg
This design was approved by Frank Hitchcock, the Postmaster General in the new Taft administration, on April 3, 1909. Since less than 2 months remained before the stamp had to be available at postoffices throughout the country, engraving of the die began almost immediately after Hitchcock’s approval.
Then all Hell broke loose. The Exposition’s backers learned, (evidently for the first time), that the stamp would show a seal on a block of ice. This was unacceptable to them, since one of the major goals of the Fair was to attract tourists and settlers to Alaska. They mounted a national press campaign against the seal design. They implored the Secretary of the Interior and their congressmen to have the seal replaced by a mining scene, or perhaps a panorama of the Alaskan Riviera---anything but that damned seal!
On April 11, they were told by Senator Piles of Washington State that the space was too small for what they wanted, but that he might prevail on the Postmaster General to substitute the head of William H. Seward, the Secretary of State who purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867. They accepted Seward, despite his big ears and nose, as the lesser of two evils.
Since time was running out, the Bureau’s engravers continued to work on the frame portion of the approved seal stamp while Huston modelled two Seward designs. His first essay used the frame of the 1908 Washington-Franklin definitive series, on which he inscribed the dates 1870 and 1909 onto the ribbons. (I have been unable to determine the significance of the year 1870 either in the history of Alaska or in the life of Seward). He cut out the oval vignette and pasted on the back of the essay, so that it would show through the resulting hole, a die proof of the half- ounce snuff stamp of 1891, which happened to contain a portrait of Seward of just the right size:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/taodave/?action=view¤t=AYPthirdessay.jpg
For his second Seward essay, Huston photographed the earlier approved seal stamp essay, cut out the seal vignette, and mounted the frame over a photoreduction of another Seward portrait that had been used for an 1876 bond. This second design was approved by Postmaster General Hitchcock on April 24, with the proviso that Seward’s name be inscribed under his portrait. Hitchcock’s choice was logical in view of the time restraint, since the frame for this design had already been engraved on a die:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/taodave/?action=view¤t=AYPfourthessay.jpg
Incredibly, the essay submitted to Bureau Director Joseph Ralph for approval of the added Seward name tablet has a seal, not Seward, as the vignette! I suspect that this was done on purpose to elicit a chuckle from Director Ralph, who like everyone else at the Bureau, was very unhappy at having to substitute Seward for their lovely seal. In any event, he approved it:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/taodave/?action=view¤t=AYPfifthessay.jpg
On May 6, engravers completed the die and a large die proof was prepared for offical approval, to which Postmaster General Hitchcock affixed his signature:
http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/taodave/?action=view¤t=AYPLargeDieProof.jpg
The bureau’s siderographers then made transfer rolls from the approved die and prepared printing plates. The presses began to roll, and within the next few days the Department began fulfilling orders from thousands of postmasters throughout the country. On June 1, 1909, opening day of the Seattle Exposition, the AYP stamp was placed on sale in postoffices throughout the country.
The public reaction to the new stamp was less than lukewarm. It was immediately reviled. To quote just two contemporary comments:
“The stamp is lacking entirely in distinction, balance, and beauty”
(and)
“Many persons incline to the view that the Seattle Fair monstrosity is the ugliest thing that has yet been forced on the public.”
Of course, these people had never seen the Poultry stamp of 1948, or for that matter, many of the recent USPS productions. Perhaps I’m just an old fogey, but I’ll take anything designed by Huston (even a politician with big ears and a big nose) over the current Time-Warner and Disney publicity labels masquerading as U. S. postage stamps.
Hrrrrmmpph.
taodave
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