Chief Curator of Philately Cheryl Ganz explains President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's passion for stamp collecting in the video, Stamp Collector in Chief, produced by Smithsonian.com.
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FDR was a stamp collector his entire
life then he didn't just collect stamps
he collected a lot of other things too
but as he collected stamps they were
away he could learn all about the world
and geography and history and culture
when he got polio they offered him a
great opportunity to study his stamps
when he was bedridden and couldn't do
much else as he became an adult the
stamps took on a new meaning because now
he could use them as a stress buster
so every night a half hour before he'd
go to bed even when he was in the White
House he would go and work on his stamps
empty his mind of all his troubles of
the day and be able to sleep comfortably
this methodical method of taking this
pile of stamps that are in total chaos
and putting them in order was a very
relaxing thing for him to do here we had
a man taking a world in chaos because of
the depression because of the war and
able to put it in order as well Herbert
Hoover was a stamp collector Gerald Ford
was a stamp collector but for FDR his
stamp collecting was a true passion so
it became a big part of his life that's
part of why it was incorporated into so
much of his presidency and he used his
postage stamps to help sell his New Deal
programs to help reinforce his role as
president against his critics and to
reach out to all kinds of voter bases
using postage stamps when Postmaster
General James Farley brought four
designs to the president for a bird
expedition stamp and this was to honor
the arctic explorer Richard Byrd who is
planning an expedition to the South Pole
FDR looked at these four designs he says
no no that's not gonna work and he
grabbed a piece of paper drew a map and
then on that map with the continents
drew dotted lines that showed the routes
of all the Byrd expeditions and he said
do something more like this so they went
back and the artists at the Bureau of
Engraving and printing created a new
model brought it back to FDR for
approval in FDR goes nope
you got one of those dotted lines wrong
that's not accurate for the way his
route was they went back and checked and
sure enough FDR had been right all along
in 1934 they issued a three cent stamp
Honorine mother's day started out with
the idea to be a stamp to honor the
famous artist James Whistler at the same
time some women were lobbying that they
wanted a Mother's Day Stamp FDR said
let's combine the two
FDR draws a sketch showing the Whistler
mother basic design and said this will
honor mothers in America and will issue
it just before Mother's Day so everybody
can use the stamp on all their cards and
letters to their mothers FDR was very
strong about the idea that he wanted a
stamp to honor the first British colony
in the United States and it's three
hundred and fiftieth anniversary he also
not just designed the concept of what
should be on the stamp but he clearly
said I want it to be a square stamped
the first stamp created as a square
stamp and he wanted it to be baby blue
that time it was incredibly unusual for
a stamp to be such a soft soft color but
under FDR he required that a lot of
stamps be lighter in color and the idea
of all of that was to kind of lighten
the load during the Great Depression in
1938 Farley had a campaign called
national airmail week the idea was every
town in America should send airmail and
have a special design on envelopes that
would promote their hometown and tied to
that was a new airmail stamp FDR
designed that stamp and he considered it
to be his one true stamp design where he
got the entire idea himself from scratch
took the American Eagle drew it and put
a box around it and he required that it
be in red white and blue for the
national colors in 1939 four states
Washington Montana North and South
Dakota all wanted their own stamp to
honor their statehood FDR looked at that
and said gee they're all in the same
region he got a piece of paper and he
drew the four states on one stamp he
says do a map and show all four states
at the same time they gave each state
some recognition by themselves because
each one got their own first day of
issue ceremony President Roosevelt and
James Farley worked to
other to portray their New Deal programs
on postage stamps in a way that would
give a positive message of hope and
optimism to the people they would show
things like the Boulder Dam on stamp
that was a major works project and there
was a series of stamps for the 75th
anniversary of the national parks they
had a special stamp for the National
Recovery administration when we were in
World War two he would have all his
generals talked to about the war in the
Pacific he knew every island name of the
island where it was located how large it
was what was the population what they
produced and he knew all of that because
of stamp collecting