The events, inventions, and people honored is this gallery may not be household words or even familiar faces. Some of them were not successful at first, but they all eventually changed the way we live. By blazing trails across the globe and beyond, they have added to our understanding of the world around us – from things we cannot see, such as microscopic organisms and electrical currents, to places where most of us will never go, like the moon and outer space.
Many stamps commemorate people and events years, decades, or even centuries, after the fact. The stamps will remain permanently valid not only as postage, but also as a record of some aspect of life in America. Because all stamp art needs to be historically accurate, the artists consult with experts and cross-check their work with extensive reference materials such as photographs, maps, diaries and journals, and other print sources. When you look at Michael Deas' three paintings in this gallery (Lewis & Clark Bicentennial and portraits of the expedition's two namesakes), you can read about the extraordinary research behind them.
First Man on the Moon
On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched into space with three astronauts aboard: commander Neil Armstrong, command module pilot Michael Collins, and lunar module pilot Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. Four days later, millions watched on television as Neil Armstrong climbed down a ladder and stepped onto the moon's surface. The television audience heard Armstrong say, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He and Aldrin left an American flag as proof of their accomplishment.
Artist: Paul Calle
Art Director: Stevan Dohanos
Medium: Acrylic on Board
Year of Issue: 1969
Accomplishments in Space
Launched on June 3, 1965, the Gemini 4 mission had numerous scientific objectives, including evaluating the effects of a four-day flight on a spacecraft and its systems. The mission is especially remembered for the first American spacewalk, a milestone achieved by astronaut Edward White, and photographed by command pilot James McDivitt using a 35-mm camera. White walked in space for 22 minutes.
Artist: Paul Calle
Art Director: Steven Dohanos
Medium: Acrylic on Board
Year of Issue: 1967
William Clark
William Clark {1770-1838} was selected by Meriwether Lewis, his long-time friend, to be the co-captain of the Corps of Discovery. Before joining his fellow Virginian on their 8,000-mile trek, Clark carefully studied mapmaking and astronomy. Clark was four years older than Lewis and had once been his commanding officer, but during their entire time together they apparently never quarreled or seriously disagreed. Five years after completing their famous journey, Clark became governor of the new Missouri Territory.
Artist: Michael J. Deas
Art Director: Phil Jordan
Medium: Oil on Board
Year of Issue: 2004
Artist Michael Deas wanted the stamps commemorating the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition to look and feel old-fashioned, honoring history through their design as well as their subject. His portraits of Lewis and Clark are classic in composition and execution. To "frame" the paintings on the stamps, Deas proposed intricate intaglio borders.
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge {1830-1904} is known for his photographs of the California landscape and his pictorial studies of animals in motion. With the help of a zoopraxiscope - the precursor to the modern motion picture projector - he was the first to create the illusion of movement by projecting still photographs in sequential order. For his famous galloping horse sequence, Muybridge used a complicated system of 24 cameras whose shutters were tripped by the horse as it ran by them.
Artist: Fred Otnes
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Year of Issue: 1996
Frederic E. Ives
Frederic E. Ives {1856-1937} worked as a printer's apprentice before becoming a photographic technician at Cornell University when he was 18. There, Ives played a key role in developing the halftone printing process, still used today to transfer continuous tones of a photograph to a metal plate, where they appear as tiny dots of various sizes. This technology largely replaced more costly, less detailed, hand-carved wood engravings, leading to the widespread popularity of halftone illustrations in newspapers, periodicals, and books.
Artist: Fred Otnes
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Year of Issue: 1996
Ottmar Mergenthaler
Ottmar Mergenthaler {1854-1899} revolutionized the publishing industry in 1886 by inventing the Linotype. He had worked for an entire decade, registering several dozen patents in the process, to develop his machine. This mechanical marvel enabled a single operator to cast lead type and set it, while typing at a keyboard. The Linotype was dramatically quicker and less costly than setting type by hand. This invention brought rapid expansion to all areas of publishing, giving more people than ever before access to news, literature, and other information.
Artist: Fred Otnes
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Year of Issue: 1996
William Dickson
French-born Englishman William K. L. Dickson {1860-1935} emigrated to the U.S. in 1879. Dickson soon began to work alongside American inventor Thomas Edison. Dickson and Edison together created the kinetoscope, a forerunner of the motion picture film projector. Patented in 1897, the kinetoscope produced short, lifelike moving pictures by passing a strip of film quickly between a lens and an electric light source. Dickson is credited with filming as well as directing many of the earliest "shorts," most of them a minute or less.
Artist: Fred Otnes
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Year of Issue: 1996
Roanoke Voyages
The Roanoke voyages marked the first attempts at English settlement in what is now the United States. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh commissioned a scouting expedition led by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to the Americas. They discovered Roanoke Island, which is about 12 miles long and 3 miles wide and lies along the outer banks of present-day North Carolina. By 1590, the Roanoke colony had mysteriously vanished, but the voyages represent the beginnings of an English foothold in the Americas.
Artist: Charles Lundgren
Art Director: Bradbury Thompson
Medium: Acrylic on Board
Year of Issue: 1984
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt {1884-1962} was an extremely vocal, active, and influential First Lady who redefined the role of the president's spouse. She held press conferences for women reporters, where she championed the rights of women, youths, minorities, and the disadvantaged. She advanced this agenda in her extremely popular syndicated newspaper column entitled "My Day," which appeared 6 days a week from 1936 to 1962.
Artist: Paul Calle
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Gouache on Board
Year of Issue: 1998
Buffalo Soldiers
The 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry, along with two infantry regiments, were the first African-American regiments to serve in the regular army during peacetime. They patrolled the West after the Civil War and also served during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Native Americans, impressed with the troops' bravery in battle, gave them the name Buffalo Soldiers.
Artist: Mort Künstler
Art Director: Derry Noyes
Medium: Oil on Board
Year of Issue: 1994
Robert E. Peary and Matthew Henson
Robert E. Peary {1856-1920} and his aide, Matthew Henson {1866-1955} are credited with the discovery of the North Pole. They set out from Ellesmere Island, the northernmost island in the Canadian Arctic, in February 1909. Peary and Henson, accompanied by four Inuit men, reached the North Pole on April 6, completing their historic journey without the benefit of sophisticated technology and earning what Peary dubbed "the prize of three centuries."
Artist: Dennis Lyall
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Watercolor and Acrylics
Year of Issue: 1986
Harriet Quimby
In 1911 journalist Harriet Quimby {1875-1912} became the first woman in the United States to earn a pilot's license. Although her career in aviation was brief, she made a series of notable flights, including the first night flight by a woman. On April 16, 1912, Quimby became the first woman to fly solo across the challenging English Channel. She published hundreds of articles about flying and about women's issues.
Artist: Howard Koslow
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Acrylic on Board
Year of Issue: 1991
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley {1733-1804} was a British-born clergyman and scientist. He discovered oxygen and conducted groundbreaking experiments with a variety of other gases. Priestley was a controversial figure in England, both religiously and politically, and he emigrated with his family to rural Pennsylvania in 1794. The home he built there included a laboratory. Priestley advanced the teaching of science, history, and religion, and he was an important force in the founding of the Unitarian movement in America.
Artist: Dennis Lyall
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Watercolor and Acrylics
Year of Issue: 1983
Dr. Mary Walker
Mary Edwards Walker {1832-1919} was passionate about medicine and women's rights. She earned her medical degree in New York in 1855 and left private practice to volunteer her services to the Union Army when the Civil War began. In recognition of her devotion and bravery, President Andrew Johnson awarded Dr. Walker the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865. After the war, she published several books and gave public lectures on feminist and health issues.
Artist: Glenora Richards
Art Director: Bradbury Thompson
Medium: Acrylic on Board
Year of Issue: 1982
General Douglas MacArthur
Noted for his bold tactical decisions, General Douglas MacArthur {1880-1964} is one of the most admired military officers in American history. While serving in France during World War I, he was promoted to brigadier general and earned decorations for heroism. In World War II, his careful coordination of land, sea, and air assaults minimized casualties and helped ensure the Allies' success in the Southwest Pacific. After the war, MacArthur administered Japan's transition to democracy.
Artist: Paul Calle
Art Director: Bradbury Thompson
Medium: Pencil on Board
Year of Issue: 1971
Juan Ponce De León
Juan Ponce de León {1460-1521} began his career of exploration in 1493 as a member of Christopher Columbus's second expedition to the Americas. In 1508 he explored and settled Puerto Rico, founding the island's oldest European settlement, Caparra, near what is now San Juan. Ponce de León served as the first governor of the island, where he remained until 1513. That year he sailed from Puerto Rico to discover Florida.
Artist: Richard Schlecht
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Gouache on Board
Year of Issue: 1982
Benjamin Banneker
Self-taught mathematician and astronomer, Benjamin Banneker {1731-1806} grew up on his family's farm in Maryland. He was one of the most accomplished African Americans of the colonial period. In 1753, he constructed the first wooden striking clock made in America. His studies and calculations in astronomy allowed him to predict a solar eclipse in 1789 and to publish annual farmers' almanacs in the 1790s. In 1791, Banneker helped design and survey the city of Washington, D.C.
Artist: Jerry Pinkney
Art Director: Bradbury Thompson
Medium: Watercolor on Paper
Year of Issue: 1980
Cellular Phones
During the 1990s the popularity of cellular phones skyrocketed as the devices became smaller and less expensive, sound quality improved, and service became more widely available. At the time this stamp was issued, more than 78 million Americans already had cellular service. Today, cellular phones can be heard ringing almost everywhere.
Artist: Drew Struzan
Art Director: Howard Paine
Medium: Acrylic and Prismacolor
Year of Issue: 2000
Ida B. Wells
The daughter of slaves, Ida B. Wells {1862-1931} was born in Mississippi during the Civil War. Wells attended Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She became a teacher and then a journalist dedicated to ending discrimination against women and African Americans. She helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People {NAACP} in 1909. Four years later she founded the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first organization of its kind in Illinois for African-American women.
Artist: Thomas Blackshear II
Art Director: Jack Williams
Medium: Acrylic and Gouache
Year of Issue: 1990
Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley {1860-1926} - born Phoebe Ann Moses - learned to shoot in the woods of her native Ohio. A leading attraction in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show from 1885 to 1901, "Little Sure Shot" could hit a dime in midair and shoot through the edge of a playing card from a distance of 30 paces. During World War I, she gave shooting demonstrations to troops in training and helped raise money for the Red Cross. After she and her husband moved back to Ohio, Oakley wrote her memoirs, which were published in newspapers across the country.
Artist: Mark Hess
Art Director: Richard Sheaff
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Year of Issue: 1994
General William "Billy" Mitchell
General William "Billy" Mitchell {1879-1936} was a pioneering advocate for the importance of airpower. Posted to the Western Front in 1917, he was responsible for training the first American pilots to serve there. He coordinated air strikes by Allied aircraft, leading highly effective bombing runs over enemy forces. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Mitchell continued to lobby strongly for the creation of an independent air force. He received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor posthumously in 1946.
Artist: Paul Salmon
Art Director: Phil Jordan
Medium: Oil on Board
Year of Issue: 1999
Kitty Hawk 1903
At Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully tested a flyer with a four-cylinder engine, thus achieving the first controlled, powered, sustained flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine. The flight covered 120 feet and took 12 seconds. It was the remarkable prelude to a century that would see the world forever changed by air travel.
Artist: Richard Waldrep
Art Director: Carl Herrman
Medium: Airbrush and Ink on Paper
Year of Issue: 1998
Columbus Landing in Puerto Rico
Christopher Columbus began his second expedition to the Americas on September 25, 1493. Setting sail from Cadiz, Spain, he and his fleet of some 17 ships and a crew of more than 1,000 men headed for the West Indies. They arrived at the island of Borinquen, home of the TaÃno people, less than two months later. Named San Juan Bautista by the Spanish newcomers, the island was later renamed Puerto Rico {Spanish for "Rich Port"}.
Artist: Richard Schlecht
Art Director: Joseph Brockert
Medium: Gouache and Ink on Board
Year of Issue: 1993
Lewis & Clark Bicentennial
On May 14, 1804, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on a heroic expedition; their mission was to travel from the mouth of the Missouri River, near St. Louis, to the Pacific Ocean - and back again. Lewis and Clark led the expedition, known as the Corps of Discovery, on an 8,000-mile journey. For 28 months they explored much of the territory of Louisiana while mapping rivers, collecting plants and animals new to science, holding councils with Native Americans, and keeping detailed journals.
Artist: Michael J. Deas
Art Director: Phil Jordan
Medium: Oil on Board
Year of Issue: 2004
For this stamp, artist Michael Deas envisioned a landscape evoking the spirit of the Corps of Discovery. The scene needed to be accurate in every detail, from the men's clothing and accoutrements, to the topography of the specific vista they are surveying. Diaries were consulted to determine where the two explorers would have been together – they were apart more often than you would expect. The artist was even lent accurate reproductions of the explorers' clothing, for his models to wear.
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis {1774-1809} was a 26-year-old Army veteran of the western frontier when President Thomas Jefferson brought him to Washington in 1801 to serve as his personal secretary. During his time with Jefferson, Lewis learned more about the President's wide-ranging interests, especially his curiosity about the West. When Jefferson was ready to launch an expedition to the Pacific Ocean, he chose Lewis to lead it. Lewis studied and conducted research for 2 years at the University of Pennsylvania to prepare for the incredible journey ahead.
Artist: Michael J. Deas
Art Director: Phil Jordan
Medium: Oil on Board
Year of Issue: 2004
For his portraits of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, artist Michael Deas created fresh paintings in the style of the early 19th century. He used period portraits of Lewis and Clark for reference. Military records were consulted to see how long the explorers' hair would have been. You can see Lewis and Clark "in action" in Deas' painting commemorating the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial.
Jonas Salk
Dr. Jonas Salk {1914-1995} developed the first safe and effective vaccine against polio, a worldwide viral disease that paralyzed or killed thousands of people annually in the United States alone before the vaccine became available in 1955. President Dwight D. Eisenhower hailed Salk as a "benefactor of mankind." A self-described "Medical Scientist," Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, which brings together scientists and scholars with common interests in the human implications of scientific work.
Artist: Mark Summers
Art Director: Phil Jordan
Medium: Scratchboard
Year of Issue: 2006
The art for this stamp is a scratchboard portrait. Artist Mark Summers "draws" directly on a board that is covered with a smooth, white waxy substance that is coated with black ink. Summers scratches into the coating with a blade, one line at a time, to reveal white lines under the black surface. Here, he used as few strokes as possible to evoke Jonas Salk's white smock. (There are two more Summers scratchboard portraits in the exhibit: Albert Sabin in this gallery, and Wilma Rudolph in Sports.)
Albert Sabin
Born in Bialystok, Poland {then part of Russia}, Albert Sabin {1906-1993} immigrated with his family to the United States in 1921. He went on to become one of the most esteemed virologists in the world. During the 1950s, he was successful in developing an orally-administered live-virus vaccine against polio. He was also involved in several humanitarian efforts, focusing on non-viral "diseases" such as poverty and ignorance. Dr. Sabin was honored with numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986.
Artist: Mark Summers
Art Director: Phil Jordan
Medium: Scratchboard
Year of Issue: 2006
Scratchboard artist Mark Summers likes to work from a single reference photograph, where even the shadows reveal some detail of shading. He scratches one line at a time, suggesting features by highlighting rather than outlining. Look how Summers draws Albert Sabin's white beard and hair against the stamp's white background. (Summers' portrait of Jonas Salk is also in this gallery; his portrait of Wilma Rudolph appears in Sports.)
