Stamp Day turned postage stamp collecting into a national fundraising network
Evidence
The commemoration of “Stamp Day” illustrates the resourcefulness and cooperation of thousands of ordinary women in defraying the huge mailing costs necessary for the maintenance of a national communication and information network. The meager budget of the Woman’s Convention could not adequately reimburse its leaders, who more often than not sacrificed personal income to pay for convention expenses. “Stamp Day” solved the problem of mass mailing by rallying women in state and local societies in an annual drive to save postage stamps. Throughout each year church women from the various states raced against one another and on the allotted day presented their yield to the Woman’s Convention. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 748
Categorization
- CANDY: A mass organization funded its national mailings by racing to hoard postage stamps—a charmingly concrete logistics solution worth retelling.
- XREF: connects to: V.E. Day alignment empowered an Algerian independence demonstration by deflecting French security.; Rebels chose All Saints’ Day to exploit low police vigilance and symbolic martyrdom