page_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the United States
section_title: Washington-Franklin era
hierarchical_section_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the United States / Washington-Franklin era
caption_attribution_description: English: Washington_WF_1917_Issue-5c.jpg
context_page_description: The history of postal service of the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters, whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later also encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps.
  In the earliest days, ship captains arriving in port with stampless mail would advertise in the local newspaper names of those having mail and for them to come collect and pay for it, if not already paid for by the sender. Postal delivery in the United States was a matter of haphazard local organization until after the Revolutionary War, when eventually a national postal system was established. Stampless letters, paid for by the receiver, and private postal systems, were gradually phased out after the introduction of adhesive postage stamps, first issued by the U.S. government post office July 1, 1847, in the denominations of five and ten cents, with the use of stamps made mandatory in 1855.
  The issue and use of adhesive postage stamps continued during the 19th century primarily for first class mail.
context_section_description: 1908 saw the beginning of the long-running Washington-Franklin series of stamps. Although there were only two central images, a profile of Washington and one of Franklin, many subtle variants appeared over the years; for the Post Office experimented with half-a-dozen different perforation sizes, two kinds of watermarking, three printing methods, and large numbers of values, all adding to several hundred distinct types identified by collectors. Some are quite rare, but many are extremely common; this was the era of the postcard craze, and almost every antique shop in the U.S. will have some postcards with green 1¢ or red 2¢ stamps from this series. In 1910 the Post Office began phasing out the double-lined watermark, replacing it by the same U S P S logo in smaller single-line letters. Watermarks were discontinued entirely in 1916.
  Toward the beginning of the Washington-Franklin era, in 1909, the Post Office issued its first individual commemorative stamps—three single 2¢ issues honoring, respectively, the Lincoln Centennial, the Alaska-Yukon Exposition, and the tercentennial/centennial Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York.  A four-stamp series commemorating the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California appeared in 1913, but no further commemoratives were issued until after World War I. The Lincoln Centennial's portrait format distinguished it from all other commemoratives released between 1893 and 1926, which were produced exclusively in landscape format.  (The next U. S. commemorative in portrait orientation would be the Vermont Sesquicentennial issue of 1927, and many have appeared since.)
  It was also in 1913, in January, that the Post Office introduced domestic parcel post service (a belated development, given that international parcel post service between the United States and other countries began in 1887). A series of twelve Parcel Post stamps intended for this service had already been released in December 1912, ranging in denomination from 1¢ to $1. All were printed in red and designed in the wide Columbian format. The eight lowest values illustrated aspects of mail handling and delivery, while higher denominations depicted such industries as Manufacturing, Dairying and Fruit Growing. Five green Parcel Post Postage Due stamps appeared concurrently. It soon became obvious that none of these stamps was needed: parcel postage could easily be paid by definitive or commemorative issues, and normal postage due stamps were sufficient for parcels. When original stocks ran out, no reprints appeared, nor were replacements for either group ever contemplated. However, one denomination introduced in the Parcel Post series—20¢—had proved useful, and the Post Office added this value to the Washington-Franklin issues in 1914, along with a 30¢ stamp.
  On November 3, 1917, the normal letter rate was raised from 2¢ to 3¢ in support of the war effort. The rate hike was reflected in the first postwar commemorative—a 3¢ "victory" stamp released on March 3, 1919 (not until July 1 would postal fees return to peacetime levels). Only once before (with the Lincoln Memorial issue of 1909) had the Post Office issued a commemorative stamp unconnected to an important national exposition; and the appearance of the Pilgrim Tercentenary series in 1920 confirmed that a new policy was developing: the Post Office would no longer need the pretext of significant patriotic trade fairs to issue commemoratives: they could now freely produce stamps commemorating the anniversaries of any notable historical figures, organizations or events.
caption:     Washington
  issue of 1917
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