Georgia–A Good Place To Be A Philatelist

And just what is a philatelist you may ask? Not a scientist or doctor of anything, but simply someone who studies stamps! Many Georgia people, events, and symbols have been featured on postage stamps. The man who founded Georgia, James Oglethorpe, was featured on a stamp in 1933–the bicentennial of Oglethorpe’s landing at Yamacraw Bluff to establish the colony of Georgia.

James Oglethorpe Stamp

Another Georgia forefather has also been so honored–the man who helped found the University of Georgia, Abraham Baldwin, was featured on a stamp in 1985. Baldwin also played a crucial role in the Constitutional Convention.

Abraham Baldwin Stamp

Historical events have also been observed on postage stamps, such as Georgia’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788; this stamp was produced to mark its bicentennial.

Georgia Ratifies the U.S. Constitution Stamp

More recent events have also been observed. During the 1920s, Franklin D. Roosevelt (an avid philatelist himself) adopted Warm Springs, Georgia as his second home. He even built a cottage there in 1932 that was dubbed the “Little White House”; he died there in April of 1945 while sitting for a portrait. Just four months after Roosevelt passed away, he and the dwelling were featured on a stamp.

Roosevelt and the Little White House Stamp

Georgia’s state bird and flower, the brown thrasher and the Cherokee rose, were both featured on a stamp in 1982 as part of a set that showcased the state birds and flowers from all fifty states.

Georgia State Bird and Flower Stamp

Of course,  Georgia is renowned as the Peach State (the peach is Georgia’s official state fruit); this was illustrated on a stamp in 1995.

Peach Stamp

Georgia has a rich literary tradition which has been reflected in stamps. Joel Chandler Harris wrote the Uncle Remus tales. Many of these stories were based upon folktales and folklore shared by local African American storytellers from Turnwold Plantation outside of Eatonton, in Putnam County, where Harris spent much of his youth. Harris was featured on a stamp in 1948.

Joel Chandler Harris Stamp

Sidney Lanier is probably Georgia’s most famous poet; he was portrayed on a stamp in 1972.

Sidney Lanier Stamp

And of course one cannot mention Georgia literature without Gone with the Wind and Margaret Mitchell. She was featured on a stamp in 1986.

Margaret Mitchell Stamp

Georgia has also been home to many famous musicians and songwriters, and some of them have been featured on stamps. Otis Redding sang of leaving his home in Georgia in the song “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” but tragically died in an airplane crash at the age of 26 (in 1968, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” became the first posthumous number one single in American chart history). This commemorative stamp of Otis Redding was issued on June 16, 1993.

Otis Redding Stamp

Johnny Mercer was born in Savannah and became one of the world’s best-known and most prolific songwriters; among the many hits he composed are “Moon River,””Days of Wine and Roses,” “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Accentuate the Positive,” “Glow-Worm,” “Goody Goody,” and “Hooray for Hollywood.”

Johnny Mercer Stamp

Georgia has also been home to some great sportsmen, sportswomen, and sporting events. Jackie Robinson, the man who broke major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947, was born in Cairo, Georgia. He was featured on a stamp in 1982.

Jackie Robinson Stamp

Atlanta and Georgia hosted the Olympic Games in their centennial year of 1996. In that same year the United States Postal Service issue a sheet of stamps commemorating this event.

Atlanta Olympics Stamps

Many more stamps, postal stationery, and revenue stamps featuring Georgia and Georgians can be seen on the GeorgiaInfo Georgia on Stamps page.

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Prohibition in Georgia: “Booze receives its death-blow”

Counties in Georgia had the right to vote for prohibition since 1885. Most had done so by 1907, the year that state wide prohibition was passed. Georgia’s  fervor for temperance ran well in advance of the national mood with the state enacting prohibition sooner and holding on to it longer than most of the country.  Nationally, the Volstead Act of 1919 enforced prohibition as established by ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment. Repeal would come with passage of the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933; Georgia delayed repeal until 1935 and retains some dry and partially dry counties to this day.

This era in the United States’ history is popularly understood through images of speakeasies, bootlegging, stills and police raids. This weekend on PBS, documentarian Ken Burns brings his trademark style and focus to bear on the subject in a new film titled, simply, Prohibition. Figuring you might be as excited as we are, and hoping your curiosity will be piqued, we want to share some resources available through the DLG for learning more about prohibition in Georgia.

For a day to day glimpse of the forces at work in promoting temperance, the legislative sparring by elected officials and the reactions of citizens both dry and ‘wet,’ start with the Georgia Historic Newspapers. A search for the term ‘temperance,’ prohibition’ or ‘bootlegging’ in any of the newspapers returns a plethora of local news: the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union holding rallies in cities across Georgia; an African American barber raided on suspicion of bootlegging (stoking racial animosity was an integral part of the fight against alcohol); attempts to circumvent prohibition by passing a medicinal beer law (sound familiar?).

In the Vanishing Georgia collection you will find photographs of stills, moonshiners and busted moonshine operations. Moonshine has a long history in Georgia, one that continued after Prohibition. There are also photographs of citizens as they convene on their local courthouses to vote on prohibition measures.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia has entries on the temperance movement and some of its most important figures, such as the temperance leader and suffragist Mary Latimer McLendon. A fountain in her name was placed in the state capital upon her death by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

And finally, the Georgia Historic Books collection provides access to texts from the era, such as Sam Small’s Pleas for Prohibition in which he writes of liquor sales, “No process has ever been found, by priest or publicist, whereby it can be transmuted from a curse to a blessing.” Or, if you have the time, there is Henry Anselm Scomp’s eight hundred page opus on the history of the temperance movement in Georgia, King Alcohol in the Realm of King Cotton.

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