A Red Letter Day for The Red Cross!

During this time of medical emergency I’ve been looking back through the annals of postage history to discover amazing people who did amazing things during times of crisis. I also learned that, appropriately enough, March is Red Cross Month! 

Founded in 1881 by nurse Clara Barton, the American Red Cross has been dedicated to helping hurting people from the very beginning. The Red Cross serves the military and their families, offers training for the community, provides disaster relief in the United States and worldwide and supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood products. I took swimming lessons, a first aid class and have given blood many times all thanks to the American Red Cross! The American Red Cross is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, the largest international humanitarian relief network. Their noble goal is best summed up as a desire to relieve human suffering. The Red Cross, is, of course, helping during the Coronavirus pandemic. Their website provides excellent education about caring for someone who is sick with the virus, what social distancing actually is and why it’s important and they are encouraging healthy people to give blood during this epidemic! 

The Red Cross postal history is also interesting. Back in 1931 the US Post Office wanted to release a stamp to honor the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Red Cross. The original plan for the stamp was to use a portrait of Clara Barton but somewhere along the way it was decided the stamp design should be similar to a 1930 Red Cross poster depicting a nurse kneeling with outstretched arms before a globe. The stamp was printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It was a two step printing process in which the red cross was added last on the black and white background. Because the cross was added during the second printing it was relatively rare to find it perfectly centered in the blank space provided for the design. I even read about a print that had the cross missing. It seems the corner of the paper was folded over and the cross was printed on the back of the stamp!! That stamp is valued at $40,000! 🤯 Who says stamps are boring?! (See examples of the wandering cross below.)

Of course I wanted to know more, so I headed to the library and found a biography of Clara Barton! A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War by Stephen B. Oates is now on my TBR pile!! 

Reading is a great quarantine activity! Many of my friends tell me they are not really readers. Some folks haven’t picked up a book since their high school or college days. Now is the perfect time to give it a try! The benefits of reading are myriad and who doesn’t want to be transported to another time and place right about now!! “A book is a gift you can open again and again!” Garrison Keillor.

During this time of crisis doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are putting their lives on the line to care for others. In honor of Red Cross month (and nurse Clara Barton), won’t you join me in sending some snailmail to your favorite healthcare provider? As a nurse myself I know those folks would sure appreciate it!

Some of my outgoing post! 

 (Don’t forget to be on the look out for that missing cross stamp! 😉)

XOXO,
Mrs. Murphy

PS: Clara was honored on a postage stamp in 1948. Better late than never!