Designed by Charles Chickering the First Day ceremony for this issue occurred on November 19, 1948, eighty-five years to the day after President Abraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech at the Gettysburg National Cemetery.[1]
Charles Ransom Chickering (October 7, 1891 – April 29, 1970) was best known as the freelance artist who designed some 77 postage stamps for the U.S. Post Office while working at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC.[2] His career as a professional artist began while working as an illustrator for the U.S. Army recording and drawing medical illustrations of the wounded and dead during the First World War.[a] He continued the practice in civilian life and became a noted artist-illustrator who worked for a number of prominent magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, which were very popular during the pre-television era of the 1920s to 1940s. After the Second World War Chickering began working for the U.S. Post office designing U.S. Postage stamps, some of which became famous. Later in life he became a designer and illustrator for first day cover cachets that were also popular among stamp and postal history collectors.[3]
- ^ Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Gettysburg Address issue
- ^ Lerner, 2010, p. 12.
- ^ Lerner, 2010, pp. 11–13.
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