L-R: Brennan, Stamp designer Maribel Gray, David Roosevelt
HYDE PARK – Ten new “forever” postage stamps were unveiled at the FDR Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park on Tuesday. The stamps are reproductions of 10 posters created under FDR’s WPA Federal Art Project Poster Division.
The stamps were unveiled by the United States Postmaster General Megan Brennan, who is also the first female Postmaster General in the history of the Postal Service.
Brennan was joined at the ceremony by FDR’s grandson, David Roosevelt.
According to Roosevelt, these stamps commemorate the work of his grandfather’s “most ambitious” New Deal program and the artwork generated from the WPA artists.
“They portray in my view some of the best work of the WPA artists and it’s marvelous,” he said.
Much of the artwork adorned public buildings built by WPA employees.
Perfect examples include the post offices in Poughkeepsie, Hyde Park,
and Rhinebeck, and many others around the nation, said Brennan.
“Now, if you had visited the Hyde Park Post office during the WPA, you would have also seen some of the most beautiful poster art ever created,” Brennan said. “WPA posters were in post offices and in every type of public space. They were used widely to elevate our nation’s public life and promote matters great and small. They encouraged us to eat out vegetables. And visit our national parks, to buy War Bonds and a library card; always simple, effective and striking.”
The stamps will come in booklets of 20 and feature 10 different designs originally created to support the civic-minded ideals of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.
“It is undeniable that Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood the importance of visual design and how it could communicate powerful messages of optimism, hope, and perseverance,” said Brennan. “It is also fitting that these WPA posters are being memorialized on postage stamps, because President Roosevelt had a lifelong fascination with stamps as artwork.
