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Washington-Franklin Issues ：ウィキペディア英語版

Washington-Franklin Issues

The Washington-Franklin Issues are a series of definitive U.S. Postage stamps depicting George Washington and Benjamin Franklin issued by the U.S. Post Office between 1908 and 1922. The distinctive feature of this issue is that it employs only two engraved heads set in ovals—Washington and Franklin in full profile—and replicates one or another of these portraits on every stamp denomination in the series. This is a significant departure from previous definitive issues, which had featured pantheons of famous Americans, with each portrait-image confined to a single denomination. At the same time, this break with the recent past represented a return to origins. Washington and Franklin, after all, had appeared on the first two American stamps, issued in 1847, and during the next fifteen years, each of the eight stamp denominations available (with one exception) featured either Washington or Franklin.
In the early Washington-Franklin issues (1908–11), every design incorporated a pair of olive branches surrounding one or the other of the two profiles. From 1912 on, however, the Franklin-head issues would instead appear with Oak leaves near the bottom of the oval in the image. Olive branches and Oak leaves are often used as symbols for peace (Olive branches) and strength (Oak leaves), though no significance was officially acknowledged in their use here. The Washington-Franklins were issued in denominations ranging from 1-cent to 5-dollars, each value printed in different color ink. The two engravings of either Washington or Franklin are employed in five basic design themes (i.e., framework, ornaments, lettering) which in turn were used to print more than 250 separate and distinct stamp issues over a fourteen-year period. During this time seven separate series of the Washington-Franklins appeared in succession, each series differing somewhat from its predecessor in physical characteristics (i.e., paper type, perforation size, etc.), while some series would also introduce new denominations printed with new colors. Produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington D.C., these issues were generally printed by the ''flat-plate'' process, but several of the issues also employed other new and experimental printing methods, including use of the revolutionary ''rotary printing press'' and the ''offset printing process''. The first Washington-Franklin postage stamp to be released was a two-cent stamp issued on November 16, 1908. Other denominations soon followed and would continue to appear through the first World War years, with the last Washington-Franklin postage stamp issued in 1923. The series thus survived for almost fifteen years, longer than any previous U. S. Postage Stamp series produced by a single printing organization.〔Armstrong, Martin A., ''Washington Franklins 1908–1921, (1979)〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Smithsonian National Postal Museum )〕
==Background==
During the several decades that led up to the production of the Washington-Franklin issues the printing technology of U.S. Postage stamps was in many respects still in its development stages. As a consequence the U.S. Post Office would often receive complaints from the general public about its postage stamps. In 1869 the Post Office faced its first nationwide complaints when it issued a set of ten stamps that broke from the tradition of honoring and depicting statesmen (selected Presidents and Franklin) on the faces of all U.S. Postage stamps. Withering criticism also cited the small size and inconvenient shapes of the 1869 stamps and faulted their adhesive gum as inadequate. Consequently, this issue was short lived and pulled from post offices across the nation. As the years passed other complaints ranged from criticism about stamp subject and design, difficulty with perforations and even objections to the often unpleasant taste of the gum on the backs of stamps. Many of the criticisms also came from postal clerks who complained about the insufficiently varied choice of colors used on the issues, which sometimes resulted in the same or similar color appearing on several different denominations, making it visually difficult to sort mail quickly. Shortly after the turn of the 19th–20th century the problem of improving stamps and production prompted debates in Congress and the Senate, debates into which President Theodore Roosevelt sometimes injected himself. For example, Roosevelt argued that in observance of the upcoming 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, Lincoln should be included in the new definitive 1908 issue then being planned. Lincoln, however, was omitted: instead he would be honored with his own anniversary commemorative stamp in 1909. Many of the innovations employed in the production of the Washington-Franklin Issues were the result of this ongoing effort to improve on the production of U.S. Postage.〔〔

抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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