Page 8 - Demo

THE CHICKEN STAMP CENTENNIALdirectly to Congress to get a stamp approved. The stamps honoring Gold Star Mothers and Fort Kearney Nebraska were both authorized by acts of Congress in 1948.THE DESIGNThe Bureau of Engraving and Printing has always been responsible for the design of new stamps. In the case of the chicken stamp, they were swamped with suggestions as to which breed of chicken to depict. Whenever they chose one, an uproar came from breeders of other varieties. So, they decided to pass the buck, and told the Agriculture Department to design the stamp. It was an unusual move, but the people at Agriculture promptly came up with a design.When the personnel at the Post Office saw the proposal, they were not impressed. In fact, one of them said, %u201cHave you ever seen anything more uninteresting than the head of a chicken? Well I have%u2014it is two chicken heads and a turkey head.%u201d He went on to explain how the design had one chicken head looking toward California from New York, and another chicken head looking toward New York from California, with a turkey head smack in the middle. He concluded with, %u201cThe only thing I have ever seen with less personality than a chicken head was those three heads.%u201dSo the Bureau of Engraving and the Post Office took back the job of designing the stamp, and sat down at a conference with ten representatives from the poultry industry. After what one article described as, %u201calmost a cockfight right in the Bureau office,%u201d the Light Brahma was selected as the most neutral compromise they could agree on. The final design for the stamp was done by H.M. Ericsson of Groton, Connecticut, a retired Navy man, whose drawing was modeled by Charles R. Chickering at the Bureau. The engraving of the vignette was done by Matthew D. Fenton, and John S. Edmondson handled the lettering. It was the first postage stamp in the United States to have an egg on it.THE MODEL CHICKENAn Official News Release from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture said the chicken depicted on the new stamp was bred and owned by Harvey C. Wood of Newton, New Jersey. Wood was General Sales Manager of the Limestone Products Corp., which supplied limestone for use in chicken feed to produce strong egg shells. He would become the Toastmaster at the celebratory dinner on the stamp%u2019s First Day of Issue, and proudly noted that President Rutherford B. Hayes had raised Light Brahmas at the White House. According to the News Release, the original drawing of the bird was done by eminent bird and animal artist Arthur O. Schilling of Rochester, New York, who had sketched it from This 1948 poultry stamp design, proposed by the Department of Agriculture, was rejected by the Post Office.