1934 NATIONAL PARK PRINTS

Great Smoky Mountains 10¢ Stamp. Circa 1934

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina

10¢ stamp, gray black, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina

 

The stamp was issued on October 8, 1934, at post offices in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Washington, DC.

 

The stamp used a photograph from the Thompson Company, that depicts a view of Mount Le Conte in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The stamp was designed by Esther A. Richards, a Philadelphia artist hired by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. She was the first woman to design a US postage stamp,

 

The vertical ten-cent stamp is printed with gray-black ink which required four different plates to create 20 million stamps.

 

The Great Smoky Mountains are some of the oldest mountains in the world, formed around 200–300 million years ago. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1926, but the idea for the park began in the late 1890s.  The park, consisting of Appalachian Mountain ridges straddling the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. The area was home to the Cherokee people, who called it "Shaconage", which means "place of blue smoke"

 

1934 National Park Stamps

 

The U.S. Interior Department designated 1934 as National Parks Year. The US Postal Service issued a series of 10 stamps to promote national parks and encourage domestic tourism. The stamps were the first American commemoratives that were not connected to a historical event, technological achievement, or exposition — including the first US postage stamp designed by a woman.

 

Described as "the greatest campaign ever launched by the federal government to promote the scenic wonders of the United States," the national park stamps became one of the most recognized series of US stamps. Despite being in the middle of the Great Depression, over one billion of the 10 national park stamps were printed in under two years.

 

This stamp series along with the WPA Posters of the time both personified the "See America First" campaign, where the message evoked local travel as patriotic and a cornerstone of national identity.

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