By Art Lizotte
APS Member 222367
I always enjoy a good philatelic challenge, and this event cover does not disappoint. The question is simple: who issued this Mother’s Day event cover in 1932? The answer has been quite elusive as there hasn’t been much to go on, though, there have been clues.
Figure 1 1932 Mother's Day event cover with the twelve Washington bicentennial stamps, SC#704-715, on a 5-cent air mail envelope, SC# UC1.
What drew me to collecting this cover is the variety of stamps and covers used for the event. The new Washington bicentennial stamps were used in the combinations that made up the two-cent rate, a popular practice with this series. Corner cards and first day cachets were used as if the collectors grabbed whatever they had on hand. With 20 covers in my collection, I have most of the combinations and numerous cover styles. But none of them answer the question of who. So, I began my quest by first examining the cachet’s design.
The cachet is a rubber stamp design of the Mary Ball Washington (MBW) house in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The wording is simple with no tell-tale initials or markings to indicate the designer. The house, though, was a possible clue. As an historic house, souvenir postcards are plentiful, but it wasn’t until recently I came across the one that held a potential lead.
Figure 2 1932 postcard published by The Albertype Co, photo copyrighted by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
The MBW house, in preparation for the 1932 Washington bicentennial celebrations, underwent renovations in 1931. The house reopened to the public in 1931 and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), the owners of the house, photographed the house inside and out. The postcards that featured these new photos were published by The Albertype Co, located in Brooklyn, New York. The rubber stamp design was an exact match to the postcard image. So, did the APVA issue the cover?
It’s unlikely the APVA issued the cover. I say this because of another interesting aspect of the covers in my collection. All the addressees are from the area surrounding New York city. If the APVA issued the covers, wouldn’t there be at least some addressees from Virginia? So, if it’s not the APVA, was it The Albertype Company being in the epicenter of addressees?
Again, it is unlikely that The Albertype Company issued the event cover. This was not their business. They specialized in images of cities across the United States to be used on view-cards and postcards. Yet, being in the NYC area it’s hard to rule them out, at least not just yet.
Since the rubber stamp’s design didn’t definitively yield the “who,” maybe the Mother’s Day event would.
Mother’s Day had been celebrated annually for 24 years. Anna Jarvis, the holiday’s founder, was often engaged in fighting the commercialization of the holiday. Besides the confectioners and the floral industry, she fought against the American War Mother’s Association and their use of the holiday for fund raising.
A tradition the War Mothers started in 1925, was conducting a Mother’s Day ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As such, they were invited to participate in celebrating Washington’s bicentennial. Given the newly renovated MBW house, the Mary Ball Washington War Mothers chapter made a pilgrimage to the house in April 1932. It was proposed the previous September that the War Mothers would hold a Mother’s Day event at house, but the $10,000 budget request was denied in January. Despite this setback, the War Mothers did conduct a wreath laying ceremony on Mary’s grave at the house. Given the passion the War Mothers had for celebrating Mother’s Day, it’s possible they had some part to play in the cover.
One possible connection to the War Mother’s, other than what was reported in the newspapers, is the one cover in my collection addressed to a young lady in Washington, DC. Yes, most of the covers are addressed to NYC area men. Yet, with this one cover addressed to a woman I must ask, was she a member of the MBW War Mothers chapter? Possibly, but difficult to confirm.
Lastly, it should be noted that this event cover appears to be one of the first, it not the first, Mother’s Day event covers, and another reason why I am compelled to determine the who. If the War Mothers Association was behind the cover, was this the genesis of their effort to advocate for the Mother’s Day stamp (Mothers of America, SC#737)? Mrs. Virgil McClure, War Mothers past president and the stamp’s sponsor in 1934, was involved with many of the bicentennial celebrations. If yes, this cover would hold a special place in postal history.
And so, as it is with any great challenge, only time and research will reveal the significance of this event cover. If you have one of these covers in your collection – or dealer stock – I would love to hear from you. Please email me at [email protected]. Maybe together we can resolve this mystery.
About the Author
Art collects both US and World pre-1960 and has specialized on Mother’s Day postal history. He has written several articles on the holiday and jointly produced a Mother’s Day video with the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, Denver, CO (https://www.rmpldenver.org/publications/videos.html).
References
- The Albertype Co – http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersa1.html
- MBW House Renovation: Mary Washington House Museum,
https://www.washingtonheritagemuseums.org/museums
- Proposed Mother’s Day Celebration at the MBW House: Evening Star, Washington, DC,
September 15, 1931, page 1, column 1. Hosted on the Library of Congress Chronicling
America website: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
- Bicentennial Budget Cut: Evening Star, Washington, DC, January 4, 1932, page 1,
column 6. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
- MBW War Mothers Pilgrimage: Evening Star, Washington, DC, February 25, 1932, page
A-3, column 3. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
- American War Mothers Events: Evening Star, Washington, DC, Mary 6, 1932, page B-6,
column 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
Other potential images
Note that there are others in my collection, such as one with a block of (4) ½ cent stamps.These have been selected as a testimony of the diversity of Mother’s Day event covers.