Free Market Metaphor

The Historical Dynamics of Stamp Collecting

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2107905
AutoresSteven M Gelber (Santa Clara University, autor correspondente)
Ano1992
Volume34
Fascículo4
Páginas742-769
Data de publicação1992-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500018077
OpenAlexW2078575370
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas15
Referências citadas8

Stamp collecting and industrial capitalism in the United States emerged simultaneously in the mid-nineteenth century. England issued the first government postage stamp in 1840, and other nations quickly adopted the idea. The United States printed its first official stamp in 1847, although it was preceded by the provisionals issued by local postmasters. Postage stamps were a product of the industrial revolution. The adoption of the prepaid penny post in England, while opposed by the General Post Office, was widely supported by large merchants who understood that a low-cost, single-rate system was vital to the communication demanded by an increasingly national market. The adhesive label was originally conceived by the English postal reformer, Rowland Hill, as a convenience for illiterates who would not be able to write addresses on the official envelopes that he preferred as proof of prepayment. Within a decade, almost every major nation in the world had borrowed this device, which became a symbol of the economic transformation of the nineteenth century. I would argue that the collecting of these tokens was a microcosmic performance of the system that created them. Stamp collectors took on many of the key roles of actors in the market economy and played out various conflicts embodied in the larger society in the philatelic arena

Capitalism · Commerce · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Government (linguistics) · Industrial Revolution · Political science · Politics · Postage Stamps · Product (mathematics) · Symbol (formal) · Art History and Market Analysis · Law