Review: Contested Commemoration in U.S. History: Diverging Public Interpretations, edited by Klara Stephanie Szlezák and Melissa M. Bender

Abstract

Roosevelt used the USPOD to promote many of his initiatives-from the National Recovery Act (which got its own stamp in 1933) to the beauty of national parks (a series of twenty stamps in 1934 and 1935).Admittedly, today's digital landscape means that far fewer people use postage stamps for mailing, or even receive mail that bears anything other than machineprinted postage. Nevertheless, Brennan's book provides a fascinating look back at a time when mail mattered. One minor complaint is that the illustrations in Stamping American Memory's print version appear as unappealing black-and-white images, which hardly do justice to the intricate art of the stamps themselves, especially when Brennan whets our appetite by praising "the design and intensity of the ink colors" (111). However, the good news is that the University of Michigan Press has also issued an online, open-access version of the book, which beautifully reproduces those designs and colors.