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Civil War envelopes with art-work

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Bill Wilson
Civil War envelopes with art-work
February 10, 2003 01:50AM
<HTML>Contemporary mail-art may be bringing interest to earlier decorated envelopes. From now until March 22nd, at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord, New Hampshire, a show displays envelopes from the Civil War. ?Preservation? magazine notes: ?During the Civil War, North and South alike embellished envelopes with partisan artwork. More than 40 of these unsubtle creations, nearly all pro-Union, are on display? One features a noose labeled ?Jeff. Davis ?Neck-tie?.? Another spells out ?Death to Traitors? in letters shaped like soldiers. On a third, a person of color declares, ?I?m glad I?m not in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray!?? With shows like this one, gradually a long historic background for mail-art will emerge.
The history of mail-art might be aided by changes in the collecting of stamps. Sophisticated collectors no longer want stamps that have never been used (many foreign stamps, probably minted in Philadelphia, might not even leave the country). Nowadays many collectors not only want cancelled stamps, but also the stamps still on the envelopes, especially when the envelope has information about its adventures?as with forwarding addresses, rubberstamped censor?s marks, etc. A historian of mail-art might find examples in the catalogues printed for auctions of stamps, magazines for collectors, etc.</HTML>
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