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Reviews
| Railroad History on American Postage Stamps. By Anthony J. Bianculli. Mendham, N.J.: Astragal Press, 2004. iii+266 pp., 100+ illus., refs., bibl., indices. $35.00 pb (ISBN 1-931626-20-0).
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While I have never been involved in philately as a hobby, I appreciate good artistic depictions of historical personalities and sites on United States postage stamps, especially those with transportation or industrial connections. Some friends send me correspondence affixed with stamps relevant to these interests. I do not keep stamp albums but do at least keep their cancelled envelopes in a file. Some people carry the merger of railroad and stamp collecting interests further and assemble stamp collections based on the railroad theme. Once upon a time (although it has not been included for many years), the contest/display at the National Model Railroad Association's national conventions included a "Trains on Stamps" category. The SIA Newsletter even occasionally carries a blurb titled "IA in Philately" (for example, SIA 32, no. 3, p. 14).
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Anthony Bianculli, a recognized scholar, historian, and, most recently, author of a series of books on early-19th-century railroad technology (Vol. 1 of Bianculli's series was reviewed in IA, 28, no. 1, and Vol. 2 was reviewed in IA, 29, no. 1) has tackled the subject of "Trains on Stamps." With this book, he lays out a comprehensive description of significant milestones in U.S. railroad history that he correlates with appropriate U.S. postage stamps.
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This book is not a technical philatelic treatise. Reference is made on one of the unnumbered prefatory pages to "Scott's." No further description of Scott's is offered, but fellow SIA member Sam James, who considers himself to be a cover collector as opposed to a stamp collector, says that Scott's is a privately issued catalog listing all U.S. stamps. Scott's is issued annually and provides details of stamps, including assigning a number to each stamp that is thenceforth used by all collectors. References to the stamps in Bianculli's text include their Scott numbers, and the reader with more technical philatelic interests can refer to Scott's for more technical information about the stamp itself.
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Instead of technical philately, Bianculli has written a book that, in its main section, breaks railroad history down into five historical eras: Railroad Infancy; Railroad Adolescence; Railroad Maturity; Golden Years, Retreat and Renaissance; and Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel? Following the historical sections, are three other sections that span history: Labor and Legislation, Mass Transit by Rail, and Post Script: A Few Other Stamps.
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Within each of these sections, he selects and discusses various stamps that illustrate particular aspects of U.S. railroad history. Some of the stamps depict objects, while others depict people. Some of the selections are straightforward, such as the 1988, 13.2-cent "Coal Car 1870s" stamp (Scott 2259) that depicts a four-wheel "coal jimmy." Others are a little less direct, such as the use of a 21¼2-cent stamp depicting the Bunker Hill Monument (Scott 1056) to describe "America's First Railroad," the "Granite Railway" that carried the stone used to build the monument. Some stamps cited demonstrate Bianculli's resourcefulness as well as his knowledge of railroad history: he uses a 5-cent stamp depicting a statue of John Ericsson (Scott 628) as inventor of the 1829 Novelty locomotive. Another example is the use of a 4-cent stamp depicting Senator Robert A. Taft (Scott 1161) to expound on the concept of "Union Stations."
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The Post Script section provides interesting capsule write-ups (citing the Scott numbers but without stamp images) of historical personages—writers, musicians, etc.—whose lives or works somehow touched on or were touched by railroads.
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Bianculli covers all the significant events of U.S. railroad history that have been directly depicted on stamps. The information presented appears accurate.
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He goes into more extensive historical detail in certain cases. For example, he devotes more than two pages to Stonewall Jackson's assaults on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad during the Civil War, as illustrated by the 1995, 32-cent stamp (Scott 2975s). Given his knowledge, however, it was a little surprising that in covering the 1952, 3-cent stamp commemorating the B&O Railroad's 125th anniversary (depicting a horse car, the Tom Thumb locomotive, and an F3 diesel unit), Bianculli did not at least mention that some published historical research has seriously questioned whether the race between the horse car and the Tom Thumb ever took place. Another example is a 1995, 32-cent stamp simply titled "Ferryboat 1900s" (Scott 2466). Bianculli tells about the vessel photographs used by the artist and also describes the way the final stamp image was changed by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving from the original painting. He also describes the rail-marine connection and makes clear why a picture of a ferryboat belongs in a book about railroad history.
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I have a couple of minor complaints. First, while Bianculli chooses to leave philatelic details to Scott, he does not even give the date of issue for the earlier stamps. This omission is remedied in stamps issued since 1978 when U.S. postal stamps were copyrighted, so the images on stamps issued from 1978 do bear the copyright date as captions in the book. Second, except for six stamps on the color cover, the stamps in the body of the book are reproduced in black-and-white at about 150% of actual size. While they are legible, at least a foldout color plate containing full-size reproductions of all the stamps covered should have been provided for the price of this book.
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On the other hand, for the reader who wants more, Bianculli can be lauded for providing first an extensive source list from pages 197 to 215 (organized in the same order as the material in the body), then an extensive bibliography from pages 216 to 250, followed by an index by Scott number from pages 251 to 257, and finally a general index.
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This book is a well-done (albeit pricey for its lack of color plates) addition to either the "Railroad History" or the "IA in Art" section of bookshelves. After reading this book, it seems that the U.S. Postal Service is nowhere close to running out of subjects in U.S. railroad history that could be featured on future postage stamps.
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