The “See America First” campaign of the 19-teens and -twenties was calculated to stir domestic tourism in the United States: “See Europe if you must,” went the slogan, “but See America First.”

One of the movement’s means of publicity was the issuance of “poster stamps” – rather large (often 2-inch squares, or larger), brightly colored images of American scenery, to be pasted to envelopes in the same way that Easter seals or Christmas seals might be used. Whole sets of stamps with a common theme – scenery along a particular rail line, various types of wildlife – were issued, and a search of “poster stamps” on eBay will on most days provide you with a number of examples.

I’ve only seen one of these stamps in real life and don’t know what other images might have appeared in the same series. This one was pasted on a letter going out from the Deseret Book offices in 1915, advertising San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific Exposition, “via Glacier National Park.” The advertising at the bottom for Deseret Book was an integral part of the design. Did Deseret Book print a series of their own? Did the See America First campaign license advertising to piggyback with their stamps? I don’t know – but it’s a pretty stamp, isn’t it?

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