Celebrating Negro Leagues Baseball With a Contest

This Commemorative Folio for the 44–cent Negro Leagues Baseball stamps includes a full pane of 20 stamps. Click the image for details.

In 2010, the U.S. Postal Service issued the . The issuance honored the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 to about 1960. In addition to a painting depicting game action, the stamps feature a portrait of Andrew “Rube” Foster, who’s considered the “father” of Negro leagues baseball. Foster was born on this date in 1879.

In celebration of Foster’s birthday, here’s a Negro leagues quiz. Test your knowledge for a chance to win one copy of Play Ball! A Celebration of Baseball’s Greatest Moments. This wonderful 8½” x 11”, 40-page softbound book features the vivid paintings of artist Graig Kreindler, as well as 16 collectible stamps: the 2001 Legendary Playing Fields (10), the , and the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Stars (4) stamps.

1. Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947. In 1945, he played for which Negro leagues team?

Blay Ball booklet2. What year did the first Negro Leagues World Series take place?

3. This Negro leagues slugger is believed to have hit 800—or more—home runs.

4. Which Negro leagues pitcher is known for delivering this wise piece of advice: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you”?

5. Andrew “Rube” foster was also a player and manager. Which two Negro leagues teams did he manage?

To enter, send your answers, along with your name and address, to: USPS Stamps, 1300 Mercantile Ln, Ste 139C, Largo, MD 20774.

Of those who answer all five questions correctly, two people will be randomly chosen to receive a copy of Play Ball! This concludes our summer contest series. Thanks to everyone for playing! Entries for the final contest must be postmarked by Saturday, September 28. Good luck!

Althea Gibson’s Firsts

With the U.S. Open women’s singles championship match set to begin later this afternoon, it’s time to look back at the amazing career of pioneering tennis player Althea Gibson, the subject of the 36th stamp in the Black Heritage series. Her long list of accomplishments includes several firsts in the world of tennis (and beyond!):

  • In 1950, Gibson she became the first African American player to enter the United States Championships, which is now known as the U.S. Open. She advanced to the second round.

    Expand your Black Heritage series collection with this lively, colorful set, which includes a sheet of 20 Althea Gibson Forever® stamps and a stamped envelope with the First Day of Issue color postmark. Click the image for details.

  • In 1951, she became the first black player to enter Wimbledon.
  • In 1956, Gibson won the French Championships, which is now known as the French Open. In the final, she defeated Angela Mortimer, 6-0, 12-10. With that victory, Gibson became the first African American of either gender to win one of the four major singles tournaments. (That year in Paris, Gibson also won the doubles crown with Angela Buxton.)
  • On July 6, 1957, Gibson prevailed in the Wimbledon final in straight sets, winning that prestigious tournament for the first time. Afterward, Gibson shouted, “At last! At last!” During the trophy ceremony, she was greeted by Queen Elizabeth II.
  • On September 8, 1957, Gibson captured the U.S. Championships for the first time. In the final, she defeated Louise Brough Clapp, 6-3, 6-2.
  • After her tennis career came to a close, the multi-talented Gibson became the first African American to qualify for the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour.

See what tennis legends Billie Jean King, Chanda Rubin, and Katrina Adams had to say about this trailblazing tennis star and her influence on them and the sport of tennis.


Now let’s settle in for a spectacular championship match!

Meet Althea Gibson, Pioneering Tennis Star

f-2013-altheagibsonReleased last month, the 36th stamp in the long-running Black Heritage series honors trailblazing tennis star Althea Gibson. The stamp features a portrait by artist Kadir Nelson that is based on a photograph—taken at Wimbledon—of the tall and lean Gibson bending down to hit a low volley. By capturing her in action, Nelson emphasized Gibson’s extraordinary grace and athleticism.

The rest of her story is as unique as it is inspiring.

Gibson was born in Silver, South Carolina, on August 25, 1927. As a young child, she was sent to New York City to live with her aunt Sally. Gibson’s parents, Annie and Daniel, eventually migrated north as well, settling in an apartment on West 143rd Street in Harlem. She learned tennis at Harlem’s Cosmopolitan Club, a hub for black tennis players. By the mid-1940s, Gibson was competing at the women’s level.

In 1950, the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) accepted Gibson’s application to play in that summer’s United States Championships (now known as the U.S. Open) in Forest Hills, New York. Gibson, the first African American ever to enter that tournament, advanced to the second round. In 1951, she once again made history, becoming the first black player to enter Wimbledon.

In 1956, Gibson captured the French Championships (now known as the French Open) in Paris and became the first African American of either gender to win one of the four major singles tournaments. Gibson also teamed up with Angela Buxton to win the doubles crown.

Gibson earned a measure of stardom in the midst of the civil rights movement. She achieved perhaps the most famous victory of her career on July 6, 1957, prevailing in the Wimbledon final in straight sets. That September, Gibson cruised to victory in the final of the U.S. Championships to win the tournament for the first time.

Preserve a piece of sports history with an Althea Gibson First Day Cover. Click the image for details.

In 1958, she successfully defended her titles both at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Championships. She turned professional soon after, ending her amateur career with five major singles titles and six major doubles titles.

In 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She later worked in athletics for the state of New Jersey, where she made her home. Gibson died on September 28, 2003, at the age of 76.

“I know I’ve managed to be somebody,” Gibson wrote in her autobiography. “That’s what I always wanted. I’m Althea Gibson, the tennis champion.”

The Althea Gibson Forever® stamp is now available online, by calling (), and at Post Offices around the country. Add it to your collection today!

How Well Do You Know the Major League Baseball All-Stars?

This keepsake package includes a sheet of 20 Major League Baseball All-Stars (Forever®) stamps and a set of four First Day Covers. Click the image for more details.

The U.S. Postal Service released the eye-popping Major League Baseball All-Stars stamps in 2012. Each of the four featured players is an American icon. Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, Ted Williams—who was born on this date in 1918—and Willie Stargell are responsible for creating countless memories for baseball fans.

How well do you know this quartet of All-Stars? Test your knowledge for a chance to win one copy of Play Ball! A Celebration of Baseball’s Greatest Moments. This wonderful 8½” x 11”, 40-page softbound book features the vivid paintings of artist Graig Kreindler, as well as 16 collectible stamps: the 2001 Legendary Playing Fields (10), the , and the Major League Baseball All-Stars (4) stamps.

Each one of the following statements describes one of the four players—Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, Ted Williams, or Willie Stargell—on the Major League Baseball All-Star stamps. To play, match each statement with the correct player.

1. In 1941, this player hit safely in 56 consecutive games.

2. In 1941, this player finished the season with a .406 batting average.

3. In 1948, this player helped his team win the World Series.

4. This player helped lead his team to two World Series titles.Blay Ball booklet

5. After he retired, this player became Major League Baseball’s second African-American manager.

6. This player saw action in four different decades, the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

7. This player finished his career with 475 home runs.

8. In his career, this player spent time with three different teams.

9. This player won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award three times.

10. This player finished with a career batting average of .344.

To enter, send your answers, along with your name and address, to: USPS Stamps, 1300 Mercantile Ln, Ste 139C, Largo, MD 20774.

Of those who answer all ten correctly, three people will be randomly chosen to receive a copy of Play Ball! If you don’t know all the answers this time around, don’t worry. You’ll have one more chance to win next month. Entries must be postmarked by Saturday, September 7. Good luck!

Modern Art In America: A Q + A With Montclair Art Museum Curator Gail Stavitsky

Four bull’s-eye postmarks and one standard four-bar cancellation are applied in four quadrants to strike all 12 stamps in this Modern Art in America 1913-1931 cancelled stamp sheet. Click the image for details.

The , issued 100 years after the Armory Show opened in New York, truly capture the spirit of that groundbreaking event. The Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey, just wrapped up an exhibition called “The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913.” We recently caught up with Gail Stavitsky, the museum’s chief curator, who graciously answered some of our questions. Here’s a slightly condensed version of our conversation:

Why was the Armory Show so significant?

The original Armory Show was really a landmark exhibition because it was the first large-scale exhibition of modern art in America. It really introduced major artists like Matisse, Picasso . . . and others on a large scale to American audiences. Because before then, you really could’ve only seen a few shows in a very small gallery run in New York City by Alfred Stieglitz on a fourth floor walk-up at 291 Fifth Avenue. There just wasn’t much that you could see, and so [the Armory Show] was the first opportunity to see modern art on a large scale. And of course not only European art, but American art as well, which comprised of two-thirds of the show.

And the other really major importance is that the whole modern art market opened up as a result of the Armory Show. It was after that time that major collections were formed and there was a whole new group of galleries that were founded after the Armory Show. And ultimately, for example, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, when it was founded in 1929, it was really an outgrowth of the Armory Show.

What was your goal in developing the “New Spirit” exhibition?

We felt that the best way to celebrate the centennial of this really important event was to try to look at it in a new way, and to focus on the American art. That is very much the mission of the Montclair Art Museum, to engage in new scholarship and new points of view about American art. And we were aware of the fact that American art actually comprised two-thirds of the works of art on view, of which was over 1,200 works. And the show was organized by American artists, and yet the emphasis is so much on European MarcelDuchamp-Forever-single-BGv1art. Not only Matisse and Picasso, but also Marcel Duchamp—[his] painting, the Nude Descending a Staircase, was considered the big scandal at the Armory Show. And so that’s what people kind of think about when they think about the Armory Show. They don’t really think about Edward Hopper and Robert Henri and Stuart Davis and the many American artists, some who are well-known today, and a lot who are unfortunately forgotten and who deserve to be better-known. So we really wanted to also revive the reputation of artists like E. Ambrose Webster from Boston, who most people have never heard of before, and say, “here’s a really important progressive artist at the time and deserves our attention now.”

How did you go about finding some of the primary documents associated with the Armory Show (letters, floor plans, sales records)?

We were very fortunate to have an important collaborator in the Archives of American Art, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. And they’re really the major repository for any papers that pertain to the Armory Show. They’re the ones with the key documents and the original records, a lot of which are part of the papers of an artist named Walt Kuhn. And there are also papers from another organizer Walter Pach. They have a variety of papers and records there. And so what we did, we worked with them. They have an entire gallery in the show that is devoted to these precious records that they lent to our museum. So I really want to emphasize the importance of their role.

What’s your favorite aspect of the exhibit?

I particularly enjoy the way that we were able to install and present the works, because we wanted to recreate, give kind of a feeling of how the original show was installed. So, we purchased artificial greenery to try to give a sense of the original swags of greenery that were part of the interior decoration of the Armory Show.

And it was a lot of fun being able to present works by both well-known artists and lesser-known Americans in that context and to present such a variety of work, because the work really ranges from realism and impressionism to abstract art by a not-very-well-known artist named Manierre Dawson, who was one of the first abstract artists in the world. [He was] an artist who lived in Chicago and who had his work on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, which was the second stop on the tour of the Armory Show.

The European artists featured at the Armory Show tend to be associated with it, but there were lots of great American works there, too. Why do you think the American artists involved weren’t treated with as much reverence?

I think the reason really has to do with what I guess I would call myth and misconception about the Armory Show that were perpetuated, interestingly enough, by some of the artists themselves initially. And then, especially by the succeeding generation of critics and art historians, which have kind of tended to say the American art is boring and provincial in comparison to the European art, which is more avant-garde. . . . 

There was kind of this myth that the Americans didn’t much attention in the newspapers, and that the American artists felt inferior, and felt that their work wasn’t as exciting. Some of that was because artists like Jerome Meyers, who wrote a book in the 1940s saying that European artists really stole our thunder. So I think some of those attitudes were kind of picked up by other critics and writers and historians in later years and so what we did is we really went back to the original newspaper clippings and reviews. And you know what? Actually, quite a bit of attention was paid to American art. And a lot of it was very positive at the time of the show. I guess somehow it’s been forgotten. That was another part of our mission, to talk about the critical reception and how American artists were seen as progressive.

The was released on March 7, 2013. It is currently available online, by calling (), and in Post Offices nationwide.