Can I read The American stamp postal iconography, democratic citizenship, and consumerism in the United States on EtoBox?

The American stamp postal iconography, democratic citizenship, and consumerism in the United States by Laura Goldblatt; Richard Handler is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is The American stamp postal iconography, democratic citizenship, and consumerism in the United States about?

More than three thousand different images appeared on United States postage stamps from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Limited at first to the depiction of a small cast of characters and patriotic images, postal iconography gradually expanded as the Postal Service sought to depict the country's history in all its diversity. This vast breadth has helped make stamp collecting a widespread hobby and made stamps into consumer goods in their own right. Examining the canon of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American stamps, Laura Goldblatt and Richard Handler show how postal iconography and material culture offer a window into the contested meanings and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship. They argue that postage stamps, which are both devices to pay for a government service and purchasable items themselves, embody a crucial tension: is democracy defined by political agency or the freedom to buy? The changing images and uses of stamps reveal how governmental authorities have attempted to navigate between public service and businesslike efficiency, belonging and exclusion, citizenship and consumerism. Stamps are vehicles for state messaging, and what

Who reads The American stamp postal iconography, democratic citizenship, and consumerism in the United States?

Author

Laura Goldblatt; Richard Handler

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published

2023

Language

EN

ISBN

9780231208253

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Social Science, Social_sciences