Postal History

Archaeopolitics and Postage Stamps in Africa

by Jonathan Walz

Commentary:
African Arts 38(2): 8, 88 & 96.
2005

JOURNAL ARTICLE - Fresh Views on the Old Past: The Postage Stamps of the Mexican Bicentennial

by Henio Hoyo

Published in: Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 12(1):19-44. [2012]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-9469.2012.01158.x/abstract

The year 2010 in Mexico marked both the 200th anniversary of the start of its independence movement and the 100th... more The year 2010 in Mexico marked both the 200th anniversary of the start of its independence movement and the 100th anniversary of its revolution. Besides several public events, a number of items including commemorative coins, banknotes, and stamps were produced to mark the occasion. This article analyses the postage stamps issued to commemorate the Mexican bicentennial. It does so by comparing these stamps with the ones issued for previous independence anniversaries, and then tracking changes and continuities in their messages. It is found that, on the one hand, the bicentennial postage stamps of Mexico promoted a particular narrative regarding the historical, territorial, and ethnic features of the Mexican independence process, which in many ways departs from previous, long-established nationalist narratives. But on the other hand, bicentennial stamps also demonstrate the influence of traditional interpretations of the national past – particularly those related to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional's (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI) revolutionary nationalism doctrine – which are still being reproduced even after the 2000 democratic transition.

CONFERENCE PAPER - Official Postcards: Spreading Ideological and Nationalist Messages through Postage Stamps

by Henio Hoyo

Presented at the 16th Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN). New York: Columbia, 14 Apr. 2011

CONFERENCE PAPER - True Mexico on Mail: The National Imaginary of the Mexican Bicentennial Postage Stamps

by Henio Hoyo

Presented at the 21st Annual conference of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN). London: LSE, 06 Apr. 2011

Describing the Literature That Assesses the United States Postal Service Redress Program

by Texas State PA Applied Research Projects

Fields, Karal G., "Describing the Literature That Assesses the United States Postal Service Redress Program" (2006). Applied Research Projects, Texas State University-San Marcos. Paper 111.
http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/111

Purpose

The purpose of this Applied Research Project is to describe the literature utilized to assess the... more Purpose

The purpose of this Applied Research Project is to describe the literature utilized to assess the United States Postal Service REDRESS program. The scholarly literature that assesses the REDRESS program is described from both a content and method perspective. This study examines how 15 articles discuss and identify the content and method criteria. While explaining the assessment criteria, the transformative model of mediation that is the basis of the REDRESS program is explained. Method

The study used content analysis to describe the content of studies that analyze the REDRESS program. Ten descriptive categories formed the basis of the coding sheet. They are 1) REDRESS components; 2) process index; 3) mediator index; 4) transformative index; 5) outcome index; 6) evaluation types; 7) research purpose; 8) conceptual framework; 9) research methods; 10) statistical techniques.

Results

After reviewing the literature utilized to describe the REDRESS program, results show that the content had several similarities. The REDRESS assessment components in category one were significantly discussed. For example, the process index, mediator index, transformative index, and outcome index were significantly discussed. When it comes to the subcategories in each index, some are discussed more than others. Overall, most variables are either partially discussed or not discussed at all. On the other hand, when identifying the techniques that make up the methodology section, majority of the articles utilized evaluation types, research purposes, conceptual frameworks, research methods, & statistical techniques.

Circolazione di notizie e andamento dei mercati nel basso Medioevo

by Francesco Guidi Bruscoli

in Fama e publica vox nel Medioevo, Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Ascoli Piceno, 4-5 Dicembre 2009), a cura di I. Lori Sanfilippo-A. Rigon, Roma, Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo, 2011, pp. 119-146

The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America (review)

by Joseph M. Adelman

"A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence, Public and Private": The Post Office, the Business of Printing, and the American Revolution

by Joseph M. Adelman

This essay argues that American printers motivated by a deep commercial interest in fast and effective communication... more This essay argues that American printers motivated by a deep commercial interest in fast and effective communication worked to overturn the British imperial postal service in 1774 and 1775. Printers enlisted merchants and members of the revolutionary elite, who also relied on long-distance communication through the post office for their own commercial and political purposes, to provide financial and political support. In making their case, printers mobilized a broad array of political ideology and imagery already familiar to colonists during the decade-long imperial crisis, emphasizing the political necessity of replacing the imperial institution. At the same time, they uncontroversially asserted that a new American post office would safeguard their precarious commercial ventures. The essay therefore demonstrates that printers were not “mere mechanics” but actively shaped the political debates leading to the American Revolution as part of a process that scholars have recently highlighted in a work on the economic and commercial influences on the Revolution. Furthermore, it grants the post office its due as part of the Habermasian public sphere; although understudied, the post office—both as a physical space and as a network through which information could travel—was a crucial means by which Americans developed a national infrastructure for political communications. Exploring the overthrow of the British post office, and the creation of an American post office, reveals an understudied but crucial episode to explain the symbiosis between politics and commerce during the American Revolutionary era.

A Creative Machine: Reconstructing the Media History of Theodor Fontane's Library and Reading Practices

by Petra S. McGillen

Accepted pending revisions by The Germanic Review (peer-reviewed journal).

21. How much postal reform in Japanese postal privatization?

by Amelia Porges

The Privatization of Japan Post: Ensuring both a viable post and a level playing field

by Amelia Porges

Transport and Communications

by Robert Weeks

Chapter 11 in Madeleine Gray and Prys Morgan (eds.) Gwent County History III: The Making of Monmouthshire, 1536-1780 pp.240-250

Special issue of Eighteenth-Century Life (February 2011)

by John McTague

Co-edited with Stephen Bernard and Claudine van Hensbergen. Contains articles by: Peter Sabor; Ros Ballaster; Temma Berg; Stephen Bernard; Clare Brant; Louise Curran; Sarah Haggarty; John McTague; Nicole Pohl; Claudine van Hensbergen; Abigail Williams.

A special journal issue carrying the proceedings of a conference we organised entitled ‘“I remain, &c.”:... more A special journal issue carrying the proceedings of a conference we organised entitled ‘“I remain, &c.”: Addressing the Eighteenth Century Letter’ (St Edmund Hall, Oxford, 11th-12th September, 2008)

CONFERENCE PAPER - Meet our mighty leaders: the representation of political figures in postage stamps

by Henio Hoyo

Paper presented on the 20th Anniversary ASEN Conference, London, LSE, 13 - 15 April 2010.

Postage stamps are ideal propaganda means for a regime: they are designed and produced by states; travel inside and... more Postage stamps are ideal propaganda means for a regime: they are designed and produced by states; travel inside and beyond their frontiers; and reach specific individuals and families. Therefore, it is very common to find nationalist messages on them, promoting the features, history, culture and identity of the nation, as well as its greatest heroes and most reputed artists. But only in some cases we find stamps devoted to the existing political leaders. Why?
I argue that the depiction of leaders in postage stamps reflects both the regimes’ nationalist doctrine and its type of leadership. That is: the more a regime is based on a strong charismatic leadership, the more its postage stamps will focus on such leader, representing it as incarnating the whole nation and also avoiding references to other members of the elite. Conversely, those nationalist regimes that actively avoid the consolidation of single leaders, will issue stamps with scant or no references to specific individuals –focusing on institutions, or in alternative topics of the regimes’ nationalist doctrine instead. I will test this by studying the stamps of two contrasting cases: Germany under Nazism and Mexico during the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI.

CONFERENCE PAPER - Addressing issues: contested narratives and nationalist propaganda in postage stamps

by Henio Hoyo

Paper presented on the 2010 ECPR Graduate Conference, DCU, Dublin, 01 Sep 2010.

In this paper l deal on how national imaginaries are promoted by states to both national and foreign audiences. My... more In this paper l deal on how national imaginaries are promoted by states to both national and foreign audiences. My hypotheses are, first, that stamps work as carriers of an official national imaginary, promoting a particular account of the history, features and development of the issuing nation; second, that political actors and groups within the country will try to influence such national imaginary, according to their own perceptions and goals. If that is the case, then by taking pieces commemorating a single event of key historical importance, but presented by different states, we should be able to compare how that event is interpreted in their respective national imaginaries, and also correlate such variations to their internal political environment.

BOOK CHAPTER - Posting Nationalism: Postage Stamps as Carriers of Nationalist Messages.

by Henio Hoyo

In Burbick, Joan and William R. Glass (eds.) Beyond Imagined Uniqueness: Nationalisms in Contemporary Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010 pp. 67-92.
--- Published with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing ---

Items like coins, banknotes and political posters have been regarded as useful sources for research on the diffusion... more Items like coins, banknotes and political posters have been regarded as useful sources for research on the diffusion of nationalist messages. In contrast, postage stamps have been largely ignored for such purpose. My hypothesis is, stamps are “carriers” of an official national imaginary about the history, features, composition and development of the issuing nation. A first section of the paper develops this argument by presenting some key features and paradoxes of stamps, explaining how states manage and intervene in stamp design, and presenting a typology of messages about the nation that can be found on them. A second section will test my arguments by means of both a synchronic and a diachronic comparison. The first uses a sample of stamps issued by Germany on two contrasting periods (Nazi vs. Federal Republic) to find how the political and ideological changes were presented. The second comparison utilizes a sample of stamps issued by Spain and Mexico to commemorate 500 years of the arrival of Columbus to the American continent. It analyzes if, and how, those stamps offer contrasting visions regarding an episode that is so crucial for the national narratives of each.