Series of 1902 (United States postage stamps)

[3] Only four years later did the Bureau's postage stamp unit have the opportunity to prove that it was capable of something more than this utilitarian effort, when the Post Office elected to issue a commemorative set in honor of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition.

The resulting Trans-Mississippi Issue[4] remains one of the most admired of all U. S. Stamp sets,[5] designed in an elaborate and flamboyant visual style surely intended to demonstrate that the Bureau could attain an unimpeachably high level of engraving creativity and craftsmanship.

One notable feature of the designs is the tendency of pictorial details to protrude into left and right borders of the stamps: the arms, knees or robes of allegorical statues, the tops of flagstaffs, the beaks of eagles, the shields enclosing the numerals--even a sailor's grappling hook and a marine's musket.

For the first time in a definitive set, the birth and death dates of the famous Americans depicted appeared flanking their images,[9] a feature that would remain more common in commemorative issues.

Only three new subjects were chosen, but one of them represented a feminist breakthrough: Martha Washington, appearing on the 8¢ value, became the first woman ever featured on a U. S. definitive stamp, an innovation publicized well in advance.

The oft-unusual iconography with which this series evokes the achievements of its famous Americans includes the following: for Franklin's electrical researches, lightbulbs in the stamp's top corners; for Grant's military exploits, eagles and flags; for Lincoln's reunification of North and South, female figures clasping U. S. flags and holding merged palm fronds above the President's head; for Webster's congressional coalition-building, fasces; for Farragut's naval campaigns, a marine and a sailor; for Harrison's educational initiatives, muses of learning (one reading a book, one sculpting a child); for Marshall's jurisprudence, bas-relief goddesses of Liberty and blindfolded Justice.

On only two stamps, both in the large banknote designs introduced in 1870, had portraits of famous Americans—General Winfield Scott and Admiral Oliver Perry—been accompanied by images suggesting their accomplishments.

The stamp intended for widest circulation, the 2¢ Washington normal-letter-rate value, prompted numerous objections upon its release in January 1903: the image of our first president was thought too weak, failing to reflect his iconic heroism.

The New York Times responded with a withering sarcasm: But a problem more serious than press sniping plagued the Series of 1902: that the existing technique of stamp production could not ensure the quality control needed to present designs of this opulence to best advantage.

Lopsided examples of these stamps with portions of the images cut off are all too common; and relatively few collectors have succeeded in assembling a complete set of the 1902 series in which all the denominations are well-centered.

The Washington-Franklin Issues which gradually replaced the 1902 stamps beginning in late 1908 represented a drastic stylistic reaction to the profusion and variety of elaborate ornament marking their predecessors.

[7] As the public needed $2 and $5 stamps immediately, the Post Office elected to reprint the 1902 designs of the two issues as a stop-gap, until such time as Washington-Franklin versions could be produced.