SEND A LETTER
TO SUPPORT A WINDMILL
COMMEMORATIVE STAMP
"Reprinted from Windmillers' Gazette, XVIII, No. 4 (Autumn 1999); complementary sample issues available for free from Windmillers' Gazette, PO Box 507, Rio Vista, TX 76093"
Efforts began at the 11th International Windmillers' Trade Fair in Fort Dodge, Iowa, to
recommend to the U.S. Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee that the Postal Service issue a
commemorative stamp for American windmills in the year 2004. You can do your part to help.
2004 will mark the 150th anniversary, of the invention of the first
commercially successful self-governing windmill in the United States. In 1854 Daniel
Halladay invented and patented the "Halladay Standard" windmill. Manufactured
first in Connecticut and then in Illinois, this machine first demonstrated that a windmill
(1) could turn to face changing wind directions without human attention and (2) could
regulate its own speed of operation so that it did not destroy itself by running too fast.
Many participants at the Trade Fair felt that the time had come for the
U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp commemorating Daniel Halladay's invention and all
American windmills. They mailed letters similar to the one
included with this issue of the Windmillers' Gazette addressed to the Citizens' Stamp
Advisory Committee to ask that a windmill commemorative stamp be considered.
The year 2004 represents the best chance in a long time for a windmill
commemorative stamp to be issued. This is because the Postal Service issues commemorative
stamps only on 50-year intervals of anniversaries for historic events. If a windmill stamp
is not released in 2004, it will be another half century before another 50-year
anniversary will come along and the opportunity will present itself again. Now is the time
to act.
A commemorative stamp marking Daniel Halladay's 1854 invention of the
first successful self-governing windmill meets all twelve of the criteria
for Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee stamp subject selection. It features an
important American subject, well over ten years have passed since the last stamp related
to the subject (the
wind-power stamp booklet in 1980), the anniversary is in the required multiple of
fifty years, and the event is of truly national appeal and significance.
If you would like to support this effort write your own separate letter, or alternately write your address and the date on the enclosed form letter, sign it with your name, and mail it to:
Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee
c/o Stamp Development U.S. Postal Service
475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW, Room 4474 E
Washington, DC 20260-2437
All windmillers thank you for your support!