13c Clara Maass stamp

A 13-cent stamp honoring the centenary of Clara Maass's birth was issued on August 18, 1976. The stamp, designed by Paul Calle, features a portrait of Clara Maass wearing a Newark German Hospital pin.

The multicolored stamp (Scott 1699) was printed on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing seven-color Andreotti gravure press (601) as sheets of 160 subjects, tagged, perforated 11, and distributed as panes of forty (eight across, five down). Mr. Zip, “MAIL EARLY IN THE DAY,” electric eye markings, and six plate numbers, one in each color used to print the sheet, are printed in the selvage.

Clara Maass (June 28, 1876-August 24, 1901) worked as an army nurse in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. She returned to Cuba in 1900 at the request of Maj. William Gorgas, chief sanitation officer, where she became involved in a study of the cause of yellow fever. To determine whether the tropical fever was caused by city filth or the bite of a mosquito, seven volunteers, including Maass, were bitten by the mosquitoes. Two men died, but she survived. She volunteered again several months later, this time being infected. Maass died of yellow fever at the age of twenty-five. In her memory, Newark German Hospital (New Jersey) was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital.

Reference:
Scott 2005 Specialized Catalogue of U.S. Stamps and Covers
http://www.nursingworld.org/ClaraLouiseMaass
http://www.aahn.org/gravesites/maass.html

-Doug D'Avino, May 16, 2006

Scott Catalogue USA: 1699
mint

Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Museum ID: 1980.2493.6184