Suffrage Cinderella and Poster Stamps

The manufacture of non-philatelic or Cinderella stamps to promote a political message goes back in America to the mid-19th century. The first use of the form for suffrage propaganda occurred in 1903 with the introduction of the stamp pictured in the upper left, with the popular suffrage theme of a woman dressed in cap and gown. In 1912, commercial advertisers introduced a larger form of the Cinderella, the poster stamp, which became extremely popular with the American public.

Suffragists were also caught up in the fad, and they issued a variety of such stamps, which they wrote about in their journals, traded amongst themselves, and pasted on envelopes, convention programs, and even, as is the case with the butterfly sticker illustrated here, on their luggage. Suffrage stamps, which were also distributed internationally in such countries as England, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France, died out in popularity after 1915.