French Suffrage, Rogue Postal Stamps, and Russian Magazine ‘Printing Art’ from 1902
I’ve been browsing through a collection of more than a century old Russian magazines Printing Art. I found some interesting statistics concerning the book industry of the early 20th century in Russia. And this curiosity as well.
It was posted in a section dedicated to miscellaneous stuff. That’s an editor’s comment dedicated to the contemporary usage of suffragette stamps in France.
Here is a translation:
Unofficial Postal Stamp
If in the recent time someone would decide to correspond with a Parisian advocatess for the women’s emancipation, they would shortly receive a letter holding an unknown stamp near the official one. Official stamps, as it is known, hold an image of a sitting woman (the Republic), to whose left leg leans a stone slab with an inscription «Droits de l’homme». As «homme» in the French language means both ‘human’ and ‘man’, fiery advocatesses of the the women’s [rights] movement are outraged by the postal representation of the ‘male’ yoke and add to their correspondence an additional stamp that depicts a standing female figure with a look of decision and a stone slab with inscription «Droits de la femme».
As far as I understand, that ‘recent usage’ may be dated as early as a decade or two before the publication. However, it was quite interesting to see it mentioned, as I have never seen that sort of rogue stamps used so long ago.
Here is the stamp, by the way:
Please Support us on Patreon!
The minimum level of contribution is only $1 per month.
Moreover, starting with the pledge level of $3, you will get a digitized vintage book about bookbinding, book history, or book arts each month from us!
These pledges help iBookBinding to continue its work and bring more information about bookbinding and book arts to you!
