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Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
The cover looks fairly normal, with a Grand Central Station machine cancel tying a 3c Lincoln Gettysburg Address stamp and a 1948 seal to the cover. It is dated December 4, 1948; it was received in Washington, DC, two days later, as evidenced by the Mail Early for Christmas slogan cancel. Interestingly, the return address on the unsealed back flap is to a Mrs Heidi Nielsen, who identifies herself as a Social Democrat, in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is possible that Mrs Nielsen is attached to a Danish consulate in New York, but used her generic Danish address instead.
Born in 1913, in Berkeley, California, William Walcott Beatty would become closely associated with progressive education and with FDR's New Deal. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor's in Architecture. He taught at Oakland Technical School, before moving to the San Francisco State Normal School, where he served as head of the history, mathematics, and civics departments, and where he met Frederick Burk, who introduced him to more progressive educational ideas via Dewey's system that emphasized individualized instruction. It was that Dewian approach that led to Beatty's appointment as principal of the Skokie Junior High School, part of the Winnetka District, which was the first district to implement the Burk system. In 1926, he moved to Bronxville, where, as superintendent, he refined this approach on students in a failing system (culled from Historical Dictionary of American Education, by Richard Altenbaugh).
By 1932, he was given a national post as Director of Indian Education in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, under Collier, who was appointed by FDR to lead reforms in Indian Affairs. This led Time Magazine to write:
"The titular leader of U. S. Progressive Education settled himself in the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington last week and prepared to dispense the blessings of his faith to 81,000 young Amerindians. President Willard Walcott Beatty of the Progressive Education Association was fresh from the rich New York City suburb of Bronxville, where he superintended a model school system operating at an annual cost of $233 per student. His appointment as Director of Indian Education indicated a new attempt to develop some sort of education to which Indians will respond." (February 10, 1936 Time magazine; CLICK HERE )
From 1933 to 1937, he was president of the Progressive Education Association, likely fueled by his association with the Winnetka approach, developed by Washburne. Winnetka’s genius was the creation of special resources dedicated specifically to students in need, which was radical for the time.
From 1936 to 1952, he oversaw the single greatest overhaul of Indian education in its history, as he harnessed funds and impetus from FDR’s New Deal. Part of his success there was his recognition of the innate worth of Indians and Indians’ approach to living, as shown by this passage:
"Beatty’s chief criticism of whites was of their failure to put human before material values…. whites had attempted to corrupt Indian thinking by persuading them that the activities by which countless previous generations of Indians won their livelihood might be too difficult for the modern Indian. We people of the US have allowed our respect for money to outweigh our recognition of the fact that human effort and human will existed before money and may perpetuate the race after money ceases to be important." (excerpted from Education and the American Indian, by Margaret Connell Szasz).
And, why, you ask, is Beatty important to me? It is the individualized approach in education, first used in Winnetka, that is the hallmark of the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching children with dyslexia. My daughter is dyslexic and is benefitting mightily from this approach, jumping three grade levels in reading in a year.
(Modified by Moderator on 2015-10-28 14:12:37)
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David, that is a pretty interesting history around that cover! What intrigued you to acquire it prior to your knowledge of the recipient?
I have been quietly putting aside Christmas seals on cover, unfortunately many of them don't have the postmark tie in like yours.
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Tom, it was a properly tied seal going to an obscure location.... Bureau of Indian affairs..... The return address in Denmark led me to think it might have been an embassy or consulate usage....
Among seal collectors, seals on cover are an added bonus. For seal cover collectors, tying the seal w proper period is the holy grail.
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I understand the interest. I live for odd covers and such. Christmas seals started in 1907, so I've been looking for the 1907, 1908 and 1909 seals on a card along with my Ben Franklin stamp. I am looking only for covers with the seal tied with the cancel, as it's easy to buy any of these years' seals for a buck and add them to an open corner.
It's funny when I scan eBay for these covers. There will be sellers who are offering a 1908 seal for a dollar. The next ad is the same seal for $50. And covers go the same way. There were a few with the required cancel tie starting at $4.95 and other exact like covers with a $50-100 asking price. I'm sure those will be there for some time!
For instance... here's a very nice 1906 Christmas card in my collection. Note that it was mailed on Christmas eve and received on Christmas day. And nobody noticed! I found it in a lot of old postcards I bought. Now if this was a 1907 card, some unscrupulous person could just lick and stick a 1907 Christmas seal in a corner... and some folks would buy that!
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Tom,
very nice card, with fabulous receiving cancel. I forget the date when Christmas became a federal holiday and POs were closed, but 12.25 isn't a rare date in the first third of the last century.
yes, the "tied" aspect of seals on cover is to preclude precisely what you describe.
you likely know that there are two, fairly different, 1907 Christmas seal types (Merry Christmas; and Merry Christmas/Happy New Year; 1907-1 and -2, respectively, per Green's). All told, we've recorded just under 100 of the two seals combined (and only 1 example with both tied on the same cover). So, they are pretty rare, and very much in demand; 1908 has 2 main and 7 total subtypes, with more than 300 tied examples among them; 1909 has 525 examples; and 1910 434, as of last count (late 2014). But these are only the recorded tieds; there must be 100s more moldering or sitting in collections. The 1907-1 and -2 combined cover was bought for astronomical sum by a collector of the 2c Washignton that franked the cover; i forget what its other unique aspect was, but he didn't care about its seal provenance.
and, yes, there is huge range of prices
David
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Thanks for all that information David! That should keep me busy looking for all those variations on cover or card. I always find new directions to keep my Ben Franklin search alive. There is always something else to look for.
I recently found this card with a Christmas sticker, although not tied. I bought it for about $1 in a lot of cards. I added it to my Franklin collection because I can imagine that a color sticker would have been a novelty back in 1908. Local use within Ardmore, PA which is just a few miles from me!
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Tom, in the first two decades of the twentieth century, there were both seals and commercial stickers for all sorts of things, Christmas and other religious things being most prominent. Theres's at least as much forgotten as known about these labels. My favorites are Santa Claus Post (sometimes called St Nicholas Post), a commercial series produced by Dennison.
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I had never heard of Mr Willard Beatty when I bid on, and won, this cover. But, as I often do, I googled this unknown, and found that many others knew precisely who he was, and who is quite important to me personally. More on that in a second.
The cover looks fairly normal, with a Grand Central Station machine cancel tying a 3c Lincoln Gettysburg Address stamp and a 1948 seal to the cover. It is dated December 4, 1948; it was received in Washington, DC, two days later, as evidenced by the Mail Early for Christmas slogan cancel. Interestingly, the return address on the unsealed back flap is to a Mrs Heidi Nielsen, who identifies herself as a Social Democrat, in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is possible that Mrs Nielsen is attached to a Danish consulate in New York, but used her generic Danish address instead.
Born in 1913, in Berkeley, California, William Walcott Beatty would become closely associated with progressive education and with FDR's New Deal. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor's in Architecture. He taught at Oakland Technical School, before moving to the San Francisco State Normal School, where he served as head of the history, mathematics, and civics departments, and where he met Frederick Burk, who introduced him to more progressive educational ideas via Dewey's system that emphasized individualized instruction. It was that Dewian approach that led to Beatty's appointment as principal of the Skokie Junior High School, part of the Winnetka District, which was the first district to implement the Burk system. In 1926, he moved to Bronxville, where, as superintendent, he refined this approach on students in a failing system (culled from Historical Dictionary of American Education, by Richard Altenbaugh).
By 1932, he was given a national post as Director of Indian Education in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, under Collier, who was appointed by FDR to lead reforms in Indian Affairs. This led Time Magazine to write:
"The titular leader of U. S. Progressive Education settled himself in the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington last week and prepared to dispense the blessings of his faith to 81,000 young Amerindians. President Willard Walcott Beatty of the Progressive Education Association was fresh from the rich New York City suburb of Bronxville, where he superintended a model school system operating at an annual cost of $233 per student. His appointment as Director of Indian Education indicated a new attempt to develop some sort of education to which Indians will respond." (February 10, 1936 Time magazine; CLICK HERE )
From 1933 to 1937, he was president of the Progressive Education Association, likely fueled by his association with the Winnetka approach, developed by Washburne. Winnetka’s genius was the creation of special resources dedicated specifically to students in need, which was radical for the time.
From 1936 to 1952, he oversaw the single greatest overhaul of Indian education in its history, as he harnessed funds and impetus from FDR’s New Deal. Part of his success there was his recognition of the innate worth of Indians and Indians’ approach to living, as shown by this passage:
"Beatty’s chief criticism of whites was of their failure to put human before material values…. whites had attempted to corrupt Indian thinking by persuading them that the activities by which countless previous generations of Indians won their livelihood might be too difficult for the modern Indian. We people of the US have allowed our respect for money to outweigh our recognition of the fact that human effort and human will existed before money and may perpetuate the race after money ceases to be important." (excerpted from Education and the American Indian, by Margaret Connell Szasz).
And, why, you ask, is Beatty important to me? It is the individualized approach in education, first used in Winnetka, that is the hallmark of the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching children with dyslexia. My daughter is dyslexic and is benefitting mightily from this approach, jumping three grade levels in reading in a year.
(Modified by Moderator on 2015-10-28 14:12:37)
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re: Willard Walcott Beatty and a tied 1948 Christmas seal
David, that is a pretty interesting history around that cover! What intrigued you to acquire it prior to your knowledge of the recipient?
I have been quietly putting aside Christmas seals on cover, unfortunately many of them don't have the postmark tie in like yours.
Login to Like
this post
Auctions
re: Willard Walcott Beatty and a tied 1948 Christmas seal
Tom, it was a properly tied seal going to an obscure location.... Bureau of Indian affairs..... The return address in Denmark led me to think it might have been an embassy or consulate usage....
Among seal collectors, seals on cover are an added bonus. For seal cover collectors, tying the seal w proper period is the holy grail.
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: Willard Walcott Beatty and a tied 1948 Christmas seal
I understand the interest. I live for odd covers and such. Christmas seals started in 1907, so I've been looking for the 1907, 1908 and 1909 seals on a card along with my Ben Franklin stamp. I am looking only for covers with the seal tied with the cancel, as it's easy to buy any of these years' seals for a buck and add them to an open corner.
It's funny when I scan eBay for these covers. There will be sellers who are offering a 1908 seal for a dollar. The next ad is the same seal for $50. And covers go the same way. There were a few with the required cancel tie starting at $4.95 and other exact like covers with a $50-100 asking price. I'm sure those will be there for some time!
For instance... here's a very nice 1906 Christmas card in my collection. Note that it was mailed on Christmas eve and received on Christmas day. And nobody noticed! I found it in a lot of old postcards I bought. Now if this was a 1907 card, some unscrupulous person could just lick and stick a 1907 Christmas seal in a corner... and some folks would buy that!
Login to Like
this post
Auctions
re: Willard Walcott Beatty and a tied 1948 Christmas seal
Tom,
very nice card, with fabulous receiving cancel. I forget the date when Christmas became a federal holiday and POs were closed, but 12.25 isn't a rare date in the first third of the last century.
yes, the "tied" aspect of seals on cover is to preclude precisely what you describe.
you likely know that there are two, fairly different, 1907 Christmas seal types (Merry Christmas; and Merry Christmas/Happy New Year; 1907-1 and -2, respectively, per Green's). All told, we've recorded just under 100 of the two seals combined (and only 1 example with both tied on the same cover). So, they are pretty rare, and very much in demand; 1908 has 2 main and 7 total subtypes, with more than 300 tied examples among them; 1909 has 525 examples; and 1910 434, as of last count (late 2014). But these are only the recorded tieds; there must be 100s more moldering or sitting in collections. The 1907-1 and -2 combined cover was bought for astronomical sum by a collector of the 2c Washignton that franked the cover; i forget what its other unique aspect was, but he didn't care about its seal provenance.
and, yes, there is huge range of prices
David
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: Willard Walcott Beatty and a tied 1948 Christmas seal
Thanks for all that information David! That should keep me busy looking for all those variations on cover or card. I always find new directions to keep my Ben Franklin search alive. There is always something else to look for.
I recently found this card with a Christmas sticker, although not tied. I bought it for about $1 in a lot of cards. I added it to my Franklin collection because I can imagine that a color sticker would have been a novelty back in 1908. Local use within Ardmore, PA which is just a few miles from me!
Login to Like
this post
Auctions
re: Willard Walcott Beatty and a tied 1948 Christmas seal
Tom, in the first two decades of the twentieth century, there were both seals and commercial stickers for all sorts of things, Christmas and other religious things being most prominent. Theres's at least as much forgotten as known about these labels. My favorites are Santa Claus Post (sometimes called St Nicholas Post), a commercial series produced by Dennison.
Login to Like
this post