Katharine Graham Is Being Honored By the U.S. Postal Service With a New Stamp

From a Washington Post story by Kelsey Ables headlined “USPS honors former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham with a new stamp”:

Washington Post readers may find a familiar face in their mailbox next year: The newspaper’s former publisher, the late Katharine Graham, is being honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a new stamp.

The USPS announced several stamps it will debut in 2022 including a commemorative stamp for the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX as well as stamps featuring the sculptor Edmonia Lewis, folk musician Pete Seeger, marine biologist Eugenie Clark and Native American Modernist painter George Morrison.

Graham, who took over as chief executive of The Washington Post Co. after her husband’s death in 1963, is honored as a part of the “Distinguished Americans” series. Graham led The Post through the 1971 publishing of the Pentagon Papers, which told the history of the Vietnam War through secret government documents, and coverage of the Watergate scandal. In 1998, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her memoir “Personal History.”

The two-ounce stamp will be the 17th in the “Distinguished Americans” series, which the USPS began distributing in 2000. Stamps from the series have also featured Olympic runner Wilma Rudolph, author Harriet Beecher Stowe and Tuskegee airman C. Alfred “Chief” Anderson. The Postal Service adds a new stamp every few years, and before Graham, the most recent addition was a 2017 stamp featuring Robert Panera, a leader in the field of deaf studies and former professor at Washington, D.C.’s Gallaudet University….

The first woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, Graham came to the job with limited journalism experience and no business background….The story of Graham’s decision to take the company public and publish the Pentagon Papers was dramatized in the 2017 film “The Post.”…

The stamp will feature an oil painting of Graham by Lynn Staley, based on a photo of Graham from the 1970s, when she was at the height of her power in Washington. It was designed by art director Derry Noyes.

Other stamps to debut this year include a series of mountain flora and Pony Car stamps, and individual stamps featuring blueberries and celebrating women’s rowing.