U.S. #4860

2014 21¢ Abraham Lincoln

This stamp was issued to cover the additional-ounce and non-machinable surcharge rates. It pictures a close-up view of the statue in the Lincoln Memorial. The stamps were issued in pane (U.S. #4860) and coil (U.S. #4861) formats.

Value: 21¢ additional second-ounce rate

Issued: February 12, 2014, Lincoln’s birthday
City: Springfield, IL, Lincoln’s home before becoming President

Type of Stamp: Definitive
Printed By: CCL Label Inc.
Printing Method: Photogravure printed in sheets of 3 panes of 20 per sheet
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cut 11
Self-Adhesive

Quantity: 120,000,000 (stamps in pane format)

Dedication Of Lincoln Memorial

On May 30, 1922, William Howard Taft dedicated the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 1860, Leonard Volk made plaster masks of Abraham Lincoln’s face and hands. Two days earlier, the Illinois lawyer had learned he was the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. Neither man could have known Lincoln would be assassinated five years later or that Volk’s casts would be used to create a monument to the fallen leader.

Plans for a national monument to Abraham Lincoln were discussed as early as 1867. However, the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the search for an appropriate location took decades. In 1914, on Lincoln’s 105th birthday, the first stone was laid.

The monument was dedicated eight years later on May 30, 1922, with Lincoln’s only surviving child, Robert Todd Lincoln, in attendance. Per President Warren G. Harding’s instructions, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS) coordinated the dedication ceremonies that day, and has arranged all commemorations there since (usually held on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12.)

Some 50,000 people were present for the ceremony, which was presided over by former President and then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Howard Taft. Previously, Taft had led the commission that arranged for the memorial’s creation.

The keynote speaker of the dedication was Dr. Robert Russo Moton, president of the Tuskegee Institute. Speaking the largely white and segregated audience, Moton asked the audience to seriously consider Lincoln’s hope for a “new birth of freedom.” Then President Harding addressed the crowd, a speech that was broadcast on an experimental radiophone created by the U.S. Navy.

Click here to view video of the dedication ceremony.