The Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum presents
"FDR as a Stamp Collector:
The 1932 Election, the H. R. Harmer Auctions
and a Wide Selection of Items
from his Personal Collection"
with Paul M. Holland
Thursday, September 26, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.
Henry A. Wallace Center at the
FDR Presidential Library and Home
HYDE PARK, NY -- The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum will present,
"FDR as a Stamp Collector: The 1932 Election, the H. R. Harmer Auctions and a Wide Selection of Items from his Personal Collection" with Paul M. Holland
-- a specialist stamp collector of the FDR era -- at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 26, 2019. The program will be held in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home.
This is a free public event but registration is required.
While much has been written about both the public and private life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, surprisingly little has appeared about FDR's passion for stamp collecting -- perhaps his primary means of relaxation. In fact, according to Admiral Ross McIntire his White House physician, "Roosevelt spent well over two thousand hours while he was president tending to his collection." When FDR traveled he always took part of his collection went with him in a wooden box (now in the FDR library) so he could work on his stamps when time allowed. Unlike most collectors, FDR did not use pre-printed stamp albums, instead arranging his collection on blank album pages according to his own whims. He also saved interesting and often amusing covers from the large volume of mail that he received from around the world in his collection.
Following his death, FDR's collection was auctioned off in series of four public auctions in 1946, widely dispersing these items. As a consequence, much original context has been lost, and apart from a few presentation collections from foreign governments, only a limited amount of this material is represented in the collections at the FDR library. Dr. Holland has spent many years acquiring representative items from FDR's stamp collection, including intact album pages, numerous covers and other items related to FDR as a stamp collector, and his talk will provide fresh insight on this fascinating and relatively unknown aspect of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's life.
Dr. Paul M. Holland
is a long-time specialist collector with a focus on understanding the private side of Franklin D. Roosevelt, especially the relatively little studied topic of FDR as a stamp collector. Paul has written more than fifty articles on this and other areas of philately (stamp collecting). Otherwise, he is a scientist with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and M.S. in oceanography who founded a small company Thorleaf Research, Inc. to develop miniaturized spaceflight instrumentation for NASA. He is from Santa Barbara, California.
Please contact Cliff Laube at (845) 486-7745 with questions about the event.
