The Story of Christmas Seals

By the end of the last century, tuberculosis was the most feared disease in the world. Young and old, rich and poor were struck down-- TB didn't discriminate. It became known as the "White Plague" because as the disease ravaged its victims, they grew pale and emaciated. With the coming of the industrial age, TB was found most often in overcrowded cities where the public sanitation was unknown. These conditions were ideal for spread of the tubercle bacillus-- the microorganism that causes TB.

There was no cure for TB and small hope for recovery. Most victims died within a short time; others lived for years, but were too sick to lead normal lives. Some of the most famous people of the 19th century-- the poet Keats, the pianist Chopin, the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, and many others-- were counted among the victims of TB.

The story of Christmas Seals® begins in 1871 when a young doctor named Edward Livingston Trudeau was diagnosed as having TB. He threw aside all of his plans and decided to spend his remaining time in the serenity of a cottage in northern New York State.

The quiet, peaceful surroundings in the mountains were conducive to long hours of rest. Gradually, as Dr. Trudeau began feeling better, he be-came convinced that TB could he cured with proper bed rest, good nourish-ment, fresh air, and lots of sunshine.

In 1884, the now fully recovered doctor opened the first TB hospital, or sanatorium, in the United States. Although very modest, this one-room red cottage on the shore of Saranac Lake, New York, with room for only two patients at a time, quickly became world famous as one patient after another recovered.

Soon other buildings joined the "Little Red" cottage. Around the world other sanatoriums came into being. But despite the growing belief that the "rest cure" was at least a partial answer to the TB scourge, there were far many more stricken with the disease than there were funds to provide them with adequate facilities and care.

The year was 1907. TB sanatoriums were springing up around the country but most were makeshift and could only care for a few patients at a time. One of them, a small shack on the banks of the Brandywine River in Delaware, was in desperate financial straits. Efforts to raise money had failed because much of the public was unaware that TB patients were being helped by such fresh-air hospitals. The hospital on the Brandywine was about to close its doors forever unless $300 could he found to keep it going through the winter.

Joseph Wales, one of the doctors serving the Brandy-wine hospital, thought his cousin Emily Bissell might find the needed money. She was active in the American Red Cross in Wilmington and had lots of fund-raising experience.

"Well, Emily," he wrote to her, "see what you can do. We're down to our last dollar. Unless $300 can he raised somehow, the poor patients will have to be sent home to die... and perhaps to spread the disease to other people. I hope you'll find a way. You've got to help us."

Emily was anxious to help, but convincing others to contribute wasn't going to be easy. So many people felt that TB was a death sentence and a hopeless cause. Then she remembered a magazine article she had read about how money for the care of needy children with TB was successfully raised in Denmark, far across the ocean.

The article Emily read was written by a famous journalist and social worker of Danish-American birth named Jacob Riis. Six of his brothers had died of TB, so when he learned that his native country had come up with a way to raise money to fight the disease, Riis had a personal reason to suggest that the method he tried in America. This method was the sale, durin, the Christmas season, of small seals to raise funds for fighting TB. Here is how this idea came to be...

A postal clerk, Einar Holboell, was concerned about the lack of care available for the many children ill with TB. He had noticed that in the weeks before Christmas, the post office was filled with lots of holiday mail. The thought struck him: Here was a means for financing the construction of TB hospitals where children could be taken care of properly.

Suppose Denmark issued a special Christmas seal for letters and packages, he thought. While the holiday spirit was high, people just might buy them to help bring in money to help the sick children.

His boss, the postmaster, also thought this was a good idea, as long as the seals were not used as postage. Even the King of Denmark expressed his approval by provid-ing royal patronage. The first seal, bearing a picture of the Queen and the Danish word for Merry Christmas, was issued in 1904 and sold in post offices throughout the country. Over 4 million were sold the first year at a half-penny apiece-a great success. The proceeds from the first two campaigns were enough, in fact, to finance the construction of two children's TB hospitals.

Emily thought the idea of seals was terrific. "Why not get out one to raise money for the shack!" she asked herself. She sat down and sketched a design-- a red cross centered in a half-wreath of holly above the words "Merry Christmas". Her associates at the Delaware Red Cross refused to pay for putting out the seals but the national organization gave its permission to use its red cross symbol on the Christmas Seals.

Emily was able to borrow $40 from friends and get 50,000 Seals printed on credit. The only problem that remained was getting permission to sell the Seals in the Wilmington, Delaware, post office. At first, the local postmaster was hesitant, thinking the idea absurd. Since the Christmas Seal was not a government issue, it could not be sold along with other stamps in the post office. The postmaster relented somewhat, however, and gave permission for the Seals to be sold at a stand in the post office lobby. The Seals were placed in small envelopes carrying the following words in red:

25 Christmas Stamps one penny apiece issued by the
Delaware Red Cross to stamp out the White Plague.

Put this stamp with message bright
On every Christmas letter;
Help the tuberculosis fight,
And make the New Year better.

These stamps do not carry any kind of mail
but any kind of mail will carry them.

Now came the hard work. Selling the Seals for a penny apiece wouldn't be easy, but it was the only way to keep the Brandywine shack going. Emily started her own one-woman campaign to publicize the Seals and how donating to them would help fight the battle against TB. She spoke to all sorts of groups, working overtime to make her campaign a success. Women's clubs, schools, churches, shopkeepers-all could look forward to a visit from Emily Bissell. Finally, on December 7, 1907, the first Seals were sold at a table in the corridor of the Wilmington post office.

On the first day, $25 was raised. But sales soon trailed off and by the end of the third day, Emily realized that $300 goal would not be reached unless she did something drastic. So she boarded a train for nearby Philadelphia, hoping the city's leading newspaper, the North American, would get on the bandwagon. Emily approached the Sunday editor, who listened to her politely but was shocked at the thought of linking Christmas with disease.

Disappointed, Emily left his office, but decided to stop by the office of a staff columnist, Leigh Mitchell Hodges, whose writing she much enjoyed. When she told her story to Hodges and showed him a sheet of the Seals, his reaction was immediate and dramatic. For he saw the sheet not as a piece of pin-holed paper, but as a flaming banner to head the fight against a dreaded foe.

Hodges quickly convinced the editor-in-chief of the newspaper to support the campaign. "Tell Miss Bissell the North American is hers for the holidays," the editor told Hodges. "Drop what you're doing, and give this your whole time. Take all the space you need. Ask her to send us fifty thousand Seals by tomorrow."

Articles appeared each day thereafter in the paper under the slogan "Stamp Out Tuberculosis." On the very first day of sales in Philadelphia, a Seal was bought by a thin, ragged newsboy who stepped up to the counter in the newspaper lobby and said, "Gimme one-me sister's got it," At that moment Emily Bissell, Leigh Mitchell Hodges and the editor-in-chief realized that the word truly had spread, that people knew TB could be beaten, and that even the smallest contributions could someday add up to amounts large enough to crush TB.

Fifty thousand Seals were quickly sold and another 250,000 printed. High public officials, including President Teddy Roosevelt, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Speaker of the House of Representatives endorsed the campaign. And by the time the holiday season was over, $3,000 had been raised-ten times the initial goal. Emily Bissell, with a little help from her friends, had triumphed.

The surprising success of the 1907 campaign prompted a nationwide effort the following year. The American Red Cross, impressed with the success of the first campaign, took up sponsorship of the second cam-paign. Emily Bissell, now president of the Delaware Anti-Tuberculosis Society, again went to work. She spent most of the summer mailing to thousands of big and little newspapers throughout the land the story of the Seal and its meaning. A famous American artist, Howard Pyle, designed the second Seal and millions were printed.

The 1908 campaign was an immediate success. Two days after the drive started, the Washington office of the Red Cross had to hire 20 extra clerks to handle rush orders. The Philadelphia North American again led the publicity parade, printing each day a picture of the new Seal on page one. The final tally for the second campaign was $135,000-an enormous sum then but only a frac-tion of what was needed to conquer TB.

The following year, 1909, saw continued growth of public response, A total of $250,000 was raised... nearly twice that of the previous year. The Red Cross continued sponsoring the Christmas Seal until 1919.

For the fourth campaign in 1910, the National Associa-tion for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (NASPT), now the American Lung Association, joined the Red Cross in a partnership that lasted for 10 years. Back then the NASPT, which was formed in 1904, was not as well known as the Red Cross and was still strug-gling to find its way as a nationwide organization. In-volvement in the Christmas Seal Campaign® proved to be an ideal way to become better known.

By 1920, the NASPT had shortened its name to the National Tuberculosis Association and had grown large enough to run the Christmas Seal Campaign® alone. The bright-red double-barred cross, the emblem of the cru-sade against TB, now adorned the Christmas Seal.

In later years-throughout the 1920s and l930s and well into the l940s-Emily Bissell continued to be ac-tive as a leader of the Christmas Seal Campaign®. Dur-ing these years, she appeared each Christmas season with U.S. Presidents and other public figures, enlisting their support for the Christmas Seal Campaign®.

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