The Story of Christmas Seals

With Emily Bissell leading the national campaign and an army of ALA volunteers across the country promoting Christmas Seals® in cities, towns and villages, Emily's great idea became a cherished American tradition.

Each holiday season millions of sheets of Seals arrive at millions of households throughout the nation. This makes Christmas Seals the largest nonprofit direct-mail campaign in the country guaranteeing that nearly all Americans have an opportunity to support the war being waged by the ALA against all lung diseases.

And it is a war being fought at the grassroots level. Ninety percent of the money raised through donations to the Christmas Seal Campaign® stay at the local Lung Associations and help fund the work of the thousands of volunteers who contribute their time, talents and ener-gies to the mission of preventing, curing and controlling all lung disease.

Over the years, Christmas Seals® have been designed by some of America's most popular artists. Their colorful creations decorate Christmas cards, letters, pack-ages, and Christmas trees each year. Since their earliest years, the Christmas Seal people® have used posters, booklets, buttons, and exhibits to publicize the campaign and let people know how their contributions support the fight against lung disease. Christmas Seal designs are also found on bookmarks, windshield stickers, placemats, paper napkins, and a host of other memorabilia that decorate the holiday season while reminding the public of the good cause being served.

Since 1908, famous artists were asked to create designs for each year's Christmas Seal. Starting in 1954, all American artists-- amateur as well as professional-- were given the opportunity to have their design selected for the Seal. This search for a design was called "A Call For Artists." A pamphlet was sent to interested artists, giving details about size, color and other important aspects of the Christmas Seal. From each year's thousands of submissions, an ALA jury chose the winner.

"A Call For Artists" ended in 1974 and was immedi-ately replaced by the "Children's Art Project for Christmas Seals®." This novel way of choosing the 1975 Seal was carried out in collaboration with the National Art Education Association.

Local Lung Associations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands submitted Christmas Seal designs by schoolchildren in kinder-garten through the sixth grade. After six designs were chosen from each state and participating territory, a blue-ribbon committee of leading professionals in art and edu-cation, as well as selected local Lung Association public relations staff, picked the winners-one from each locale. That's why each sheet of 1975 Christmas Seals® contains 54 separate designs.

The project was a great success. Schoolchildren all over America created colorful and playful designs. Those young artists whose work won a spot on the Seal sheets became local celebrities. The project was repeated in 1977 and again in 1978, 1979 and 1980.

After 1980, it was felt that the campaign would be best served by taking advantage of the new technologies that had emerged in the field of mass direct-mail distribution. In order to ensure maximum public response, sheets of test designs are mailed to preselected areas instead of that year's Christmas Seal. The test Seal that demonstrates the greatest donor response becomes the next year's Seal.

Some Christmas Seals® have become highly prized collectibles. Up to 40.000 avid stamp collectors seek out many of the early Christmas Seals®, which in some cases bring prices of several hundred dollars each. And the test Seals of the 1980s have become valued collectibles in their own right.

Emily Bissell had been quick to seize upon the instant publicity a celebrity or major political figure engendered. Through the years, thousands of national and local celebrities have generously given their time and im-age to the promotion of the campaign.

But it was not until 1959 that a well-known public figure was appointed National Christmas Seal Campaign® Chairman. Since then, celebrities of stage, screen, TV, sports, and the music world have reached the public with the message that even a small donation to Christmas Seals® brings its one step closer to healthy lungs for all. The gleaming roster of former chairmen includes Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope, Johnny Bench, Pearl Bailey, and Cybill Shepherd.

Every dollar donated to the American Lung Associa-tion through Christmas Seals® is used to further the ultimate goal of the ALA-- the conquest of lung disease and the promotion of lung health. The ALA uses these donations to fund health education programs and materials, and to support research on the lung and training programs for physicians and other health workers.

Public health education takes many forms. ALA volunteers go into communities, providing people with facts about lung disease and encouraging them to actively participate in maintaining the health of their lungs.

The ALA also publishes and distributes a wide variety of booklets, handbooks, pamphlets, fact sheets, and leaflets informing people about lung diseases and how they can be prevented or controlled. Television and radio spots, magazine ads and slide-tape programs reach people in every corner of the nation. And ALA signs, posters, health messages printed on T-shirts and buttons can be found everywhere.

Teaching our nation's children healthful habits and lifestyles for the years to come is of the highest priority for the ALA. Educational materials are provided to schools and training sessions have been developed for teachers.

The establishment of sanatoriums throughout the United States and around the world led to a sharp decrease in the TB death rate because they effectively isolated patients from other people, thus preventing the spread of infection. Sanatoriums peaked in 1938, when 732 were open across the country.

In those days, physical examinations were encouraged, especially in areas where the TB rate was high. These examinations included skin tests, meant to screen for those needing further testing. Such examinations were not very effective, however, because a positive test indicated exposure to the tubercle bacillus and many people had been exposed earlier in life without developing TB.

A major step in the fight against TB occurred in 1943. Dr. Selman A. Waksman, studying microorganisms in soil, discovered the antibiotic streptomycin-- the first drug that could kill the tubercle bacillus. But streptomycim was only the first such drug. Others were quickly discovered, so that today more than a half-dozen are available.

Another useful technique for diagnosing TB was mass screening using X-rays. For the first time, an easy and rapid test could be performed on millions of people. TB could be detected in its early stages, and with the new availability of streptomycin and other drugs, cured before too much damage was done.

As a result of drug treatment and improved living conditions, sanatoriums decreased in number through the late 1960s and 1970s. In fact, the Trudeau Sanatorium, the original "Little Red" cottage, closed its doors forever in 1954.

Because of sharp decreases in the number of TB cases, routine X-rays to detect the disease are no longer necessary. Yet despite all of the miraculous advances made by medical science since 1907, TB is still with us while other lung diseases take an increasing toll on American's health. TB no longer kills almost 150,000 people every year, as it did in the early years of this century, but over 22,000 new cases are still being diagnosed each year.

As the numbers of homeless and needy people increase and new waves of immigrants arrive from far-off lands where TB is still a grave problem, the disease remains persistently with us. Also, some victims of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are coming down with TB. So, it is clear that research, including the discovery of a reliable vaccine (especially for use in underdeveloped countries) and diligent patient care, must continue as a priority.

Still, the American Lung Association's crusade against tuberculosis did tame this terrible plague and save millions of lives, but the mission to conquer all lung disease is far from fulfilled.

After World War II other lung diseases-- many of them chronic and ultimately fatal-- began an assault on this nation's health. Three of the most devastating of these diseases-- lung cancer, emphysema and chronic bronchitis-- are all primarily the result of cigarette smoking.

As this addictive habit increased in the American population through the first two thirds of the 20th century, there has been a parallel rise in mortality due to these three diseases. The prevalence of emphysema and chronic bronchitis, which together are known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, increased 75 percent between 1970 and 1985. Lung cancer has become the number one cancer killer in America, both in men and women.

Thanks in great part to the public education programs of the American Lung Association, fewer people are now starting to smoke and more smokers are quitting. But the smoking-related disease rates continue to soar because it can take 20 or 30 years before a smoker's disease symptoms start to appear.

Lung diseases of childhood are another problem where there is much to be done. The leading killer of newborns in the first month of life is a disease called respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). It's mostly premature babies who are born with RDS-- they can't breathe because their tiny lungs aren't mature enough at birth. Thanks to research, less than 10 percent of these babies now are claimed by RDS, instead of the 50 percent of just a relatively few years ago.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is another tragic disease in which infants are found dead in their cribs because they have suddenly stopped breathing. In 1984, more than 5,000 infants under one year of age died of SIDS.

A chronic and occasionally fatal disease of children of all ages-- as well as adults-- is asthma. Biomedical and behavioral research, supported by Christmas Seals®, has led to the development of drugs that can prevent or control asthma episodes and the development of ALA educational programs so children can self-manage this disease.

Many other diseases are the targets of research support and educational programs conducted by the ALA and supported by donations to the Christmas Seal Campaign®. Chronic respiratory diseases like sinusitis and hay fever; infectious diseases such as influenza and pneumonia; and complex lung disturbances such as adult respiratory disease syndrome-- all are of concern to the ALA and its medical section, the American Thoracic Society.

But we must never forget that many of the chronic and fatal lung diseases are preventable. Smoking, of course, is the major culprit, but air pollution-- whether indoors, outdoors or on the job-- can be hazardous to the lungs. The air we breathe is too often filled with fumes and particles that get into the lungs, causing cancer and other lung-destroying diseases.

Even though lung disease is on the rise, there are many battles that have been won in the war on lung disease. Biomedical and behavioral research have helped the ALA at least curb the progress of lung diseases. Emily Bissell would be proud to see that her idea is still funding the crusade that saved and will continue saving millions of more lives.

Donations to the Christmas Seal Campaign® support the battle against lung disease by funding three strategies: prevention, cure and control. It is clear that the single most effective health measure for preventing emphysema, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer is to do away with cigarette smoking. As overwhelming evidence continues to mount that smoking is the major cause of these diseases, more and more smokers are breaking the habit and fewer young people are starting. But not few enough!

Since 1968, ALA has been developing and distributing antismoking education programs. Quit-smoking clinics, self-help manuals, audio and video tapes, as well as materials and in-school activities geared to prevention are all part of ALA's commitment to its "Smoke-Free Family" concept.

In addition to these programs, the ALA has campaigned vigorously for nonsmokers' rights and has energetically advocated restricting smoking in public places and at work through local and federal government legis lation and regulation.

Marijuana is also the subject of a major ALA campaign. "Marijuana: A Second Look," directed at children ages 9 through 11, teaches how marijuana can harm the lungs and how kids can successfully resist peer pressure to smoke this substance.

These programs, as well as others-- "SUPER-STUFF" for kids with asthma, rehabilitation classes for victims of emphysema and chronic bronchitis, support of clean-air campaigns and legislation, prevention of occupation-related lung diseases-- all require public financial support if they are to succeed. And the major source of funding comes from the Christmas Seal Campaign®.

What began in the land of Hans Christian Andersen today exceeds the wonders of his most magical stories. A miracle-to-be, the conquest of lung disease, may some day be a reality because of the vision of Einar Holboell, Emily Bissell, and their dedicated followers.

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