News

Seals of approval: Depending on how you count, this is the 100th anniversary of Christmas Seals

By Jim Planck

CATSKILL — Technically, the Christmas Seals program is 101 years old because the first year of its use in America was 1907.

However, that was because of the vision of the American Red Cross worker who borrowed the idea from Denmark -- which started it in 1904 -- and her effort in 1907 was essentially localized to the greater Delaware area, where she successfully used it to save her cousin’s small tuberculosis clinic.

Thus it was not until the next year, 1908, that the national effort for Christmas Seals began — so depending on how you count, this year is or is not the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Seals program.

A fundraising arm of the American Lung Association, November is National Christmas Seals Month, and is an appropriate time to utilize them as it is also National Lung Cancer Awareness Month.

As noted on the Lung Association’s Web site, lung cancer is the U.S.’s leading cancer killer in both men and women, and causes more deaths each year than colon, breast, and prostrate cancers combined.

The Christmas Seals program, it states, helps the Lung Association “continue our fight against deadly lung diseases, and stay on the forefront of the battle for clean air.”

One aspect of that battle has now been around for almost half a century, as it was in 1960 that the Association’s Board of Directors issued the warning, “Cigarette smoking is a major cause of lung cancer.”

It was tuberculosis, however, that the agency was first focussed on, for the disease was one of the most feared in the world throughout the latter half of the 19th century and well into the early-to-mid 20th.

Most people did not recover from it, and there was no known cure until streptomycin TB was developed after World War II, so for about the first 50 years, fundraising from Christmas Seals was targeted on that disease.

In the mid-1950s, with streptomycin, the National Tuberculosis Association then took a wider stance on respiratory problems, changing its name to do so, and ultimately becoming the American Lung Association in 1973.

Throughout all the years, however, Christmas Seals have been a solid visual reminder on gifts, envelopes, postcards, and packages during the holiday season that the organization’s work goes on — and much of the money raised stays local to its origin.

“About 88 percent of the money raised through donations to the Christmas Seals Campaign,” states the organization, “stays at the local Lung Associations, and helps fund the work of thousands of volunteers who contribute their time, talents, and energies to the mission of preventing, curing, and controlling all types of lung disease.”

In the Capital District area, the national organization identifies that local unit as the American Lung Association of New York - Albany Office, located at 155 Washington Ave., Suite 210, Albany, NY 12210.

The way the Christmas Seals Campaign works is simple — every year, starting in October, mass mailings containing the stamps — typically a series of five different illustrations — with accompanying requests for contributions of support, are sent out to households all across the nation.

The result is twofold. The public’s use of the stamps helps keep the visibility of the organization’s important work before the American nation, and it also helps generate the revenue that keeps its work going.

For those who are not on the organization’s annual mailing list and would like to be, simply visit the Christmas Seals Web site and sign up to receive the 2009 issues next year.

The seals are not the only holiday fundraising source for the Lung Association, however.

There are also the organization’s Holiday Cards, which display the images of the current year’s seals, and which are sold through a partnership with a card supplier, and can be purchased on line-through a link from the Christmas Seals Web site.

Not to be lost in the electronic age, the organization’s Christmas Seals Web site also offers the ability to create and send an “E-Card” featuring Christmas Seals as an e-mail holiday greeting.

Also, if you have a Web site of your own, you can even add a static banner or badge promoting Christmas Seals on it.

Over the years, the stamps themselves have become collector’s items, with various issues regularly appearing for sale on most Internet auction sites.

The double-barred red cross on each stamp was originally adopted in 1919, according to Christmas Seals collector and authority John Denune, Jr., and is called a “Lorraine Cross” from a Crusades-era coat of arms.

To see some of the design variety in the stamps over the years, there is an interesting and visually impressive assortment of Christmas Seals of the past in a history section on the organization’s Web site.

The Christmas Seals Web site also features a “31 Days of Good News” calendar, where — when clicked on — each separate day relates the story of someone benefited by the presence and work of the American Lung Association.

And — as noted above — that good work of the Christmas Seals program has been going on ever since savvy fundraiser Emily Bissell — at a penny a piece — raised over $3,000 to save a Brandywine, Del., TB clinic by speaking before group after group, and even getting President Theodore Roosevelt to endorse the effort.

It was Bissell’s determination and effort that essentially took the program national.

Sadly, tuberculosis is indicated as being on the rise again, ostensibly in other nations from drug-resistant strains, but the American Lung Association and its Christmas Seals Campaign are undoubtedly already moving — through the support of the public — to combat that threat.

To learn more about their work, or to donate to and receive 2008 Christmas Seals, visit and .

To reach reporter Jim Planck, please call 518-943-2100, ext. 3324, or e-mail jplanck@thedailymail.net.

Reader Comments

Submit a Comment