About This Stamp
With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service® celebrated writer, philosopher, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) on the bicentennial of his birth. Renowned for his book Walden, a complex and eloquent exploration of nature and society, Thoreau encouraged readers to reconsider both their own lives and the world around them. With his personal example of simple living, his criticism of materialism, and the timeless questions he raises about the place of the individual in society and humanity's role in the natural world, Thoreau continues to inspire new generations to assert their independence, reinterpret his legacy, and ask challenging questions of their own.
On the left side of the stamp is a close view of Thoreau’s face, an oil-on-panel painting based on a famous 1856 daguerreotype by Benjamin Maxham. On the right side of the stamp, roughly level with Thoreau’s eyes, is his own signature of his last name. Below the signature is a branch of sumac leaves. Sumac grew next to the door of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, and Thoreau mentions in his writings that he saw sumac sprouting among clear-cut stumps in the area.
From July 1845 to September 1847, Thoreau lived outside his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, in a one-room house on a lake, where he made time to write while farming, reading, thinking, taking long walks, and observing the doings of nature around him. The book Thoreau wrote about his experiences there would become one of the most widely read, translated, and debated books in the American literary canon. In Walden, published in 1854, Thoreau ponders the problems that result from materialism and preaches simplicity as a viable alternative, exhorting people from all walks of life — including himself — to reexamine their misplaced priorities and discover the things that are most important.
Thoreau wrote prolifically about history, nature, and society, and every generation finds its own touchstones in his work. His writings about politics and civil disobedience influenced Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., he has come to be seen as a founding figure in the environmental movement, and scientists have praised his observations about nature for anticipating ecology and other sciences.
The artist for this stamp was Sam Weber. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp.
The Henry David Thoreau stamp was issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.
Stamp Artist
Sam Weber
Alaska-born illustrator Sam Weber grew up in Deep River, Ontario, Canada, drawing as a child to amuse himself and eventually others. Introduced to the idea of making art a career by an influential high school teacher, Weber graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary before pursuing an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Weber's first stint as a professional artist came while he was still in grad school, creating images for the The New York Times Op-Ed page and becoming assistant art director there. In his short career, Weber has produced an array of editorial pieces for clients, including Rolling Stone, TIME, Penguin Books, and The New Yorker, among others. Weber has also illustrated editions of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his favorite book, Lord of the Flies, for The Folio Society. One of Weber's most recent pieces was an image of Cleopatra designed for a National Geographic cover.
With haunting illustrations that combine elements of the natural world and imaginative details, Weber's uniquely striking images have won him acclaim in the art industry. In 2010, Weber was named one of Print magazine's 20 Under 30, and he has received silver and gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Weber currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His first project for the Postal Service™ was Flannery O'Connor (2015), which was followed by Sharks (2017), Henry David Thoreau (2017), and Walt Whitman (2019).