About This Stamp
This issuance honors Mary Breckenridge (1881–1965), who worked to modernize health care in rural America. She found the high maternal death rate in America appalling. The professionalism and skill of European midwives inspired Mary to found the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in Kentucky in 1925. She trained midwives to reach families in rural areas and personally gave nursing care when needed. The FNS has served over 64,000 rural mothers, children and families. For her work, Mary was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame and the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Stamp Art Director
Howard E. Paine
A member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee before being named an art director in 1981, Howard E. Paine supervised the design of more than 400 U.S. postage stamps. After three decades as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, he retired in 2011.
For more than 30 years Paine was an art director for the National Geographic Society, where he redesigned National Geographic magazine, developed the children’s magazine, National Geographic World, and designed Explorers Hall. A popular lecturer, he has spoken at Yale University and New York University, among others, and presented programs for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. A judge for numerous art shows and design competitions, Paine also taught magazine design at The George Washington University.
Paine had been a stamp collector since childhood. In 2000, he designed the catalog for Pushing The Envelope: The Art of the Postage Stamp, an exhibit of original stamp art at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Howard Paine died on September 13, 2014.