About This Stamp
The Star-Spangled Banner has been a treasured American icon ever since Francis Scott Key celebrated the sight of an American flag still flying over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
This stamp commemorates the 200th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner with a photograph of the flag that flies over Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore. This flag is a replica of the one that inspired Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner” after Fort McHenry withstood the British attack of September 13-14, 1814.
Photographer Gary Clark took the picture of the flag against a backdrop of fireworks during an annual celebration of Defenders’ Day. Defenders’ Day, according to the National Park Service, is “Baltimore's oldest holiday commemorating the bombardment of Fort McHenry and the writing of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’" Clark said it was a challenge to get the fireworks and the flag in the same shot and that “the wind picked up quite a bit that night.” Art director Phil Jordan designed the stamp.
The Star-Spangled Banner stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps in double-sided booklets of 20 stamps and in self-adhesive coils of 100 stamps. These Forever® stamps will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.