About This Stamp
With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service celebrates Toni Morrison (1931–2019), whose artfully crafted novels explored the diverse voices and multifaceted experiences of African Americans.
Eager to see the previously untold stories of African American women portrayed in fiction, Morrison published her first novel, The Bluest Eye in 1970. The book remains a canonical novel about the damage of internalized racism and society’s neglect and mistreatment of African American girls and has become a mainstay of high school and college literature classes.
Morrison would achieve further success with Sula, her 1973 novel that dramatizes the relationship between two childhood friends. Song of Solomon, published in 1977, was both a national bestseller and a recipient of tremendous critical acclaim for its portrayal of the African American search for identity. Her 1981 novel Tar Baby was a study of racism and conflicting identities on a Caribbean island.
In 1987, the publication of Beloved brought Morrison a new level of critical success. The acclaimed novel tells the story of a woman who escapes enslavement but murders her own daughter to prevent her from being returned to slavery. A harrowing rumination on trauma and the lingering, even haunting nature of the past, Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize and firmly secured Morrison’s reputation as a great American writer.
In 1989, Morrison became the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. In 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first African American woman to receive the distinction.
Morrison was the rare author who achieved both bestseller status and critical success. In her later novels, including Paradise (1998), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015), she continued to experiment with language and push the possibilities of storytelling.
Art director Ethel Kessler designed this stamp with a photograph by Deborah Feingold.
The Toni Morrison stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp in panes of 20. This Forever stamp is always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Ethel Kessler
Ethel Kessler is an award-winning designer and art director who has worked with corporations, museums, public and private institutions, professional service organizations, and now, the United States Postal Service.
After earning a B.F.A. in visual communications from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kessler worked as a graphic designer and project manager for the exhibits division of the United States Information Agency. Her work was distributed internationally on subjects such as Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Renovation of American Cities, and the Bicentennial of 1976. She was also responsible for exhibits in Morocco, Botswana, and El Salvador.
In 1981, she established Kessler Design, Inc., for which she is creative director and designer. Clients have included the Clinton Government reorganization, the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Television, the National Park Service, and the American Institute of Architects.
She has been an art director for the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp development program for more than 25 years. As an art director for USPS, Kessler has been responsible for creating more than 500 stamp designs, including the Breast Cancer Research stamp illustrated by Whitney Sherman. Issued in 1998, the stamp is still on sale and has raised more $98 million for breast cancer research. Other Kessler projects include the popular and highly regarded Nature of America 120 stamp series, a collaboration with nationally acclaimed nature illustrator John Dawson, the 12-year Lunar New Year series with Kam Mak, the American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes 10 stamps issued in 2003, a 2016 pane of stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and the 2023 stamp honoring Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And many, many others.