With so much recent attention focused upon the plight of the nation's homeless, it seems fitting that a new U.S. postal card should be dedicated to a pioneer in the cause of helping the poor and homeless - Jane Addams, founder of Hull House.
The 15-cent card, in the Historic Preservation Series, hails the 100th anniversary of the founding of Hull House in Chicago.Addams and her good friend, Ellen Gates Starr, collaborated on this venture of "neighbors helping neighbors." It did just that, as the building became a true community center where families came for food, shelter and assistance.
When she opened Hull House, little did Addams realize that her work would still be carried on a century later, at the Hull House Association and its six neighborhood centers.
The main design of the card is based on sketches of the original structure at 800 South Halsted St. Details were based on photos taken after extensive 1960 renovations, and the design shows Hull House as it might have looked in 1889.
In the lower left corner of the card, in four lines of black type, are: "Jane Addams'," "Hull House," "Chicago, 1889" and "Settlement House."
First-day cancellations of the card are available in the two usual ways. Requests must be postmarked by Oct. 16.
You may buy the card at a local post office and submit it for cancellation. Mail the self-addressed card to: Customer-Supplied Cards, Hull House Postal Card, Postmaster, Chicago, IL 60607-9991. No remittance is required. The Postal Service prefers that customers use this method and gives these orders preferential service.
If you want the Postal Service to supply the card, send, for each card desired, a self-addressed, pressure-sensitive label and 15 cents in the form of check or money order, to: Hull House Postal Card, Postmaster, Chicago, IL 60607-9992.
Lighthouse Booklet
Looking ahead to 1990, the Postal Service reports that America's lighthouses, those familiar symbols of safety and direction to mariners everywhere, will be portrayed in a booklet of five vertical stamp designs.
Each design will feature a different famous lighthouse: the Admiralty Head lighthouse at the entrance to Puget Sound in Washington; the black-and-white-striped Cape Hatteras lighthouse at the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the tallest and perhaps most famous beacon; the red-and-white-ringed lighthouse at West Quoddy Head, Maine, the easternmost point in the United States; a lighthouse in the Florida Keys, shown with a modern-day Coast Guard cutter approaching it; and America's oldest existing lighthouse, the octagonal tower at Sandy Hook, N.J., built in 1764, which guards the entrance to New York Harbor.
Further details on the lighthouse set will be reported here as they become known.
Tropical Fish
Topical collectors who specialize in fish on stamps will welcome a new set from the Maldives. The tiny, Indian Ocean archipelago has issued a series of eight stamps and two souvenir sheets that feature the beauty of its tropical fish.
The stamps, whose denominations range from 10 larees to 12 rufiyas, show the clown triggerfish, bluestripe snapper, blue surgeonfish, Oriental sweetlips, wrasse, threadfin butterflyfish, bicolor parrotfish and sabre squirrelfish.
One of the two 15-rufiya souvenir sheets features the butterfly perch, while the other depicts the simicircle angelfish.
Two From Taiwan
A recent issue from the Republic of China on Taiwan calls attention to health problems and pollution caused by smoking. The design shows human lungs with a cigarette attached. Another recent stamp release from Taiwan honors Ni Ying-Tien, an early martyr of the Chinese revolution to overthrow the Ching court in 1910.