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Show Christmas Seal Idea Conceived By Danish Clerk Credit for conceiving the idea for Christmas seals belongs to a Danish postal clerk, Einer Holboell, who in the holiday season of 1903 was sorting sort-ing mail in the postoffice of Copenhagen. Copen-hagen. As he went through the stacks of Christmas mail, it occurred to him that if each sender bought a sticker and attached it to each package, the proceeds would aid in fighting tuberculosis and add color to the gifts. He mentioned it to some of his fellow workers. The scheme appealed ap-pealed to them and it was passed along through the office. The clerks discussed it with customers. The idea spread about Copenhagen, and eventually King Christian heard about it. The ruler approved and decided in favor of trying it with Queen Louise's likeness on each stamp. It was too late to put the idea into execution that year, but in 1904, four million seals were sold in the Copenhagen postoffice. So popular did the stamps' become that Holboell Hol-boell heard of one old woman who returned some letters without Christmas seals, declaring emphatically em-phatically that she didn't want to know people who didn't use the stamps. A woman, Miss Emily Bissel, who worked with the Red Cross, started the sale of seals in this country. She was seeking $300 for a little open air hospital for tuberculosis tuber-culosis patients. She designed a stamp and persuaded friends to help with the printing and sale of them. When the campaign bogged down, she went to Philadelphia where she met 'Leigh Mitchell Hodges, Hod-ges, a columnist for the Philadelphia Philadel-phia North American. He heard Miss Bissell's plans and discussed them with E. A. Van Valkenburg, city editor. Van Valkenburg gave full approval and told Hodges to give the project his entire time. He also asked for 50,000 seals to be sold in the newspaper's office. The campaign brought startling results. Miss Bissell found she had $3,000 instead of $300 she had started to raise. And the Christmas seal campaign became a nationwide nation-wide institution. |