Labour Stamp: The Image of the Worker on Canadian Postage Stamps‪.‬

David Frank, "The Labour Stamp: The Image of the Worker on Canadian Postage Stamps," Labour/Le Travail, 39 (Spring 1997), 179-94. IT IS OFTEN SAID that you can learn much about a country's history and culture from its postage stamps. Pierre Berton, for instance, has written that on postage stamps "the great milestones of the past" in Canadian history "have all been recorded in miniature." (1) A closer examination demonstrates that postage stamps have usually presented a selective reading of the public identity and that some narratives are privileged and others are neglected. In a recent study of the politics of commemoration, John R. Gillis has pointed out that public memories and identities are socially constructed and are embedded in complex class, gender, and power relations that determine what is remembered or forgotten. Several groups, including workers, minorities, young people, and women, have been relatively slow to gain admission to the public memory. (2)