Public Gets To Choose Its Nostalgia For New Century Stamps

3-D movies and cars with chrome and tail fins proved the favorite bits of 1950s nostalgia for students born at least three decades after those cultural icons captivated their parents.

The Postal Service asked youngsters from Washington-area schools to vote Wednesday on how the lifestyles of the 1950s should be portrayed on stamps - the first round of balloting that will last years and canvass much of the nation.

Starting next year the post office will launch “Celebrate the Century,” its largest stamp program ever, with as many as 15 commemorative stamps planned for the people and events of each decade of the 20th century.

What makes the program unique, Postmaster General Marvin Runyon said, is that “for the first time, the public will play a major role in determining the stamp subjects that will become a permanent record of the passing millennium.”

“Education is really the cornerstone of Celebrate the Century. The end of one century and the beginning of another is a unique event,” said former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.

Stamps for the period 1900-1949 already have been selected. Americans will be asked to vote on subjects for the last five decades of the century. Voting will be on ballots available at post offices, in publications, through the Internet and in 300,000 classrooms across the country. Only mailed ballots will count.

“We’re asking you to help us to make history live by selecting those events that are important to you,” Mario Marino, assistant secretary of education, told youngsters gathered at George Washington University to kick off the campaign.

Asked to vote on styles of the 1950s to be commemorated on a stamp, the third through sixth graders picked 3-D movies by a narrow 41-38 vote margin over the shiny cars with tail fins.

Drive-in movies and fashions involving bobby socks and poodle skirts collected nine votes each. Three votes were cast for hula hoops. The category “modern American furniture” received a single vote.

Stamps commemorating the 1900s and 1910s will be announced Feb. 3, postal officials said. At the same time people across the nation will be voting on subjects for the 1950s stamps.

Next May the 1920s stamps will be issued, as voting occurs for subjects of the 1960s. Release of the 1930s stamps in September 1998 will accompany voting on the 1970s.