The Nancy Reagan stamp is here. Here's what Jill Biden said.
Which first lady could get the next stamp?
Nancy Reagan is now the sixth American first lady to be featured on a U.S. stamp, and her new Forever stamp, unveiled today at the White House, comes out July 6.
The stamp uses a close crop of Reagan’s favorite portrait of herself, the 1987 oil-on-canvas painting showing her in a long red dress by artist Aaron Shikler, from the White House collection.
Shikler had painted Reagan previously for TIME magazine’s 1985 “White House Co-star” cover, which also showed her in red, her favorite color. Known as “Reagan Red,” Reagan once said she liked it because “it’s a picker-upper,” according to Town and Country.
Shikler, who died in 2015, also painted Ronald Reagan for TIME’s 1980 “Man of the Year” (Reagan fell asleep while sitting for the portrait, Shikler told People in 1981) as well as John F. Kennedy for the famous, posthumous 1971 White House portrait showing JFK with his arms folded, looking down.
Shikler’s agent told People in 1981 that “he will do 90% of the important portraits to be done in America.”
At the unveiling Monday, first lady Jill Biden said Reagan “knew the potential of this role” as first lady and said she “raised attention on issues that she cared about,” which sounded to me and some of my followers on Twitter like a read-between-the-lines attempt at acknowledging there were issues that weren’t a priority, like the AIDS crisis.
Yet Biden’s message was one of aisle crossing that’s at the heart of a first lady’s soft power and befitting a Democratic White House unveiling of a Republican stamp. She praised Reagan for bringing stories she heard from Americans back to her husband and for speaking out about her experience with breast cancer.
“First ladies aren’t elected. We have really no instructions to guide us,” Biden said. “We’re just sort of thrust into the national spotlight in a way that I know none of us could have anticipated. Yet each day is such a blessing to serve the American people with such an incredible platform.”
Biden used her remarks to call for kindness.
“We have to learn from those we don’t understand, to reach across the divide and find common ground, because that’s where the foundation of our future must be laid, and we all have a role to play,” Biden said. “Despite our differences, we can build a better world when we do it together.”
A dedication ceremony for the stamp will be held on July 6, what would have been Reagan’s 101st birthday, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif.
If you want to start placing bets on the next FLOTUS to get a stamp, just know that the two most recent were released to commemorate centennials: Lady Bird Johnson (b. 1912) in 2012, and Reagan (b. 1921) this year.
That means we could potentially be due for a Barbara Bush stamp sometime around 2025, 100 years after she was born, Rosalynn Carter around 2027, and Jackie Kennedy around 2029.
See more >> [Here's all the first ladies who got their own U.S. postage stamp]
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