1940 Famous Americans Stamps: All 35 Issues And Dates

The Famous Americans series was issued in 1940 and consists of 35 stamps: five subjects in each of seven groups. It did not begin in 1965 and did not replace the Liberty Series.

Seven groups

The Smithsonian National Postal Museum organizes the issue as Authors, Poets, Educators, Scientists, Composers, Artists and Inventors. That fixed structure is the starting point for identifying the series.

How to verify a stamp

Match the portrait, group, denomination and recorded issue date. Keep later stamps featuring the same person separate from the 1940 issue.

Historical institution

Use U. S. Post Office Department when discussing the 1940 issuer. USPS was established later, so the modern agency name should appear only when explaining present-day records or postal use.

Collecting scope

A complete-series claim requires all 35 correct stamps. Condition and gum, centering, faults and comparable completed sales affect collector value; series membership alone does not prove rarity.

Sources and update note

Issue facts and current postal rules should be checked against the linked primary sources. Prices, inventory, services and policies can change.

All 35 Famous Americans stamps in issue order

The 1940 series contains seven groups of five stamps. Each group follows the 1¢, 2¢, 3¢, 5¢ and 10¢ denomination pattern and uses coordinated engraved portraits with a group emblem. The table gives the individual subject, date and first-day location rather than making the reader reconstruct the chronology from seven external pages.

Group	Subject	Denomination	Issue date	First-day location
Authors	James Fenimore Cooper	2¢	January 29, 1940	Cooperstown, NY
Authors	Washington Irving	1¢	January 29, 1940	Tarrytown, NY
Authors	Louisa May Alcott	5¢	February 5, 1940	Concord, Massachusetts
Authors	Ralph Waldo Emerson	3¢	February 5, 1940	Boston, Massachusetts
Authors	Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)	10¢	February 13, 1940	Hannibal, Missouri
Poets	Henry W. Longfellow	1¢	February 16, 1940	Portland, Maine
Poets	John Greenleaf Whittier	2¢	February 16, 1940	Haverhill, Massachusetts
Poets	James Russell Lowell	3¢	February 20, 1940	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Poets	Walt Whitman	5¢	February 20, 1940	Camden, NJ
Poets	James Whitcomb Riley	10¢	February 24, 1940	Greenfield, Indiana
Educators	Horace Mann	1¢	March 14, 1940	Boston, Massachusetts
Educators	Mark Hopkins	2¢	March 14, 1940	Williamstown, Massachusetts
Educators	Charles W. Eliot	3¢	March 28, 1940	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Educators	Frances E. Willard	5¢	March 28, 1940	Evanston, Illinois
Educators	Booker T. Washington	10¢	April 7, 1940	Tuskegee Institute, Alabama
Scientists	Dr. Crawford W. Long	2¢	April 8, 1940	Jefferson, Georgia
Scientists	John James Audubon	1¢	April 8, 1940	St. Francisville, Louisiana
Scientists	Dr. Walter Reed	5¢	April 17, 1940	Washington, DC
Scientists	Luther Burbank	3¢	April 17, 1940	Santa Rosa, California
Scientists	Jane Addams	10¢	April 26, 1940	Chicago, Illinois
Composers	John Philip Sousa	2¢	May 3, 1940	Washington, DC
Composers	Stephen Collins Foster	1¢	May 3, 1940	Bardstown, Kentucky
Composers	Edward A. MacDowell	5¢	May 13, 1940	Peterborough, NH
Composers	Victor Herbert	3¢	May 13, 1940	New York, NY
Composers	Ethelbert Nevin	10¢	June 10, 1940	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Artists	Gilbert Charles Stuart	1¢	September 5, 1940	Narragansett, RI
Artists	James A. McNeill Whistler	2¢	September 5, 1940	Lowell, Massachusetts
Artists	Augustus Saint-Gaudens	3¢	September 16, 1940	New York, NY
Artists	Daniel Chester French	5¢	September 16, 1940	Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Artists	Frederic Remington	10¢	September 30, 1940	Canton, NY
Inventors	Eli Whitney	1¢	October 7, 1940	Savannah, Georgia
Inventors	Samuel F. B. Morse	2¢	October 7, 1940	New York, NY
Inventors	Cyrus Hall McCormick	3¢	October 14, 1940	Lexington, Virginia
Inventors	Elias Howe	5¢	October 14, 1940	Spencer, Massachusetts
Inventors	Alexander Graham Bell	10¢	October 28, 1940	Boston, Massachusetts