1953 3c Louisiana Purchase

The design of this stamp is based on a sculpture group depicting the signing of the Louisiana Purchase transfer agreement in Paris in 1803, with the three principal figures identified in the stamp's inscription: James Monroe, the U.S. envoy sent by President Jefferson; Robert Livingston, the U.S. Minister to France and lead negotiator; and François de Barbé-Marbois, the French official who negotiated on behalf of Napoleon. The seated figure signs the document while the other two look on — a scene that captures one of the most consequential transactions in American history.

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled the size of the United States in a single stroke, adding approximately 828,000 square miles of territory west of the Mississippi River for roughly $15 million — about four cents per acre. President Thomas Jefferson dispatched Monroe to Paris to negotiate the possible purchase of New Orleans and West Florida, never anticipating that Napoleon, strapped for funds after the Haitian Revolution and facing renewed war with Britain, would offer the entire Louisiana Territory. Monroe and Livingston seized the opportunity and concluded the treaty on April 30, 1803 — the date chosen for the stamp's first day of issue 150 years later. The territory eventually became all or part of fifteen U.S. states, from Louisiana in the south to Montana and North Dakota in the north.

Scott #1020 is a handsome and historically resonant stamp, its sculptural design giving it a weight and dignity appropriate to the magnitude of the event it commemorates. The sesquicentennial issue joins a long line of U.S. stamps honoring the Louisiana Purchase, including the 1904 series issued for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.