U.S. #1849
1985 6¢ Walter Lippmann
Great Americans Series
Issue Date: September 19, 1985
City: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Quantity: 50,700,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Engraved
Perforations: 11 x 10 ½
Color: Orange vermillion
As a journalist, Walter Lippmann wrote 26 books and more than 4,000 newspaper columns. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1958 and 1962, and was awarded other prestigious honors that established him as America's foremost analyst of social, political, and ethical problems.
The Great Americans Series
The popular Great Americans Series honors special Americans from all walks of life and honors them for their contributions to society and their fellow man. Sixty-four different stamps make up the complete set to pay tribute to important individuals who were leaders in education, the military, literature, the arts, and human and civil rights.
Birth Of Walter Lippmann
Journalist Walter Lippmann was born on September 23, 1889, in New York City, New York.
Born into an upper-middle class family, Lippmann attended New York’s Dwight School. He went on to attend Harvard University where he focused on philosophy, German, and French. He graduated in three years and later joined the New York Socialist Party with Sinclair Lewis.
After briefly serving as secretary to George Lunn, mayor of Schenectady, New York, Lippmann began working as a journalist, media critic, and philosopher. He published several books in the coming years, including A Preface to Politics, Drift and Mastery, The Stakes of Diplomacy, The Political Scene, and Liberty and the News. Lippmann was also one of the founding editors of The New Republic Magazine.
During World War I, Lippmann was made a captain in the Army and joined the intelligence section of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. He was then part of the American Commission to negotiate peace. Returning to America, Lippmann became an advisor to President Woodrow Wilson and helped him write his Fourteen Points speech.
Lippmann closely examined the coverage of the war in American newspapers and was bothered by the large number of inaccuracies and biases that many writers included in their reports. He began to criticize these journalists for making generalizations about other people based on preconceived notions. He coined the term “stereotype” largely based on these observations.
Over the years, Lippmann served as an informal advisor for several other presidents. In 1958 he received a special Pulitzer Prize for journalism for “the wisdom, perception and high sense of responsibility with which he has commented for many years on national and international affairs.” He won another Pulitzer for International reporting four years later for his 1961 interview with Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev. And in 1964 President Lyndon Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Lippmann died on December 14, 1974, in New York City. As a journalist, Lippmann wrote 26 books and more than 4,000 newspaper columns. He received several other prestigious honors over the years that established him as America’s foremost analyst of social, political, and ethical problems. He’s been called the “most influential journalist” of the 20th century and the Father of Modern Journalism.
Click here to read some of Lippmann’s writing.