Sandusky Residents Helped “Stamp Out” Tuberculosis

Several sheets of Christmas seals, ranging in dates from 1950 to 1993, are in the historical collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. The 1951 seals featured Santa, along with the familiar American Lung Association logo:

By 1969 a statement on top of the page of seals indicated that by purchasing the holiday seals, the purchaser was supporting the fight against tuberculosis and emphysema as well as air pollution.

Helen Hansen and Virginia Steinemann wrote an article for the December 26, 1993 issue of the Sandusky Register, “Stamping Out TB.” Tuberculosis, sometimes known as consumption or scrofula, was a common cause of death in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Oran Follett (below), a prominent Sandusky resident, lost his first wife and two daughters to the dreadful disease.

In 1907, when tuberculosis was the leading cause of death for Americans, an American Red Cross volunteer, Emily Bissell, helped to promote a fund-raising campaign in which seals were sold and funds were used to help build hospitals for tuberculosis patients. A similar campaign had been successful in Denmark. Several Sandusky women sold stamps near the Post Office. By 1920 the National Tuberculosis Association took over the sale of Christmas seals. Children could purchase the small seals in their classroom for a penny apiece. The Tuberculosis and Health Association of Erie County purchased x-ray equipment in 1932, and later a mobile x-ray truck, to help in the diagnosis of tuberculosis among local residents.   

By the year 1940, tuberculosis dropped to being number seven in the cause of deaths of Americans. Now the funding group for Christmas seals is known as the American Lung Association, which still sells them each holiday season. You can read about the history of Christmas seals online.