About This Stamp
The Postal Service commemorated the 200th anniversary of the first circus performance in America with a block of four 29-cent commemorative stamps, issued on April 6, 1993, in Washington, D.C. The stamps capture the fun and excitement of the circus with a colorful se-tenant design featuring a clown, ringmaster, elephant, and aerialist.
The first circus performance in America occurred on April 3, 1793. The show, brought to Philadelphia by John Bill Ricketts, an English circus owner, included equestrian acts, ropewalkers, acrobats, and clowns.
Designed by Steve McCracken of Washington, D.C., the stamps were printed in the offset process by Ashton-Potter America and issued in blocks of four and sheets of 40.
Stamp Art Director
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.
Stamp Artist
Steve McCracken
Steve McCracken is a freelance illustrator and designer with a studio in Winchester, Virginia. He is a former features artist for The Miami Herald, The Virginian-Pilot, and The Washington Post. McCracken has been awarded six gold medals by the Society of Newspaper Design, and his work is represented in the Society of Illustrators Annual.
Clients have included National Public Radio, U.S. News & World Report, Daedalus Books, National Geographic magazine, and a variety of trade magazines. He is also a graphics information consultant for The Manoff Group, which provides solutions to health and environmental problems worldwide.
His designs for the Postal Service™ include four stamps in the Circus issuance in 1993, the 2001 stamped envelope honoring community colleges, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games stamp, and four stamps in the Christmas Carols issuance in 2017.