About This Stamp
The Postal Service issued a Great Americans series stamp honoring Johns Hopkins on June 7, 1989, in Baltimore, Maryland. Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank dedicated the new stamp at the Baltimore Convention Center during the opening ceremony for the centennial celebration of Johns Hopkins Hospital and University.
Johns Hopkins, a 19th-century Maryland merchant, banker, and investor, bequeathed $7 million to found a university, school of medicine, and hospital, and an affiliated training school for nurses. These institutions are credited with revolutionizing American medicine.
By 1873, Hopkins had outlined his wishes: to create a university dedicated to advanced learning and to establish a hospital that would administer the finest patient care, train superior physicians, and seek new knowledge for the advancement of medicine. His radical plan to unite theory with practice forever changed the world of medicine by requiring that rigid study be combined with research and patient care.
Today, as it has for over 100 years, the hospital and university serve as a national model for education and modern medical care.
The stamp, designed by Bradbury Thompson and engraved in the characteristic Great Americans series format, was based on a head and shoulders portrait of Hopkins. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing engraved them through the intaglio process (A press).