Please excuse the informality, but it’s pretty cool when rubber stamps play a part in history.

In 1886, a riot occurred in Chicago after a bomb was thrown into a crowd at a labor rally. Albert Parsons and seven others were charged with the bombing.

Lucy Parsons, labor anarchist and wife of Albert, traveled nationwide to raise money for her husband’s appeal. She rubber stamped items she sold.

Albert Parsons and the other seven were found guilty and sentenced to death. Three were pardoned but Parsons and four others were hanged in 1887.

Flash forward some 120 years later, when a librarian found Lucy Parson’s rubber stamped impression in a book on the Chicago Haymarket Riot. An expert believes the impression to be authentic, and the book is estimated to be worth $3,000. It is the rubber stamp’s impression that increases the book’s value!

Source: “Bookstore owner: stamp is real”
The Daily Northwestern, July 12, 2007

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