NW States

In the late 1880 there was a movement to add more states to the union, in particular to expand west. The U.S. had territories in the new northwest – not to be confused with the old North West Territory, which was northwest in the early years, the land between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers by the Great Lakes.

On November 2, 1889, both North Dakota and South Dakota became the thirty-nine and fortieth states. Six days later, Montana became the forty-first state to join the U.S. And another three days after that, Washington joined the Union to become the forty-second state. Oregon was already a state in the new northwest, having joined in 1849 – a year before California.

A year later, on July 3, 1890, Idaho became the forty-third state and weekk after that, Wyoming was the forty-fourth state. All of these states are commemorated by the six stamps at the top of the album page here.

That’s plenty of states to add in such a short period. They were fairly unpopulated, but they each were given one seat in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate – for a total of six new votes in the House and twelve new votes in the Senate. The motivation for so many new states may have been to get more Republicans in Congress. The President at that time, Benjamin Harrison was a Republican. Nearly half of both chambers of Congress were Republican before the new states were admitted. Afterwards, the Republican party had the majority of both. While in control, they went on to pass many major acts on antitrust, immigration, copyrights, pensions, forest reserve, land revision, etc.

Note

The stamps celebrating the anniversaries of states are nice. They have a modern style to them, but I like them – especially the North Dakota and Idaho stamps. I don’t like the ones commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. They’re too clinical, with some creepy looking. They could have been done differently with more feeling to the images.

Contains 11 spots: own 11 – 11 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jul 24, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Statehood

1.1	✓	2403	North Dakota Statehood	25c (feb 1989) comm., multicolor
1.2	✓	2416	South Dakota Statehood	25c (may 1989) comm., multicolor
2.1	✓	2401	Montana Statehood	25c (jan 1989) comm., multicolor
2.2	✓	2404	Washington Statehood	25c (feb 1989) comm., multicolor
2.3	✓	2439	Idaho Statehood	25c (jan 1990) comm., multicolor
2.4	✓	2444	Wyoming Statehood Conrad Schwiering	25c (feb 1990) comm., multicolor

Constitution & Decl. of Independence

3.1	✓	2412	House of Representatives	25c (apr 1989) comm., multicolor
3.2	✓	2421	Bill of Rights	25c (sep 1989) comm., multicolor
3.3	✓	2413	Senate	25c (apr 1989) comm., multicolor
4.1	✓	2414	Executive Branch	25c (apr 1989) comm., multicolor
4.2	✓	2415	Supreme Court	25c (feb 1990) comm., multicolor

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.