Harvey Karlen : Expert on city's postal history

A boyhood hobby became life's work

By Trevor Jensen Tribune reporter

February 14, 2008

Harvey Karlen started collecting stamps as a boy in suburban Berkeley and in retirement turned his full attention to philately, writing several scrupulously researched books on Chicago postal history.

Dr. Karlen, 89, of Oak Park, a longtime teacher at Wright Junior College, died of natural causes Saturday, Feb. 9, in Rush Oak Park Hospital, said his wife, June.

Dr. Karlen's philatelic interests extended well beyond stamps. He also collected and studied postmarks, the growth of branch post offices in the city and suburbs, the content of letters and the evolution of mail delivery systems.

He liked nothing better than a long afternoon burrowed into research in the library of the Collectors Club of Chicago, one of the city's top philatelic organizations. His research led to numerous articles and books, some published by the club.

Among his books were "Chicago's Mail: An Anthology of Postal History Articles Focusing Upon the Community's Growth, Its Interests and Its Attitudes" and the playfully titled "Chicago's Crabgrass Communities: A History of the Independent Suburbs and Their Post Offices That Became Part of Chicago."

"No one else had ever tackled this subject in detail," Collector's Club member Al Kugel said.

He was a frequent speaker at the Collector's Club's monthly meetings, known for his love of wordplay.

"He not only collected stamps, he educated people about them, studied them and tried to show people what was interesting about them," Kugel said.

As a boy in the western suburbs, Dr. Karlen roller skated to the local post office to pick up the newest stamp issues, his wife said. He graduated from Proviso East High School and went on to get a doctoral degree in political science at the University of Chicago in 1950.

He taught at City College of New York for four years before a long tenure at Wright Junior College in Chicago.

Mr. Karlen retired from teaching in the 1980s.

He could only shake his head at Chicago's well-known postal woes of recent years: The U.S. postmaster called the city's postal service the worst in the nation in early 2007.

"That's not the way it was back in the old days," Kugel said. "We had very good mail service."

Mr. Karlen's first wife, Mollie, died in the mid-1970s.

In addition to his wife, June, he is also survived by two sons, David and Douglas; two stepdaughters, Susan Kelley and Caron Atlas; a sister, Sonya Brim; and five grandchildren.

Private services will be held.
ttjensen@tribune.com