From the early days of Pony Express deliveries to today's worldwide services, technological advances have resulted in a huge postal industry that employs literally hundreds of thousands of people-from newly arrived immigrants to descendents of Native Americans.
These materials, which include government documents, oral histories, and video clips, depict the postal service's evolution-from early letter carries and Pony Express riders to mechanized sorting, automobile delivery, and the jet age.
Using these documents, CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
What type of opportunities did the postal service offer in the early nineteenth century-and what types of hazards existed for those early letter carriers?
How has technology affected the collecting, sorting, and delivering of mail in the United States?
Why are working-class Americans from all walks of life particularly drawn to employment with the U.S. Postal Service?
Required Viewing: Click on image to explore full size.
Rural mailman going up the creek bed toward Morris Fork near Jackson, Kentucky. 1940.
Manuel Edward Tresler, rural mail carrier, Edinburg, North Dakota, 1906-1922. more...
Postoffice [sic] Christmas rush in Chicago. Employees working in the parcel package room of the Van Buren Street post office in Chicago. 1929.
View of ceremonies inaugurating air mail service between Washington and New York at Potomac Park. 1918.
Required Reading:
Read: "Continental Congress on establishing a postal service." 1785.
View: V-mail. Enlarged reproduction from V-mail microfilm are made on a continuous enlarger at the Pentagon building, Washington, D.C. V-mail is available to and from the armed forces stationed outside the United States. It is only 1/65th the weight of ordinary mail and saves ninety-eight percent of the cargo space required for ordinary letters. 1,600 letters can be placed on a roll of film little larger than a pack of cigarettes.
View: Sam Brown belts for Uncle Sam's letter carriers.
SUMMARY
This film shows the delivery of the U.S. mail, in a rural area. A two-horse vehicle, with a sign reading "U.S. Mail," appears on the scene. The postal employee gets out of the vehicle and places mail in a standard metal mail box. A woman comes out of her house and removes the mail from the mail box, then buys stamps from the mail carrier as the picture ends.
