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100 Years of Parcels, Packages, and Packets, Oh My!
On January 1, 1913, the Post Office Department inaugurated their parcel post service. Prior to that date, only packages weighing four pounds or less could go through the postal system. Farmers and others complained that private express company rates changed with little notice, were too high, and difficult to determine. The new parcel post system was met with enthusiasm and more than a few challenges to the idea of what could, or could not be mailed. |
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RFD: Marketing to a Rural Audience
An official service since 1902, Rural Free Delivery brought the world into rural American homes. It also created a new, specialized market of the growing numbers of rural letter carriers. Rural carriers were contacted by companies looking to reach into a community market as well as businesses advertising goods and tools to the carriers themselves. In the end most of the young companies did not survive the rush to claim rural carriers’ loyalties. But the first decades of the 20th century’s rural mail service offer a fascinating look at commercial opportunities and challenges. |
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Flashing Across the Country: Mr. Zip
and the ZIP Code Promotional Campaign
In 1963, the United States Post Office Department (POD) launched an advertising campaign on a grand scale. This memorable campaign made Mr. Zip one of the most easily recognized figures in American advertising. |
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Machines or Bust: Post Office Department
Research and Development, 1945-1970
The nation needed a postal system that could meet its surging need. To answer that challenge the Post Office Department had to integrate new machines and systems into an organization that was second only to the military in scope and numbers. It would not be easy. |
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Postal Employees After Hours
Postal workers have had a long history of involvement in group activities outside of work hours. This project endeavored to begin compiling an account of what organizations have, and still do, exist, and why. |
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The Railway Mail Service
The American Railway Mail clerks were the elite of the Post Office Department. This website is in dedication of their work with the Railway Mail Service (RMS), and highlights not only a history of the RMS, but the personal oral histories of some clerks who spent the “best times of their lives” braving the rails. |
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Women in the U.S. Postal System
This article explores the fascinating history and lives of female postal workers from the American Revolution to the present. A number of women share their postal stories in the site’s third section, “In Their Own Words.” |
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The History and Experience of African Americans
in America’s Postal Service
This article explores the unique history and experience of African Americans in America’s Postal Service, illustrating that the United States Postal Service has been both a place where African Americans were discriminated against, and a place where many African Americans found opportunities for advancement. |
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Disaster Recovery of Personal Items
Hurricane Katrina has raised an immediate need for information about recovery of personal documents, photographs and other collectable items. The National Postal Museum would like to share some resources from the Smithsonian Center for Archives Conservation and others below with our website visitors. |
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Letter Writing in America
This article explores the place of letter writing in American history, revealing
through the words of its citizens the nature of American life and documenting
the country’s search for a uniquely American identity. |
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September 11, 2001
Collecting and Exhibiting a National Tragedy
Examination of the decisions made, and work done, to bring items from New York City's Church Street Post Office into the National Collection. |
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