Systems at Work Exhibition Press Materials

12.14.2011
Press Kit

Related Exhibition

December 14, 2011 - Permanent

You drop a letter in a mailbox and then what happens? You receive mail at home or the office—how does it get there? The answer to these questions unfolds in Systems at Work, a permanent exhibition at the National Postal Museum. Systems at Work recreates the paths of letters, magazines, parcels, and other mail as they travel from sender to recipient over the last 200 years.

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©2011 Smithsonian Institution and the United States Postal Service

[music]

When someone sends a letter, it enters a system already at work that most people never get to see.

The United States Postal Service processes hundreds of millions of mail pieces everyday.

The Postal Service delivers almost half the world's mail to over a hundred and fifty million addresses, through a network of thousands of post offices.

These offices are supplied by a network of hundreds of processing and distribution centers around the nation.

The Postal Service separates mail into three categories: letters, flats, and packages.

Small pieces of mail like letters, bills, and post cards are all processed by the same set of machines.

Processing letters begins with culling, or filtering out mail that cannot be handled by machines down the line due to size, shape, or weight.

Letters then enter the Advanced Facer-Canceller system.

This machine uses specialized cameras to take pictures of envelopes as they speed by.

These pictures are used by the computer to find the stamp, locate the address, read the handwriting, and compare the address against a database of known addresses.

It faces the letter in the right direction, sprays it with the unique ID tag and cancels the stamp with a postmark.

The letters are then transferred to the Delivery Barcode Sorter.

Postal workers feed the letters into this machine by hand.

This machine sorts letters into "delivery point sequence," or the order that postal carriers will deliver them along their routes.

After letters are sorted, they are moved to the loading dock.

Customers often bring large bundles of magazines to distribution centers for processing.

The Postal Service refers to magazines, catalogs, and similar items as "flats."

Large bundles of flats must be weighed and verified before they are processed.

They are then taken to a preparation area.

There, they are separated and ready for processing.

After they are prepared, bins of flats go into the Flats Sequencing System, a machine the length of a football field.

The flats travel along a conveyor system to a feeder, where they are removed from the bins and sent one by one to the scanning system.

A high-speed camera captures images of flats to identify their delivery addresses.

A computer interprets the scanned addresses and sends sequencing information to the machine's robotics system.

The flats are then sorted into delivery order for postal carriers.

Sorted flat so then transfers to trays and automatically loaded onto carts.

They are then moved to the loading dock.

Packages can be particularly difficult to process by machine because they come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes.

The Automated Package Processing System is uniquely equipped to deal with this kind of mail.

Packages are spread out as they move along a series of belts and rollers.

As the packages enter the scanning and imaging tunnel, the machine reads their addresses.

It determines the package dimensions... and weight, checks for proper postage, and scans the barcode, updating the package's tracking information.

The packages then travel along a conveyor, before being kicked off into bins by destination.

Packages are then moved to the loading dock, where they are loaded onto trucks along with letters and flats going to the same post offices.

As morning approaches, drivers deliver the sorted mail to the appropriate post offices.

After the mail arrives, postal workers separate it for pickup.

Carriers gathered the sorted letters, flats and packages to take out on their routes.

Mail delivery connects people and businesses all across the country.

Everyday technology keeps mail flowing through this constantly moving network.

All systems...

at work.

Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

people view the Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

view of Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

padlocks from the systems at work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

view of Systems at Work exhibit
Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Systems at Work exhibit

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum

Clerks Tossing Mail into Sacks
Clerks Tossing Mail into Sacks

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
In this image from the early 20th century, mail clerks are busy separating bundles of newspapers into mail pouches. The pouches were then placed onto railway mail trains heading to all corners of the continental U.S.

Clerks and carriers in large city Post Office
Clerks and Carriers in Large City PO

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
At the end of the 19th century, large city post offices were hives of activity as seen in this image. Letter carriers are busy casing (or preparing) their daily mail in large pigeon-hole distribution cases in the top half of the photograph. In the bottom half clerks sort mail by tossing it into the appropriate mail pouch. Clerks needed good eyes and good aim for this job!

Colonial US Mail Carrier painting
Colonial US Mail Carrier

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Artist Lloyd Branson depicts a colonial mail carrier in this partial view from his painting “Transporting Mail AD 1800/AD 1900.”

Container for 6 Dozen Eggs
Container for 6 Dozen Eggs

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
After Parcel Post Service was enacted on January 1, 1913, a wide variety of goods began to flood the mails. Manufacturers seized on the opportunity to create and market new products by building specialized containers for certain goods. This container, for instance, was built to safely and securely ship six dozen eggs.

front of Multi-Position Letter Sorting Machine
Multi-Position Letter Sorting Machine

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
The exhibit utilizes a computerized representation of a MPLSM (Multi-Position Letter Sorting Machine) in which visitors are challenged to hit the right keys (first 3 digits of a letter’s ZIP code) to process their pieces of mail. The MPLSM machines were used with the introduction of ZIP codes in 1963 to move more mail, more quickly. A dozen workers stationed at each large machine would “key in” number codes for each letter as they passed by, more than 60 per minute. The letters were then sorted by their codes into bins accessed from the back of the machine.

Multi-Position Letter Sorting Machine – rear view
Multi-Position Letter Sorting Machine – rear view

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

cartoon drawing of Mr. Zip
Mr. Zip

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Mr. Zip was introduced as part of the new ZIP code campaign in 1963. The Post Office Department introduced this coding system for use in their new mail processing machines. Mr. Zip became a popular American figure, and is widely recognized still today, even though the USPS officially retired him in 1986.

Postmaster Jackson cabinet – front view
Postmaster Jackson Case – front

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
This counter-top, screen-line post office cabinet belonged to John T. Jackson, an African American postmaster in Alanthus, Virginia. The front side of the cabinet has a central window that is covered with metal mesh as well as an opening at the bottom with a small shelf. Flanking the central window are vertical glass panels that reveal the sorting shelves, which were accessed from the back of the unit. Postal clerks worked from the back of the cabinet, where there are thirty slots for sorting.

The Post Office Department had appointed few other African Americans as postmasters at the time the twenty-nine-year old Jackson assumed the duties at a fourth-class post office in 1891. Jackson earned a commission determined by the amount of postage sold at his station. Along with this postal career, Jackson worked as a merchant, farmer, and sharecropper. Having served as postmaster for over forty-eight years, Jackson retired on January 31, 1940. His wife Lille held the position until the post office closed seven months later.

The cabinet is generally worn from use, although the wood framework appears in good structural condition. The area to the right of the screened window is abraded. The numbers 29, 23, 24, and 26 can be seen by looking through the glass on the right side.

Postmaster Jackson Case – back
Postmaster Jackson Case – back

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Charcoal drawing of Postmaster John T. Jackson
Charcoal drawing of Postmaster John T. Jackson

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Queen Bee Parcel Post Container
Queen Bee Parcel Post Container

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
Used for shipping a queen bee, this rectangular wooden container has three circular chambers covered in a wire mesh that hold the queen bee and a few accompanying workers bees, who feed her in transit. Two holes at the ends are sealed during transit, one with a cork and the other with a sugar-candy plug. When the cage is introduced to the hive, the bees work their way through the candy plug, and the queen is released.

Skull and Crossbones Fancy Cancel
Skull and Crossbones Fancy Cancel

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
While small post offices were issued circular date stamps postmasters usually also needed separate stamp canceling devices. Canceling handstamps were used in order to ensure stamps were used only once. Such canceling devices were sometimes made by hand. One example of the creativity of postal employees of the time is this hand-made skull and cross-bones handstamp.

This handstamp, known as a “fancy cancel,” was shaped from lead. As such imprints wore down with use; postmasters and clerks drew out their knives and created new designs. Fancy cancels began disappearing from use after 1904. That was the year the Post Office Department ordered postmasters to stop using “unauthorized postmarking stamps” as part of a standardization and modernization program.

Worker at CSBCS Machine
Worker at CSBCS Machine

Image courtesy of Smithsonian's National Postal Museum
The CSBCS – Carrier Sequence Bar Code Sorter has been deconstructed for visitors to the exhibit – the image on the wall is the machine and five pieces of the machine that have been “pulled out” to help show visitors how it operates.

Carrier Sequence Bar Code Sorting was a key element of the postal system beginning in the 1990s. As more information became available through better address reading and recognition software, the CSBCS was created to sort mail not just to a city, or even post office within a city, but to each carrier’s specific mail route. Workers are able to take trays of letters from this machine and forward them directly to a specific letter carrier.