Life Before E-mail – January 2010

Solving Mysteries: The Dead Letter Office

Today we send an e-mail, and if the address is invalid, the message quickly bounces back to us. It’s annoying, but at least we know the information was not received.

In the early history of the post office, administrators realized they needed to come up with a way to manage letters that were undeliverable as addressed. As early as 1825 they designated “dead letter offices” (now known as mail recovery centers) where staff tried to identify each letter’s destination. (This department is the only postal area authorized to open mail.)

Early in the 20th century, the undeliverable items were often parcels containing valuables. For that reason, the preferred employee was a retired member of the clergy, a background that seemed to assure honesty. Women were also hired to work in dead letter offices; it was thought they were more patient and better at analyzing complex and complicated addresses.

In 1885 the New York Times re-printed an item from Colorado’s Greeley Sun: Reverend Alexander Reid received a letter that had been sent to him with multiple stops. Based on the envelope’s markings, Reid identified where it had been.

The letter was mailed from Spencerport, New York on March 7, 1885, addressed to Reverend Reid in “Spencer, Ind. Ter.” It was soon discovered there was no such post office in Indian Territory (sic) so the letter was sent to the dead letter office in Washington where it was channeled to the “inquiry office” in St. Louis. On April 13, a clerk there struck out “Ter.” so the letter was sent to Spencer, Indiana. They knew of no Reverend Reid in Spencer, so the letter was returned to the dead letter office in D.C. where it was opened. Inside was a clipping and a note that indicated it should go to Indian Territory so the line through “Ter.” was erased, and the clerk addressed it to “Goodland, Ind. Ter.”

The letter arrived in Goodland, and the postal workers recalled that the reverend to whom it was addressed had moved to Colorado. Postal rules stated that the letter be returned to Washington so its proper destination could be recorded. It was then sent to Greeley, Colorado where the letter was properly received by Reverend Reid on June 2…three months after it was sent.

The same can-do spirit of one hundred years ago continues. In the 1980s I ran a small mail order business from my apartment in New York City, and on more than one occasion, there appeared in my mail box an envelope with nothing more than my company’s name, and “New York, NY 10024.”

And one final postscript: On Saturday, I waited for my daughter in the lobby of her apartment building. The postal worker came out from the mail room with several letters to review with the doorman. They discussed where the former residents had moved. If the building was on the postal worker’s route, he was going to drop it off, even though the person’s forwarding order had expired. Gotta love it.

The Birth of Mail Order

Free home mail delivery originally existed only in cities, and not until 1896 did the postal service begin to experiment with “rural free delivery” (RFD) so that farmers did not have to take time away from their farm to go into town to pick up their mail.

As farmers became accustomed to receiving information by mail, a demand grew for delivery of items-tobacco, dry goods, medicine-that were not easily available in rural areas. In the late 19th century, private companies handled package delivery but prices were costly so there were not many customers. When the U.S. Postal Service began to consider adding “parcel post,” country retail merchants fought against it. By 1912 Congress passed into law the postal service’s right to deliver packages for a reasonable fee, and service began in 1913. It was an instant success.

Montgomery Ward and Sears had both started accepting orders by mail prior to the existence of parcel post but both saw business increase exponentially once there was a less expensive delivery service. Sears claimed they sold “four suits and watch every minute, a revolver every two minutes, and a buggy every 10 minutes.”

Today the mail order business is robust, generating $1,738 billion in sales revenue annually, according to the Direct Marketing Association.

Special Delivery

In 1885, the Postal Service established a basis for a special service to deliver urgent mail more quickly for a higher fee. The initial rate was 10 cents vs. 2 cents for a regular letter.

The look of the special delivery stamps began with a messenger on foot, and as times changed, so did the look of the stamps. By 1902 the messenger was depicted on a bicycle. To see the art designs of the various stamps, click here.

The postal service had no capability to handle special delivery mail differently in transit, but once the letter arrived at the correct post office, the special delivery letter would be promptly processed and sent out by messenger. Boys ages 13-16 generally served as messengers, and they were paid 8 cents of the 10-cent fee for each letter they delivered. This per-letter fee system did not change until 1945 when special delivery messengers were finally hired as postal employees. A quirk to the system when it began was that 10 cents provided compensation for anything to be delivered “special delivery”-from a letter to a heavy package.

One reader who grew up in Indiana writes of her early memories of special delivery: “In the 1950s Special Delivery was the only way to assure an important document landed quickly in the hands of the intended receiver. My father was a salesman for a dairy equipment manufacturer in Nashville, Tennessee, and we lived in a rural area near Evansville, Indiana. The Special Delivery Postal Service car appeared frequently in our driveway–even on Sundays. I thought my Dad must be very important because that official car did not come to our neighbors’ houses.”

Fast Facts about Mail Delivery

• Stamps were not used until 1847, and up until 1855, customers could send letters “postage due” so that recipients had to pay before getting their letters.
• In 1873 penny postcards came along. Postcards were the instant messages of their day. In cities during the late 19th century, letter carriers made multiple visits per day, so people could send information about meeting for dinner or other time-sensitive information via a postcard.
• In 1902 the post office announces the establishment of a monthly mail deliveryDog sled carrying mail service in Alaska. (New York Times 9-21-1902) The driver was expected to provide his own sledge and dogs, and he was paid $25,000 annually. “…it appears he earns it all, for already he has been carried away by avalanches, made a prisoner by snowdrifts, fallen down mountain precipices, and had other adventures, that were exciting if not pleasant.”
• During World War II the volume of mail to and from the soldiers and their families was proving difficult for the government to manage. They came upon a system to use that they called “Victory Mail” or “V-mail.” The mail was sent to a central receiving station where it was then photographed with a special camera, and the images were sent to war zones on reels. One reel could hold 3,000 letters; it was compact and weighed less than 2 pounds. At its destination, the images were printed on to a small sheet of photographic paper which was then delivered to the recipient. Later this invention was employed for other purposes; it is what we know as microfilm.