He’s In The Mail

Laura has a friend that works delivering mail at USPS and my friend Jonell worked in the local Green Forest Post Office.   Today, local carriers have huge packages to deliver for Amazon and other internet sellers.  But between 1910 and 1920 some mail carriers had children in their jalopies.  1913, the US Postal Service introduced parcel post service. Customers took advantage of the new expanded regulations to mail things like eggs, live bees, harmless live animals, produce, and even an entire building, one brick at a time. The most unusual deliveries occurred between 1910 and 1920, as numerous customers mailed children via parcel post. The most famous mailed child, May Pierstorff, was indeed sent by an Idaho railway mail car in 1914 with the appropriate stamps stuck to her traveling coat. Her adventure made it into a children’s book, “Mailing May.” May’s picture survives, but no physical evidence of her trip. In 1920, this practice was officially banned.