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As our @USPS remains under attack, a photography thread celebrating the people who process, sort, and deliver our mail. All images from @librarycongress. Each tells a million stories. First, "Mail Carrier, Puerto Rico," ca. 1890-1923 (Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection).
From Bain News Service, ca. 1910-15, is this one of men sorting mail at Grand Central, New York City. (George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress))
This one is super interesting. A seemingly (?) interracial group in front of S.J. Gilpin shoe store in jim crow-era Richmond, Virginia, ca. 1899. This was from the photos assembled by W.E.B. Du Bois, exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Mail carrier at far right.
"A Letter to Papa," a stereograph of a girl giving a letter to a mail carrier, 1904, original copyright by E.W. Kelley. These were among the most popular entertainments of the turn of the century. If you grew up in the Magic Eye era, you can make it 3-D using the same technique.
From the WWI era, a woman delivering the mail in Los Angeles by horse! It looks pretty rural behind her. Also from the George Grantham Bain Collection.
This is by the celebrated photographer Arthur Rothstein, a Farm Security Administration shot showing mail sorting on a railroad car. (Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.)
Delivering the mail by rowboat! In Detroit, ca. 1905-15, originally from the Detroit Publishing Company.
(Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.)
(Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.)
"Mail Story" by photographer Warren K. Leffler, dated March 30, 1965, from the U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Lots to decode in this one.
"Air Mail" by Harris and Ewing, ca. 1918 and from the Harris & Ewing photograph collection. I love the many modes by which the people photographed are delivering the mail. Foot, car, boat, plane, horse and..............
HUSKIE! This one is for the dog people out there. "Dog Team Carrying Mail" from the Frank and Frances Carpenter collection. Showing mail delivery in Alaska, of course. The dogs look nonplussed.
Here's another FSA photo, by Frank Vachon. Also while election time was approaching, Nov. 1938. Titled "Morning Mail, Omaha, Nebraska."
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.
From Paradise Valley, Nevada. Makes me wistful for the mundanities of going to an office. "Sorting Mail" by William Smock, showing Ernest Miller, Oct. 1979.
Paradise Valley Folklife Project collection, 1978-1982 (AFC 1991/021), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Paradise Valley Folklife Project collection, 1978-1982 (AFC 1991/021), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Finally, I had to save Dorothea Lange for last. "Mail Wagon, Marshall, Texas," June 37. For FSA. 
Give your mail carrier a socially distanced thank you today. Where would we be w/o @usps? #SaveUSPS
Credit: LOC, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Black-and-White Negatives.
Give your mail carrier a socially distanced thank you today. Where would we be w/o @usps? #SaveUSPS
Credit: LOC, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Black-and-White Negatives.
