DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail:
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Description of Subject Matter: Moving the Mail
July 30, 1993 – Permanent
Level 1: Mail in America Galleries
Faced with the challenge of moving the mail quickly, the postal service looked to trains, automobiles, airplanes, and buses to deliver the mail, all of which are the focus of the museum's 90-foot-high Atrium gallery.
* Mail by Rail: After the Civil War, postal officials began to take advantage of railway trains for moving and sorting the mail. Sorting the mail while it was being carried between towns was a revolutionary approach to mail delivery, involving generations of devoted postal employees who worked as railway mail clerks.
* Owney: Mascot of the Railway Mail Service Owney was a stray mutt who wandered into the Albany, New York, post office in 1888. He began to ride with the bags on trains across the state—and then the country. In 1895 Owney traveled with mailbags on steamships to Asia and across Europe before returning to Albany. He was beloved by Railway Mail Service clerks, who adopted him as their unofficial mascot.
* Networking a Nation: Star Route Service: Some of the most ambitious movers of the mail were not railway mail clerks, aviators, or even postal employees, but were Star Route contractors. Star Routes were established in 1845 when the Postal Service began hiring contractors to use the most appropriate and efficient methods of transportation to carry the mail. The name "Star Routes" came about because postal clerks became weary of writing "Celerity, Certainty, and Security" over and over again in the contract books and began using "***" instead. These routes have been covered by all modes of transportation from stagecoaches, trucks, and planes to less conventional means, such as dog sleds, showshoes, and bare feet. "Star Routes" were renamed "Highway Contract Routes" in 1970, but are still known by their original name today. On view are a 1850s Concord-style stagecoach and a full-size semi truck cab-cutaway.
* On the Road: Motorizing the Mail: This section dis ...More...
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail) directly related to this one:
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2015_DC_SIPM_Moving: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail (21 photos from 2015)
2014_DC_SIPM_Moving: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail (2 photos from 2014)
2011_DC_SIPM_Moving: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail (12 photos from 2011)
2007_DC_SIPM_Moving: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail (7 photos from 2007)
2005_DC_SIPM_Moving: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail (3 photos from 2005)
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2012_DC_SIPM_Systems: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 4): Systems at Work (48 photos from 2012)
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2013_DC_SIPM_Stamp_Salon: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (Gross Gallery 5): National Stamp Salon (18 photos from 2013)
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2018_DC_SIPM_Stamps_World: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (Gross Gallery 1): World of Stamps (33 photos from 2018)
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2013_DC_SIPM_Stamps_Globe: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (Gross Gallery 6): Stamps Around the Globe (23 photos from 2013)
2021_DC_SIPM_Stamps_Connect: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (Gross Gallery 4): Connect with U.S. Stamps (1 photo from 2021)
2002 photos: Image quality isn't going to be very good for the first half of this year because these are scans of prints.
Equipment this year: I took the plunge and bought my first digital camera. It was August 2002 and I bought an Epson PhotoPC 3100Z. While a nice camera, it had some quirks and bumping it would result in it being totally out of focus until you manually shut it down -- something which blurred almost every picture I took in New York City one day.
Trips this year: Two weeks out west, one week in New York, and one week down south.
This was the year I started the photo web site. It started to come together in August 2002, mostly as a way of allowing me to keep track of the pictures I was taking. It took awhile to add some basic bells and whistles (logging didn't get added until November) but it's been pretty much like it started out since then. Archaic but working, and free!
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