BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail

DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 1): Moving the Mail:

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[1] MOVING_110618_07.JPG	[2] MOVING_110618_15.JPG	[3] MOVING_110618_17.JPG
[4] MOVING_110618_21.JPG	[5] MOVING_111119_04.JPG	[6] MOVING_111119_08.JPG
[7] MOVING_111119_13.JPG	[8] MOVING_111119_18.JPG	[9] MOVING_111119_26.JPG
[10] MOVING_111119_30.JPG	[11] MOVING_111119_41.JPG	[12] MOVING_111119_46.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MOVING_110618_07.JPG: Owney the dog, mascot of the Railway Mail Service, is temporarily off display. He is getting a make-over and will return on July 27, 2011, just in time for the release of a stamp celebrating the world-traveling mutt. Until then, this life-size model is happy to pose for photos, but please don't touch.
2. MOVING_111119_04.JPG: "Owney acknowledges no master save about 100,000 United States postal clerks throughout the length and breadth of this land." -- Washington Post, December 27, 1895 As a pup, Owney followed his owner to work at the post office in Albany, New York. When his master left that job, Owney stayed behind, following mailbags onto train cars. Soon he had thousands of friends among America's Railway Mail Service clerks. So many people added tags to Owney's collar that Postmaster General John Wanamaker had a harness made to help him carry the weight. After Owney died in 1897, his mail clerk friends raised money to preserve their mascot. From http://arago.si.edu/flash/?s1=2|mode=1|tid=2051961 Mail clerks raised money for preserving their mascot and he was taken to the Post Office Department's headquarters in Washington, DC, where he was on placed on display for the public. In 1904 the Department added Owney to their display at the St. Louis, Missouri, World's Fair. In 1911, the department transferred Owney to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1926, the Institution allowed Owney to travel to the Post Office Department's exhibit at the Sesquicentennial exhibit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From 1964-1992, he was displayed at the Smithsonian museum now known as the National Museum of American History and in 1993 he moved to the new National Postal Museum, where he remains on display next to a fabricated Railway Post Office train car.
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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 discusses the evolution of mail vehicles starting with the first tests in 1899 to the present. With the introduction of Parcel Post Service in 1913, these vehicles brought millions of packages into the mail stream for the first time. Despite numerous challenges over the years, motorized mail has undergone numerous improvements to dramatically increase efficiency in delivering the mail. In the early 1980s, after years of study and testing, another generation of postal trucks was introduced—nicknamed Long Life Vehicles—which quickly became familiar sights in American neighborhoods. On view are a 1931 Model A Ford Parcel Post truck and a contemporary Long Life Vehicle mail truck.
* Airmail Service in America: Airmail service was the base from which America's commercial aviation industry developed. This section of the exhibition examines this critical role of the postal service and features the airmail service established in 1918 between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., through the remarkable pioneering flights of pilots Torrey Webb, James Edgerton, H. Paul Culver, and George Boyle. On view are a 1911 Wiseman-Cooke biplane, a 1919 de Havilland DH-4B, and a 1936 Stinson Reliant SR-10.
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