BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (Case): Trolley Car Mail

DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (Case): Trolley Car Mail:

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Description of Pictures: Trolley Car Mail
May 19, 2017 – September 10, 2017
In 1892 St. Louis, Missouri added specially-outfitted cars to their mail vehicles. The service sped up mail deliveries, making it especially popular with businesses. Twelve other cities across the country jumped on board. By 1908 there were mail trolleys in Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Rochester, Pittsburg, Seattle, and Cleveland. Electrically-powered trolleys offered the opportunity for clerks to use electrically-powered canceling machines on board. What was fast became even faster. Between trolleys and multiple daily deliveries in large cities, individuals or businesses could send and receive letters as many as three to four times a day! That may not sound like much in our age of texting, but it was extraordinary to individuals at the turn of the last century. Mail trolleys were a great success, but everything has its day. In 1913 Parcel Post Service began and instead of sacks of letters, clerks had sacks and sacks of packages to process. Far more in weight and volume than they could handle in the relatively tiny cars. About the same time the Post Office had begun using trucks to carry mail. Most cities stopped using mail trolleys between 1913 and 1919. Baltimore’s trolleys kept going until 1929, but after that, mail trolleys were no more.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. TROLL_170523_001.JPG: Mail Trolleys Carrying Mail, Not People By the 1890s American cities were bursting at the seams with people, businesses and homes. Several used electric-powered or horse-drawn trolley cars to move people through cities and to and from the burgeoning suburbs. One postmaster, Major John Harlow of St. Louis, Missouri, decided to use trolleys to speed up mail deliveries. Harlow put clerks on board specially-designed trolley cars to process mail while they moved through St. Louis, just as clerks on Railway Post Office cars sorted mail on moving trains. St. Louis' citizens were about to receive their mail faster than ever before.
2. TROLL_170523_005.JPG: By the 1890s American cities were bursting at the seams with people, businesses and homes. Several used electric-powered or horse-drawn trolley cars to move people through cities and to and from the burgeoning suburbs. One postmaster, Major John Harlow of St. Louis, Missouri, decided to use trolleys to speed up mail deliveries. Harlow put clerks on board specially-designed trolley cars to process mail while they moved through St. Louis, just as clerks on Railway Post Office cars sorted mail on moving trains. St. Louis' citizens were about to receive their mail faster than ever before.
3. TROLL_170523_008.JPG: How It Worked: Mail trolley cars included equipment similar to that in Railway Post Office cars. From pigeon holes to sorting racks, everything a clerk needed to process mail quickly was on board. When possible, postmasters added cancelling machines powered by the same electricity that powered the cars. The cars were owned and operated by rail companies and referred to as RPO trolley cars. Each car was typically staffed by two to four clerks. Mail bags were tossed into the car at post office and train stops. The clerks were responsible for processing that mail, sorting it to stops along the way as well as the final stop. In addition to the mail clerks, two employees of the trolley company were usually assigned to each RPO trolley car. Mail clerks were joined by the motorman, who was responsible for running the car, and a conductor, who kept the car on schedule and handled the trolley rope and switching duties.
4. TROLL_170523_011.JPG: How It Worked: Mail trolley cars included equipment similar to that in Railway Post Office cars. From pigeon holes to sorting racks, everything a clerk needed to process mail quickly was on board. When possible, postmasters added cancelling machines powered by the same electricity that powered the cars. The cars were owned and operated by rail companies and referred to as RPO trolley cars. Each car was typically staffed by two to four clerks. Mail bags were tossed into the car at post office and train stops. The clerks were responsible for processing that mail, sorting it to stops along the way as well as the final stop. In addition to the mail clerks, two employees of the trolley company were usually assigned to each RPO trolley car. Mail clerks were joined by the motorman, who was responsible for running the car, and a conductor, who kept the car on schedule and handled the trolley rope and switching duties.
5. TROLL_170523_014.JPG: Interior of trolley car, note the cancelling machine in the center of the photographs, city unidentified, cir. 1905
6. TROLL_170523_016.JPG: This envelope was carried on the Cleveland Circuit trolley, which traveled a route that included St. Clair Ave. to the north and Broadway to the south, and postmarked July 20, 1908, trip 4
7. TROLL_170523_020.JPG: The Early Years Postmaster Harlow tested the new service in 1891. The first service began the next year. Brooklyn, NY followed, inaugurating its service in 1894. Mail trolley cars were painted white to stand out. In some cities, street collection boxes at some intersections were also painted white – designating them for use in conjunction with the trolleys. By the end of 1895 Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. were using mail trolleys. Seventy-five clerks worked on mail trolley cars, handling more than 500,000 pieces of mail a day.
8. TROLL_170523_024.JPG: The Early Years Postmaster Harlow tested the new service in 1891. The first service began the next year. Brooklyn, NY followed, inaugurating its service in 1894. Mail trolley cars were painted white to stand out. In some cities, street collection boxes at some intersections were also painted white – designating them for use in conjunction with the trolleys. By the end of 1895 Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. were using mail trolleys. Seventy-five clerks worked on mail trolley cars, handling more than 500,000 pieces of mail a day.
9. TROLL_170523_027.JPG: This postcard was processed on a Chicago RPO trolley on the Chicago & Wentworth line, November 12, 1903 Chicago RPO trolley car #8
10. TROLL_170523_030.JPG: This envelope was processed on a St. Louis RPO trolley and postmarked St. Louis & Webster Groves, Trip 12, March 7, 1899
11. TROLL_170523_033.JPG: This envelope, addressed to Rear Admiral Dewey, then serving in the Philippines, was processed on a Washington, D.C. RPO trolley in 1898 Washington, D.C. RPO trolley car #1
12. TROLL_170523_035.JPG: This envelope was processed on Philadelphia's Germantown RPO trolley on March 21, 1898, Trip #36 Philadelphia RPO car M-1. The city's RPO trolleys were numbered M-1 through M-8
13. TROLL_170523_038.JPG: This postcard was processed on a Chicago RPO trolley on the Chicago & Wentworth line, November 12, 1903
14. TROLL_170523_054.JPG: The Service at its Height In 1898 Brooklyn and its trolley lines were incorporated into New York City. Most cities used numbers to designate their mail trolley lines. New York and Philadelphia's postmasters used letters or alpha-numeric systems. The success of the service encouraged postmasters in other cities to follow suit, even if their city's trolley service was rather limited. San Francisco and Rochester, NY began operating RPO trolley cars in 1896 followed by Baltimore in 1897. A handful of cities followed, Pittsburgh in 1898, Seattle in 1903 and Cleveland in 1908.
15. TROLL_170523_058.JPG: This envelope, addressed to President McKinley, was processed on a Rochester trolley car on April 5, 1898 Like New York and Philadelphia, the Rochester postmaster used letters instead of numbers on the city's cars, this is trolley car D
16. TROLL_170523_062.JPG: Postal clerks pose in the doorway of Pittsburgh car M245
17. TROLL_170523_065.JPG: Boston RPO trolley #642, Malden via Broadway and Ferry Street route
18. TROLL_170523_067.JPG: Trolley Strikes Labor unrest led to trolley strikes in several cities between 1890 and 1920. Strikes sometimes forced postmasters to find alternate ways to move the mail during the strife. Crowds often moved out of the way of the mail trolleys, having no complaint with the Post Office. During the 1905 teamsters strike in Chicago a trolley car company painted their cars white, hoping that strikers would pause before attacking a car carrying the mail since that would make them liable to federal prosecution. The Post Office Department learned of the plan and put a stop to it.
19. TROLL_170523_070.JPG: Trolley Strikes Labor unrest led to trolley strikes in several cities between 1890 and 1920. Strikes sometimes forced postmasters to find alternate ways to move the mail during the strife. Crowds often moved out of the way of the mail trolleys, having no complaint with the Post Office. During the 1905 teamsters strike in Chicago a trolley car company painted their cars white, hoping that strikers would pause before attacking a car carrying the mail since that would make them liable to federal prosecution. The Post Office Department learned of the plan and put a stop to it.
20. TROLL_170523_072.JPG: Strikers and rioters blocking trolleys in Cleveland, 1899 Harper's Weekly magazine Illustration of strikers and their supporters stopping a trolley car during the Brooklyn trolley strike in 1895 Harper's Weekly magazine
21. TROLL_170523_078.JPG: An illustration of police guiding a mail trolley through strikers by Frederick Remington Harper's Weekly magazine
22. TROLL_170523_083.JPG: The Service Ends The turn of the last century brought many changes affecting mail transportation and delivery. Pneumatic tubes sped mail underground. In 1913 the Post Office rolled out Parcel Post Service, allowing packages up to 50 pounds in the mail. Letters were joined by tons of packages and postmasters needed trucks to carry all that mail. The end of RPO trolley cars was in sight. San Francisco stopped the service in 1906. New York postal officials put an end to trolley mail service in 1900, Rochester in 1909. The service ended in most of the remaining cities between 1913 and 1919. Baltimore ended the service in 1929. Trolley mail was no more.
23. TROLL_170523_090.JPG: This envelope was processed on Baltimore's Roland Park & Highlandtown RPO trolley on June 15, 1917 Baltimore RPO trolley #500
24. TROLL_170523_094.JPG: This envelope was processed on a Boston RPO trolley on July 31, 1904 Boston RPO trolley #642, Malden via Broadway and Ferry Street route
25. TROLL_170523_101.JPG: The Service Ends The turn of the last century brought many changes affecting mail transportation and delivery. Pneumatic tubes sped mail underground. In 1913 the Post Office rolled out Parcel Post Service, allowing packages up to 50 pounds in the mail. Letters were joined by tons of packages and postmasters needed trucks to carry all that mail. The end of RPO trolley cars was in sight. San Francisco stopped the service in 1906. New York postal officials put an end to trolley mail service in 1900, Rochester in 1909. The service ended in most of the remaining cities between 1913 and 1919. Baltimore ended the service in 1929. Trolley mail was no more.
26. TROLL_170523_104.JPG: Clerks loading pneumatic canisters with mail Carriers posing with new parcel post truck loaded with packages
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2017 photos: Overnight trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences in Pensacola, FL, Chattanooga, TN (via sites in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee) and Fredericksburg, VA, a family reunion in The Dells, Wisconsin (via sites in Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin), New York City, and my 12th consecutive San Diego Comic Con trip (including sites in Arizona). Ego strokes: For some reason, several of my photos have been published in physical books this year which is pretty cool. Ones that I know about: "Tarzan, Jungle King of Popular Culture" (David Lemmo), "The Great Crusade: A Guide to World War I American Expeditionary Forces Battlefields and Sites" (Stephen T. Powers and Kevin Dennehy), "The American Spirit" (David McCullough), "Civil War Battlefields: Walking the Trails of History" (David T. Gilbert), "The Year I Was Peter the Great: 1956 — Khrushchev, Stalin's Ghost, and a Young American in Russia" (Marvin Kalb), and "The Judge: 26 Machiavellian Lessons" (Ron Collins and David Skover). Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: just below 560,000.
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