Existing comment:
Dead Letters:
Since colonial times, undeliverable letters have been forwarded to the Dead Letter Office. Clerks in the Dead Letter Office may open undelivered letters, but the contents are considered private. They are permitted to read only enough of the communication to determine where the letter should go.
Between 1871 and 1900, over 11.7 million immigrants arrived in America. They settled in the cities of the Northeast and the farmlands of the Midwest and the Great Plains.
These immigrants and their families often had limited knowledge of English and U.S. geography, and postal employees sometimes could not decipher the addresses on letters they wrote back and forth. These letters wound up in the Dead Letter Office. |