WEBVTT - Secrets of the Post Office! with Nancy Pope 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.520 Guess what mango was? That will all right? So I 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:04.440 was reading this story from a couple years ago, and 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:06.680 it was about this three year old boy whose dog 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.560 Moe had passed away. So to help the boy cope 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:11.440 with Moe's passing, the boy's mom would get him to 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.080 write these letters to Mo and then they address them 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:18.120 to Moe Westbrook, Doggie Heaven Cloud one. And each time 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.160 they put the letter in the mailbox, she'd sneak back 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.880 out and remove the letter. And one day she forgets 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.400 to do this, and she just assumed the postal worker 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.040 would get it and throw it away. But a few 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.240 weeks later, they go out to the mailbox and there 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.120 was a letter with the return address on it from MO. 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.840 And the letter read, I'm in Doggie Heaven, I play 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.080 all day, I'm happy, thank you for being my friend. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:41.160 I love you, Luke. 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:42.680 That's pretty screwt. 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.360 Yeah. And here's the thing. So anywhere I've lived, the 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.559 mail carrier has been one of the nicest people in 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.080 the neighborhood. I mean, we chat with ours any time 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.560 we see him. And they're not only so many more 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.440 good stories about heartwarming moments like this, but there are 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.240 just so many fascinating stories in the history of the 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:21.920 US Postal Service. That's what we're diving into today. Hey, 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.800 their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:26.720 Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.440 Mangesh Ticketter and on the other side of the soundproof 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:33.640 glass the man who always delivers, Tristan McNeil. And on 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.840 today's show, we're shining the spotlight on one of the 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.039 great unsung heroes of our society, and that's the US 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.720 Postal Service. Of course, everybody's aware of the USPS, but 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.080 many of us tend to take it services for granted, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.920 and you know, not really think about the ridiculous amount 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.800 of planning and work that goes into processing and delivering 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.840 more than half a billion pieces of mail a day. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.880 In fact, the only time we devote much thought to 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.400 the postal Service at all is when we need something 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.720 from it, when something's gone wrong, and we want to 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.600 blow off steam by griping about it. So today we're 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:06.680 trying to break that bad habit by sharing some of 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.880 the most interesting pieces of postal history, as well as 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.079 some of the craziest stories to ever make it out 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:12.800 of the mailbag. 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.040 Definitely and to make sure we don't miss any of 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.800 the good stuff, we'll be talking to the keeper of 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.760 postal history or itself, Nancy Pope. Nancy Pope's the top 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.359 historian at the National Postal Museum, so we'll talk to 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.520 her about what it takes to be a postal historian 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.400 and find out what she considers to be the most 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:29.480 interesting pieces of postal office history. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:31.840 All right, So I want to start with one of 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:33.799 the things that really stood out to me while doing 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.480 our research, and that's the immense scope of the Postal 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.880 Services operations. I mean, we're talking about the largest retail 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.520 network in the nation. So there were thirty one thousand 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.760 active US post offices and just to put that in perspective, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.840 that's more than all the domestic McDonald's, Starbucks, and Walmart's combined. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.320 And to staff all those locations and handle the deliveries 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.520 between them, the Postal Service employees over half a million 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.440 people and maintains a lead of two hundred and twenty 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.400 seven thousand vehicles. That's one of the largest civilian fleets 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:09.000 in the world. The US Postal Service is a gargantuan, 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.079 NonStop delivery machine. 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.720 Yeah, and the scope of what all that manpower and 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.280 tech can achieve is equally impressive. So the USPS is 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.120 actually responsible for the delivery of nearly half the mail 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:21.840 volume in the entire world. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:23.640 That's forty seven percent. 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.280 But I think the most amazing thing about the whole 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.560 crazy operation is that for almost fifty years now, it's 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.040 cost taxpayers virtually nothing. There aren't a whole lot of 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.400 government departments or agencies you can say that about. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.760 It is impressive. But I noticed you said costs virtually 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.400 nothing for taxpayers, And I always wondered whether like things 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.240 like the postage sales and products and all their special 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.840 services like express mail, you know, covered those costs. So 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.000 are you saying it actually does receive some government funding though? 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.840 Well, you're definitely right that stamp sales and stuff like 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.640 that pays for the agency's operating costs, but they do 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.240 receive less than one percent of their budget from the government. 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.400 According to PolitiFact, Congress gives the Postal Service one hundred 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.560 million dollars a year to compensate the agency for providing 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.880 free mailing privileges to blind people and overseas voters. 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.320 Okay, well, that that's pretty interesting. It's actually a pretty 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.479 good return on what I would say, overall is a 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.440 small investment from each taxpayer. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.600 And honestly, that's always been the case with mail delivery 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.480 in America, even before the US became a country. 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.479 Before but became a country. So how is that? 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.320 Well, during the Second Continental Congress in seventeen seventy five, 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:32.760 this is a year before the colonies would declare their 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.400 independence from England, the delegates established this postal system and 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.359 appointed Ben Franklin as the first Postmaster General. And the 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.880 great thing about that is that Franklin's appointment was this 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.160 act of rebellion in itself. Like he'd previously served as 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.760 the Postmaster General and the Colonies for the British Royal 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.680 Mail system, but he'd been dismissed because of his involvement 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.120 in the Revolution. So he was actually appointed as the 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:55.760 first postmaster General twice. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.880 It's impressive. It's a good thing we rehired in from 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.039 our side, because you know, Franklin really helped establish the 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.880 whole basis of the postal system as we know it today. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.040 He surveyed thousands of miles of post roads and made 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.920 adjustments so that routes would be more efficient. He also 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.360 instituted the idea of having postal riders travel day and night, 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:16.760 they'd use lannerns to light the way for their horses. 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.880 And all these changes greatly improve the speed of the mail, 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.320 by some estimates, cutting delivery times in half. 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:23.400 That's crazy. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.880 So I had no idea that the postal riders were 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.240 round the clock. And I guess that mentality is the 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.760 same one that gives it like the post office creed 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.560 about neither snow nor rain. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.839 Yeah, there's the whole thing that people always talk about that, 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.599 you know that neither snow nor rain or heat nor gloom, YadA, YadA, YadA. 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.800 But actually it's pretty interesting. There's no such thing as 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.560 a postman's creed. I was looking at this, and so 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.719 people always associate that phrase with the postal Service because 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.800 it's engraved on the outside of a famous post office 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.880 in New York, But there's really no official motto for 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.039 the USPS. In fact, the phrase isn't even original to 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.520 our own postal system. It's actually a translation of the 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:05.320 Greek historian Herodotus and his description of the ancient Persian 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.360 male courier. So apparently they did all of this through 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:10.640 neither heat nor rain or whatever it. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.359 Was, and all that gloom. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.160 Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a bit of a letdown, 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.599 but it does feel strange that we expect our electric 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:21.320 bills to be delivered during blizzards. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.480 I say they've actually done a pretty decent job of 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.760 meeting these, you know, admittedly high expectations. Because there's one 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:29.800 other thing that amazed me while doing the research, and 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.240 that's just how versatile an organization the USPS is. So 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.160 it's grown right along with the country for hundreds of years, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.120 and it's had to evolve the fifth expanding needs of 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:39.600 the public. 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.479 Wait, so can I tell you how excited I am 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.560 to have Nord VPN sponsoring our little show part time genius. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.640 You know, when I get excited, I make lists, and 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.080 I'm going to tell you why NORD is so great 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.840 in listical form. First off, VPNs make the Internet a safer, 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.560 cozier place. VPN stand for virtual Private network. Basically, they 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.520 hide your IP address and protect your online identity and data, 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.680 which is especially good for people like me who use 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.160 the free Internet on trains or planes or wherever. 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But 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.480 the burgeoning railroad with its hubs in major cities that 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.920 all allowed the mail to be delivered up and down 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.680 the East Coast, and the tech change is only increased 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.120 from there. So like cars and trucks arrived on the 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.480 mail scene in eighteen ninety nine and airplanes soon followed 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.439 suit in nineteen eleven, I. 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:01.400 Believe, yeah, yeah, And you know you can still see 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.760 that kind of versatility today. According to the Postal Service, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.440 they use every transportation method available to them while making 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.120 their rounds. I was looking at a list of the 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:16.840 different ways they deliver mail that include planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways, 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.079 float planes, hovercraft, mules, bicycles, and of course feet. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.480 I feel like I should be stunned by hovercrafts, but 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.560 it's really mules that's confusing to me. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.600 Yeah, it's still on the list. There's actually one mail 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:31.880 by mule route left in the US, and it's this 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.040 eight mile trail that leads down to the bottom of 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.800 the Grand Canyon where the Havasupai tribe. They've lived there 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.480 for over eight hundred years, and so six days a 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.920 week the mule train carries about four thousand pounds of mail, 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.360 food supplies, and even furniture down these steep walls of 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.400 the canyon. I was trying to look to see how 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.440 long this took. It takes about three hours for the 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.280 team to get down there, but it's a five hour 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.760 trip coming back up. And this happened six days a week. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.840 That's so crazy, And it's amazing that the mail really 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.920 does go everywhere. But you know, there's a one delivery 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.319 method that I'm kind of bummed is missing from the 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:06.840 current list. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:07.520 Oh yeah, what's that? 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:08.959 Pneumatic tubes? 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.480 All right, So before mail trucks took to the streets 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.280 the six major cities, I've got these rutten downs. I 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.520 was at Philadelphia, Saint Louis, Boston, Brooklyn, New York, and Chicago. 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.840 They all made use of underground networks of pressurized air 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.120 tubes to deliver their mail, and at the system's peak 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.920 in nineteen fifteen, the cities had a combined total of 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.360 over fifty six miles of pneumatic tubes, all zigzagging beneath 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:33.959 their surface. 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:34.360 Wow. 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:36.800 And while these tubes systems start popping up in the 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.640 US during the eighteen nineties, it had actually been used 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.040 in Europe for almost forty years by that point. Apparently 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.120 they were first put to use in stock exchanges so 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.160 that traders could communicate messages to buy or sell stocks 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.520 at you know, a faster rate than telegraph. 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.959 And yeah, it makes sense as a way to get 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.240 messages across and the noumatic tubes or what the banks use, 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.640 and those are really fast. But you know, we're talking 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.000 about one hundred and twenty pl plus years ago. So 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.040 were they actually fast in the eighteen nineties. Yeah. 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.200 The weird thing is they were pretty fast. Like the 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.520 mail tubes in the US could move a canister holding 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.120 up to six hundred letters and an average speed of thirty. 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.280 Five miles per hour. Oh wow. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.920 Yeah, So as one example, and there are stories of 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.360 postal workers who worked the tubes that they were known 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.640 as rocketeers. But these rocketeers in downtown New York City 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.840 actually ordered sandwiches from this deli up in the Bronx, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.080 and apparently they'd receive their orders via a pneumatic tube within 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:28.880 twenty minutes. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.240 I want to order a sandwich by nomadic. I knew 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.720 that that was pretty awesome, although I'm guessing ordering lunch 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.200 wasn't officially sanctioned for the use of the tubes. But so, 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.199 did you come across any other weird stuff that was 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:41.920 sent by these tubes, definitely so. 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.560 According to an article had written by Robert Cohen for 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.240 the USPS website, there was this bizarre opening ceremony where 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.800 the first tubes were installed at the General Post Office 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.440 in New York City, and the higher ups there basically 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.800 wanted to show the employees what their new toy could do. 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.360 So the very first mail canister to travel the tubes 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.800 contained a Bible, a flag, and a copy of the Constitution, 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.480 which is super patriotic, and the second contained this imitation 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:12.000 peach in honor of Senator Chauncey Depew. Apparently he was 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:13.360 fondly known as the Peach. 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.560 Even more patriotic, and the third carrier is the weirdest. 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:18.880 It had a black cat in it. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.520 A black cat. Oh wow, that's pretty weird. And as 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.440 much as I dislike cats, I really hate the idea 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.319 of somebody stuffing a cat into a tube. Was the 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:28.880 cat okay? 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:29.559 Yeah? 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:30.920 Well, well the cat was fine. 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.240 It was a little dazed according to witnesses, but otherwise 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.000 all right. And sadly though, this was just the first 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.240 of many animals to be shot around New York City 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.000 through a pressurized tube, so Kenneth Stewart. He's the author 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.640 of a Pneumatic Male Tubes and Operation of Automatic Railroads. 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.400 He says that plenty of other animals made the journey too, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:54.200 including dogs and mice and roosters, guinea pigs, monkeys, even 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:54.959 some goldfish. 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:55.520 Oh my gosh. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.240 Yeah, and in one of those cases it actually involved 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.120 sending a sick cat to the animal house. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:01.440 So it was a good use. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.480 But the rest we mostly just examples of postal workers 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:05.040 showing off. 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.000 I'd said, it's not this perstal service's proudest moment, but 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.240 I actually don't get it. So animal cruelty aside. I mean, 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.719 it sounds like the tubes worked pretty well in these 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.160 sprawling cities, so why don't we see New Yorkers and 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:18.280 others still using them? 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.120 Yes, there are actually a few reasons. One was that 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.840 the mail volumes kept increasing and it was simply too 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.920 much for the tubes to handle, especially considering the systems 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.400 pipes were only between two and eight inches wide. 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:31.960 Oh my god, that poor cat. I can't step thinking 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:33.040 about that. Yeah. 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:34.840 But the main reason is that most of the tube 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.680 systems were built and owned by private companies, and they 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.600 merely rented to the post Office. So these rental costs 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.280 just got too high in the long term. And according 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.560 to Kate Ascher, who's the author of the works Anatomy 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.840 of a City, let me just find this quote. She wrote, 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.800 by nineteen eighteen, the federal government considered the annual rental 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:59.120 payments seventeen thousand dollars per mile per anim made by 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.120 the Post Office be exorbitant, and they endorsed a new 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.280 alternative with greater capacity, the automobile, as the delivery method 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:06.920 of choice. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:07.560 Yeah. 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:08.880 I mean, as sad as it is to see this 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.840 go away, I guess it makes sense. And I can't 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.680 deny the nomatic tubes and mule trains. They do add 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.840 this pop of color to the Postal Service's history, though. 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:18.480 Yeah, totally. 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.520 And in fact, well, why don't we get a historian 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.800 online and see what other weird stories are lurking in 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:24.040 the USPS archives? 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:32.040 Sounds like a plan. So our guest today has been 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.880 with the Smithsonian Institution for over three decades now, which Mango. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.480 I'm pretty sure that makes her super smart if I'm 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.920 not a mistaken so. But more importantly for today's episode, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.480 she's been curating exhibits at the National Postal Museum since 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.720 it opened in nineteen ninety three. She's now the head 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.720 curator of the history department there. Nancy Pope, welcome the 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:52.600 part time genius. 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:54.040 Thank you. It's good to be here. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.720 So, Nancy, we've had so much fun digging into the 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.200 history of the postal service, and we've talked about all 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.760 the things, like, you know, delivery by mule and pneumatic 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.680 tubes and all kinds of stuff. But do you have 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.000 a favorite delivery method that's actually no longer being used. 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.840 I have a favorite method that was used once. 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:14.080 What's that? 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.400 It's missile mail. On June eighth, nineteen fifty nine, the 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:24.440 US Navy fired a Regulus one missile off the USS Barbaro, 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.880 which was floating out in the Atlantic, and they directed 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:33.280 it to land at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Mayport, Florida. 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:39.800 And instead of having a nuclear weapon on board, they 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.560 had two blue and red metal containers that held three 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:44.880 thousand letters. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.360 Wow, So why were they doing this? 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:52.240 Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield was a man who really wanted 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:56.280 to modernize his post office and he was doing anything 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.800 and everything he could do to kind of try that. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.600 I was trying a lot of silly things. He thought 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.080 about missile mail, and he talked to the War Department, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.200 and they had their own little idea that they wanted 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.160 to make sure the Russians knew that we were so 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.159 good with our missiles that we could direct them to 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.800 land anywhere we wanted, and they were so useful that 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.800 we could use them to I don't know, Carrie mail. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.040 The letter that Summerfield sent and was one of the 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.880 three thousand letters, They were actually all the same letters 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.920 inside the missile. He says that this is just the beginning, 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.960 but he's smarter than that, and I think it was 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.359 a pr sent from beginning to end for both the 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.560 war and the Post Office Department. 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.880 Actually, one of the other exhibits I saw was the 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.119 railway mail crane, which doesn't seem that exciting at first, 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.679 but can you explain how that worked in terms of 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:55.480 the trains passing through towns pretty quickly. 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.920 In the days of railway mail, most of the times 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.360 the trains would actually stop and exchange the mail at 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.920 a train station, but they couldn't stop at every single one, 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.119 you know, most trains were not milk runs, and so 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.360 to exchange the mail at some of these towns. They 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.520 had to figure out a way to hit the mail 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.080 bag off and a mail bag onto the train while 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:22.000 the train was moving, and they came up with these cranes, 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.760 and the postmaster would go up and hook a mail bag, 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.480 a leather mail bag to this crane, so it was 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:33.240 fastened at top and bottom stretched out so it was 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.360 very tight. And then the train would come along and 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:39.919 the clerk on the train would be looking out his 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.200 door and he had a long iron crane that was 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.840 attached to the door, and he'd swing that out. And 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.239 you could never swing it out too early because then 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.720 you knocked the telephone poles down. So you had to 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.280 watch out and be very very careful until you saw 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.159 the crane and you swung your iron crane out and 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.639 the crane would actually grabbed the mail bag and you 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.760 would pull the train back in. And while you're doing this, 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.920 you would kick the mail bag full of mail for 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.800 that station off the train. So you do it all 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.320 of this at once, and you had to kick really 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.399 hard because if you didn't, it got stuck under the 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:23.760 train and mail bag would explode, letters everywhere, and they 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:25.480 called that a snowfall. 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.639 Wow, that's pretty It actually sounds like it'd be pretty 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.200 dangerous at the same time. But that's that's very interesting. 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.840 So I know, the main vehicle used by the postal service, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.320 this Grunman LLV or the Long Life Vehicle. I read 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.919 somewhere recently that it gets an average fuel economy of 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.840 about ten miles a gallon. If and if that's the case, 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.080 what are your thoughts on, you know, why that vehicle 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.680 was chosen and why we haven't seen a move away 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.720