1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:02,520
Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? All right? So I

2
00:00:02,560 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: was reading this story from a couple of years ago,

3
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:06,360
Speaker 1: and it was about this three year old boy whose

4
00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:09,239
Speaker 1: dog Mo had passed away. So to help the boy

5
00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:11,399
Speaker 1: cope with most passing, the boy's mom would get him

6
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:13,840
Speaker 1: to write these letters to MO, and then they addressed

7
00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:17,919
Speaker 1: them to Mo Westbrook, Doggie Heaven Cloud one. And each

8
00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:19,880
Speaker 1: time they put the letter in the mailbox, she'd sneak

9
00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:22,479
Speaker 1: back out and remove the letter. And one day she

10
00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:25,080
Speaker 1: forgets to do this, and she just assumed the postal

11
00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:27,840
Speaker 1: worker would get it and throw it away. But a

12
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:30,040
Speaker 1: few weeks later they go out to the mailbox and

13
00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:32,239
Speaker 1: there was a letter with the return address on it

14
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:36,120
Speaker 1: from MO. And the letter read, I'm in Doggie Heaven,

15
00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:39,480
Speaker 1: I play all day, I'm happy, thank you for being

16
00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:43,160
Speaker 1: my friend. I love you, Luke. That's pretty screat Yeah.

17
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:45,320
Speaker 1: And and here's the thing. So anywhere I've lived, the

18
00:00:45,360 --> 00:00:47,519
Speaker 1: mail carrier has been one of the nicest people in

19
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:50,040
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. I mean, we chat with ours any time

20
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:52,519
Speaker 1: we see him. And they're not only so many more

21
00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:55,600
Speaker 1: good stories about heartwarming moments like this, but they're just

22
00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:58,560
Speaker 1: so many fascinating stories in the history of the US

23
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:14,280
Speaker 1: Postal Service. So that's what we're diving into today. Yea,

24
00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm

25
00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:26,520
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good

26
00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:28,880
Speaker 1: friend Mangesh Ticketer and on the other side of the

27
00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:33,520
Speaker 1: soundproof glass the man who always delivers, Tristan McNeil. And

28
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:35,680
Speaker 1: on today's show, we're shining the spotlight on one of

29
00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,760
Speaker 1: the great unsung heroes of our society, and that's the

30
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:42,520
Speaker 1: US Postal Service. Of course, everybody is aware of the USPS,

31
00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,080
Speaker 1: but many of us tend to take its services for granted,

32
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:47,840
Speaker 1: and you know, not really think about the ridiculous amount

33
00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:50,760
Speaker 1: of planning and work that goes into processing and delivering

34
00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:53,800
Speaker 1: more than half a billion pieces of mail a day.

35
00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 1: In fact, the only time we devote much thought to

36
00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:59,360
Speaker 1: the postal Service at all this when we need something

37
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:01,680
Speaker 1: from it, when something's gone wrong, and we want to

38
00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:04,560
Speaker 1: blow off steam by griping about it. So today we're

39
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,640
Speaker 1: trying to break that bad habit by sharing some of

40
00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:09,840
Speaker 1: the most interesting pieces of postal history, as well as

41
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:12,040
Speaker 1: some of the craziest stories to ever make it out

42
00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:14,600
Speaker 1: of the mailbag, definitely, and to make sure we don't

43
00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:16,240
Speaker 1: miss any of the good stuff, we'll be talking to

44
00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:20,000
Speaker 1: the keeper of postal history or itself, Nancy Pope. Nancy

45
00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:22,720
Speaker 1: Post the top historian at the National Postal Museum. So

46
00:02:22,919 --> 00:02:24,480
Speaker 1: we'll talk to her about what it takes to be

47
00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:26,880
Speaker 1: a postal historian and find out what she considers to

48
00:02:26,919 --> 00:02:30,160
Speaker 1: be the most interesting pieces of postal office history. All right,

49
00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:32,119
Speaker 1: So I want to start with one of the things

50
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:34,320
Speaker 1: that really stood out to me while doing our research,

51
00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,680
Speaker 1: and that's the immense scope of the Postal Services operations.

52
00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about the largest retail network in

53
00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:44,280
Speaker 1: the nation. So there were thirty one thousand active US

54
00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:47,200
Speaker 1: post offices and just to put that in perspective, that's

55
00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:51,839
Speaker 1: that's more than all the domestic McDonald's, Starbucks and Walmart's combined.

56
00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:55,280
Speaker 1: And to staff all those locations and handle the deliveries

57
00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 1: between them, the Postal Service employees over half a million

58
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,320
Speaker 1: people and maintains a lead of two hundred and twenty

59
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:05,360
Speaker 1: seven thousand vehicles. That's one of the largest civilian fleets

60
00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,959
Speaker 1: in the world. The US Postal Service is a gargantuan

61
00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:12,840
Speaker 1: NonStop delivery machine. Yeah, and the scope of what all

62
00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,079
Speaker 1: that manpower and tech can achieve is equally impressive. So

63
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,320
Speaker 1: the USPS is actually responsible for the delivery of nearly

64
00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:24,080
Speaker 1: half the mail volume in the entire world. That's but

65
00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:26,680
Speaker 1: I think the most amazing thing about the whole crazy

66
00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:29,880
Speaker 1: operation is that for almost fifty years now, it's cost

67
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:33,440
Speaker 1: taxpayers virtually nothing. There on a whole lot of government

68
00:03:33,440 --> 00:03:36,760
Speaker 1: departments or agencies you can say that about it is impressive.

69
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:40,240
Speaker 1: But I notice you said costs virtually nothing for taxpayers.

70
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:43,280
Speaker 1: And I always wondered whether like things like the postage

71
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:46,800
Speaker 1: sales and products and all their special services like express mail,

72
00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,680
Speaker 1: you know, covered those costs. So are you saying it

73
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:53,240
Speaker 1: actually does receive some government funding though? Well, you're definitely

74
00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:55,360
Speaker 1: right that stamp sales and stuff like that pays for

75
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:58,440
Speaker 1: the agency's operating costs, but they do receive less than

76
00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:00,840
Speaker 1: one percent of their budget from the govern mint. According

77
00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:03,720
Speaker 1: to PolitiFact, Congress gives the Postal Service a hundred million

78
00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:07,080
Speaker 1: dollars a year to compensate the agency for providing freemailing

79
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:11,040
Speaker 1: privileges to blind people and overseas voters. Okay, well, that

80
00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:14,120
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting, and it's actually a pretty good return

81
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:16,760
Speaker 1: on on what I would say overall as a small

82
00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,320
Speaker 1: investment from each taxpayer. And and honestly that that's always

83
00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:22,919
Speaker 1: been the case with mail delivery in America, even before

84
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:26,120
Speaker 1: the US became a country, before became country. So how

85
00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:29,719
Speaker 1: is that? Well, during the Second Continental Congress in seventeen

86
00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:32,279
Speaker 1: seventy five, this is a year before the colonies would

87
00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:35,880
Speaker 1: declare their independence from England, the delegates established this postal

88
00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:39,560
Speaker 1: system and and appointed Ben Franklin as the first Postmaster General.

89
00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:42,600
Speaker 1: And the great thing about that is that Franklin's appointment

90
00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:45,600
Speaker 1: was this act of rebellion in itself. Like he previously

91
00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,080
Speaker 1: served as the postmaster General and the colonies for the

92
00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:51,039
Speaker 1: British Royal Mail system, but he'd been dismissed because of

93
00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:53,880
Speaker 1: his involvement in the Revolution. So he was actually appointed

94
00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:57,920
Speaker 1: as the first postmaster General twice. It's a good thing

95
00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:00,440
Speaker 1: we rehired and from our side, because you know, Franklin

96
00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:03,800
Speaker 1: really helped establish the whole basis of the postal system

97
00:05:03,839 --> 00:05:06,960
Speaker 1: as we know it today. He surveyed thousands of miles

98
00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:09,279
Speaker 1: of post roads and made adjustments so that routes would

99
00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 1: be more efficient. He also instituted the idea of having

100
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:15,360
Speaker 1: postal riders traveled day and night. They'd use landers to

101
00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:18,120
Speaker 1: light the way for their horses, and all these changes

102
00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:20,719
Speaker 1: greatly improved the speed of the mail by some estimates,

103
00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:24,080
Speaker 1: cutting delivery times in half. That's crazy. So I had

104
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,719
Speaker 1: no idea that the postal riders were around the clock.

105
00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:29,920
Speaker 1: And I guess that mentality is the same one that

106
00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:32,480
Speaker 1: gives it, like the post office create about not a

107
00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:35,080
Speaker 1: snow nor rain. Yeah, there's the whole thing that people

108
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:37,200
Speaker 1: always talk about that, you know that neither snow nor

109
00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:40,320
Speaker 1: rain or heat or gloom YadA, YadA, YadA. But actually

110
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:43,760
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. There's no such thing as a postman's creed.

111
00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:45,840
Speaker 1: I was looking at this and and and so people

112
00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:49,279
Speaker 1: always associate that phrase with the postal Service because it's

113
00:05:49,279 --> 00:05:51,880
Speaker 1: engraved on the outside of a famous post office in

114
00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:55,719
Speaker 1: New York, But there's really no official motto for the USPS.

115
00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:58,520
Speaker 1: In fact, the phrase isn't even original to our own

116
00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:02,320
Speaker 1: postal system. It's actually a translation of the Greek historian

117
00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 1: Herodotus and his description of the ancient Persian male courier.

118
00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:09,400
Speaker 1: So apparently they did all of this through neither heat

119
00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:12,359
Speaker 1: nor rain or whatever it was, and all that gloom.

120
00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:14,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I guess that's a bit of

121
00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:19,080
Speaker 1: a letdown, but it does feel strange that we expect

122
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:21,760
Speaker 1: our electric bills to be delivered during blizzards. I think

123
00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:24,280
Speaker 1: they've actually done a pretty decent job of meeting these,

124
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:28,120
Speaker 1: you know, admittedly high expectations. Because there's one other thing

125
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:30,160
Speaker 1: that amazed me while doing the research, and that's just

126
00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:33,760
Speaker 1: how versatile an organization the USPS is. So it's grown

127
00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:36,520
Speaker 1: right along with the country for hundreds of years, and

128
00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:40,360
Speaker 1: it's had to evolve the fifth expanding needs of the public. Yeah,

129
00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:43,159
Speaker 1: so well, one of the first major transitions took place

130
00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:46,880
Speaker 1: back in eightee, when the USPS first started delivering mail

131
00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 1: by train, and so prior to that most deliveries have

132
00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:52,560
Speaker 1: been made on horseback or by horse drawn wagon. And

133
00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:56,279
Speaker 1: when the mail volume increased, that's when things changed. But

134
00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:59,600
Speaker 1: the burgeoning railroad, with its hubs in major cities, that

135
00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:02,040
Speaker 1: all allowed the mail to be delivered up and down

136
00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:05,200
Speaker 1: the East coast, and the tech changes only increased from there.

137
00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:07,799
Speaker 1: So like cars and trucks arrived on the mail scene

138
00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:13,200
Speaker 1: in and airplanes soon followed suit in nineteen eleven, I believe, yeah,

139
00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:14,920
Speaker 1: and you know, you can still see that kind of

140
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,840
Speaker 1: versatility today. According to the Postal Service, they use every

141
00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:22,240
Speaker 1: transportation method available to them while making their rounds. I

142
00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:24,160
Speaker 1: was looking at a list of the different ways they

143
00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:29,960
Speaker 1: deliver mail that include planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways,

144
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:35,760
Speaker 1: float planes, hovercraft, mules, bicycles, and of course feat I

145
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:37,840
Speaker 1: feel like I should be stunned by hovercrafts, but it's

146
00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:41,040
Speaker 1: really mules that's confusing to me. Yeah, it's still on

147
00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 1: the list. There's actually one mail by mule route left

148
00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 1: in the US, and it's this eight mile trail that

149
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:49,840
Speaker 1: leads down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon where

150
00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:53,320
Speaker 1: the Havasupai tribe. They've lived there for over eight hundred years,

151
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:55,760
Speaker 1: and so six days a week the mule train carries

152
00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:59,640
Speaker 1: about four thousand pounds of male food supplies and even

153
00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:02,480
Speaker 1: for Richard down these steep walls of the canyon. I

154
00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:04,160
Speaker 1: was trying to look to see how long this took.

155
00:08:04,200 --> 00:08:06,280
Speaker 1: It takes about three hours for the team to get

156
00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:09,240
Speaker 1: down there, but it's a five hour trip coming back

157
00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:12,120
Speaker 1: up and it happened six days a week. That's so crazy,

158
00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:15,000
Speaker 1: and it's amazing that the mail really does go everywhere.

159
00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:17,640
Speaker 1: But but you know, there's one delivery method that I'm

160
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:23,480
Speaker 1: kind of bummed is missing from the current list. Pneumatic tubes. Right, So,

161
00:08:23,720 --> 00:08:26,559
Speaker 1: before mail trucks took to the streets, the six major

162
00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:31,480
Speaker 1: cities I've got these written downs as at Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Brooklyn,

163
00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:34,600
Speaker 1: New York, and Chicago, they all made use of underground

164
00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:37,880
Speaker 1: networks of pressurized air tubes to deliver their mail. And

165
00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:41,200
Speaker 1: at the system's peak in nineteen the city's had a

166
00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:44,760
Speaker 1: combined total of over fifty six miles of pneumatic tubes,

167
00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:49,160
Speaker 1: all zigzagging beneath the surface. And while these tube systems

168
00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:51,319
Speaker 1: start popping up in the U S during the eighteen nineties,

169
00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:54,680
Speaker 1: it's actually been used in Europe for almost forty years

170
00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:57,160
Speaker 1: by that point. Apparently there were first put to use

171
00:08:57,200 --> 00:09:00,079
Speaker 1: in stock exchanges so that traders could communicate messages to

172
00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:02,800
Speaker 1: buy or sell stocks, and you know, a faster rate

173
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: than telegraph, and it makes sense as a way to

174
00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:08,679
Speaker 1: get messages across and the noumatic tubes or what the

175
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:11,400
Speaker 1: banks use, and those are really fast. But you know,

176
00:09:11,400 --> 00:09:13,960
Speaker 1: we're talking about a hundred and twenty plus years ago,

177
00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:17,200
Speaker 1: so were they actually fast in the eight nineties. Yeah.

178
00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:19,360
Speaker 1: The weird thing is they were pretty fast, Like the

179
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:21,280
Speaker 1: male tubes in the U s could move a canister

180
00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:24,360
Speaker 1: holding up to six hundred letters an average speed of

181
00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:27,760
Speaker 1: thirty five miles per hour. Yeah. So as one example,

182
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,320
Speaker 1: uh and their stories of postal workers who worked the

183
00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:33,560
Speaker 1: tubes that they were known as rocketeers. But these rocketeers

184
00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:36,800
Speaker 1: in downtown New York City actually ordered sandwiches from this

185
00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:39,679
Speaker 1: deli up in the Bronx and apparently they'd received their

186
00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:42,599
Speaker 1: orders via pneumatic tube within twenty minutes. I want to

187
00:09:42,679 --> 00:09:46,320
Speaker 1: order a sandwich by Nematic. That is pretty awesome, although

188
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:49,920
Speaker 1: I'm guessing ordering lunch wasn't officially sanctioned for the use

189
00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:52,240
Speaker 1: of the tubes. But so, did you come across any

190
00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:55,080
Speaker 1: other weird stuff that was sent by these tubes? Definitely so.

191
00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:57,680
Speaker 1: According to an article and written by Robert Cohen for

192
00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:01,160
Speaker 1: the USPS website, there was this bizar our opening ceremony

193
00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:03,640
Speaker 1: where the first tubes were installed at the General post

194
00:10:03,679 --> 00:10:06,160
Speaker 1: Office in New York City and the higher ups they're

195
00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:08,520
Speaker 1: basically wanted to show the employees what their new toy

196
00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:12,000
Speaker 1: could do. So the very first male canister to travel

197
00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:15,800
Speaker 1: the tubes. It contained a Bible, a flag, and a

198
00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:18,960
Speaker 1: copy of the Constitution, which is super patriotic. And the

199
00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:22,960
Speaker 1: second contained this imitation peach in honor of a Senator

200
00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,480
Speaker 1: Chauncey Deput. Apparently he was fondly known as the Peach.

201
00:10:26,679 --> 00:10:30,680
Speaker 1: Even more patriotic. And the third carrier is the weirdest.

202
00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:34,439
Speaker 1: It had a black cat inet a black Oh wow,

203
00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:37,160
Speaker 1: that's pretty weird. And as much as I dislike cats,

204
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:40,040
Speaker 1: I really hate the idea of somebody stuffing a cat

205
00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:43,160
Speaker 1: into a tube. Was the ket Okay? Yeah, well, well

206
00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:45,760
Speaker 1: the cat was fine. It was a little dazed according

207
00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:49,320
Speaker 1: to witnesses, but otherwise all right. And sadly though, this

208
00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:51,560
Speaker 1: was just the first of many animals to be shot

209
00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:55,280
Speaker 1: around New York City through a pressurized tube. So Kenneth Stewart.

210
00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:58,480
Speaker 1: He's the author of a Pneumatic Male Tubes and Operation

211
00:10:58,559 --> 00:11:01,640
Speaker 1: of Automatic Railroads. He says that plenty of other animals

212
00:11:01,679 --> 00:11:05,480
Speaker 1: made the journey to including dogs and mice and roosters,

213
00:11:05,600 --> 00:11:09,520
Speaker 1: guinea pigs, monkeys, even some goldfish. Yeah, and in one

214
00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:12,320
Speaker 1: of those cases it actually involved sending a sick cat

215
00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:14,559
Speaker 1: to the animal hospital, so it was a good use.

216
00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:17,600
Speaker 1: But the rest were mostly just examples of postal workers

217
00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:22,040
Speaker 1: showing off. I said, it's not this Postal Services proudest moment,

218
00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:25,160
Speaker 1: but but I actually don't get it. So animal cruelty aside.

219
00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:27,520
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like the tubes worked pretty well

220
00:11:27,559 --> 00:11:29,600
Speaker 1: in these sprawling city so so why don't we see

221
00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:32,679
Speaker 1: New Yorkers and others still using them? Yes, there's actually

222
00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:35,400
Speaker 1: a few reasons. One was that the mail volumes kept

223
00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:37,800
Speaker 1: increasing and it was simply too much for the tubes

224
00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:41,200
Speaker 1: to handle, especially considering the systems pipes were only between

225
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,200
Speaker 1: two and eight inches wide. Oh my god, that poor cat.

226
00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:47,080
Speaker 1: I can't about that. Yeah, But the main reason is

227
00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:49,240
Speaker 1: that most of the tube systems were built and owned

228
00:11:49,240 --> 00:11:52,000
Speaker 1: by private companies and and they merely rented to the

229
00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:55,240
Speaker 1: Post Office. So, uh, these rental costs just got too

230
00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:58,240
Speaker 1: high in the long term. And according to Kate Astor,

231
00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:01,840
Speaker 1: who's the author of the work Anatomy of a City, uh,

232
00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:05,840
Speaker 1: let me just find this quote. She wrote, by eighteen

233
00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:09,640
Speaker 1: the federal government considered the annual rental payments seventeen thousand

234
00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:13,040
Speaker 1: dollars per mile per annum made by the Post Office

235
00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:16,000
Speaker 1: to be exorbitant, and they endorsed a new alternative with

236
00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:20,680
Speaker 1: greater capacity, the automobile as the delivery method of choice. Yeah,

237
00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:22,160
Speaker 1: I mean, as sad as it is to see does

238
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:24,680
Speaker 1: go away, I guess it, it makes sense and I

239
00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:27,319
Speaker 1: can't deny that thematic tubes and mule trains they do

240
00:12:27,520 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 1: add this pop of color to the Postal Services history though, Yeah,

241
00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:33,200
Speaker 1: totally and in fact, well, why don't we get a

242
00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:35,880
Speaker 1: historian online and see what other weird stories are lurking

243
00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:44,320
Speaker 1: in the USPS archives? Sounds like a plan. So our

244
00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:47,280
Speaker 1: guest today has been with the Smithsonian Institution for over

245
00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:50,400
Speaker 1: three decades now, which Mango. I'm pretty sure that makes

246
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:53,320
Speaker 1: her super smart if I'm not mistaken so, but more

247
00:12:53,400 --> 00:12:56,599
Speaker 1: importantly for today's episode, she's been curating exhibits at the

248
00:12:56,679 --> 00:13:01,560
Speaker 1: National Postal Museum since it opened in nineteen. She's now

249
00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:04,360
Speaker 1: the head curator of the history department there. Nancy Pope,

250
00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:06,800
Speaker 1: welcome to Part time Genius. Thank you, it's good to

251
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:09,520
Speaker 1: be here. So, Nancy, we've had so much fun digging

252
00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:11,880
Speaker 1: into the history of the Postal Service, and we've talked

253
00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:14,600
Speaker 1: about all the things like, you know, delivery by mule

254
00:13:14,880 --> 00:13:18,320
Speaker 1: and pneumatic tubes and all kinds of stuff. But but

255
00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:21,040
Speaker 1: do you have a favorite delivery method that's actually no

256
00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:25,160
Speaker 1: longer being used. I have a favorite method that was

257
00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:32,559
Speaker 1: used once. What's that? It's missile mail. On June, the

258
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:38,040
Speaker 1: US Navy fired a Regulus one missile off the USS Barbaro,

259
00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:42,040
Speaker 1: which was floating out in the Atlantic, and they directed

260
00:13:42,040 --> 00:13:46,400
Speaker 1: it to land at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Mayport, Florida.

261
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:52,920
Speaker 1: And instead of having a nuclear weapon on board, they

262
00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:56,720
Speaker 1: had two blue and red metal containers that held three

263
00:13:56,760 --> 00:14:00,480
Speaker 1: thousand letters. Wow, So so why were they are doing this?

264
00:14:00,920 --> 00:14:05,360
Speaker 1: Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield was a man who really wanted

265
00:14:05,360 --> 00:14:09,400
Speaker 1: to modernize his post office, and he was doing anything

266
00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:12,000
Speaker 1: and everything he could do to kind of try that,

267
00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:15,360
Speaker 1: and he was trying a lot of silly things. He

268
00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:18,240
Speaker 1: thought about missile mail, and he talked to the War Department,

269
00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:22,280
Speaker 1: and they had their own little idea that they wanted

270
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:25,280
Speaker 1: to make sure the Russians knew that we were so

271
00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 1: good with our missiles that we could direct them to

272
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:31,960
Speaker 1: land anywhere we wanted, and they were so useful that

273
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:33,920
Speaker 1: we could use them too. I don't know carry mail.

274
00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:39,160
Speaker 1: The letter that Summerfield since and was one of the

275
00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:41,960
Speaker 1: three thousand letters they were actually all the same letters

276
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:46,080
Speaker 1: inside the missile. He says that this is just the beginning,

277
00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:50,880
Speaker 1: but um, he's smarter than that, and I think it

278
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,400
Speaker 1: was a pr stunt from beginning to end for both

279
00:14:54,400 --> 00:14:58,040
Speaker 1: the war and the post Office department. Actually, one of

280
00:14:58,080 --> 00:15:01,320
Speaker 1: the other examples I saw was the railway mail crane,

281
00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:03,640
Speaker 1: which doesn't seem that exciting at first, but can you

282
00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:07,160
Speaker 1: explain how that worked in terms of the trains passing

283
00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:10,440
Speaker 1: through towns pretty quickly. In the days of railway mail.

284
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:14,160
Speaker 1: Most of the times the trains would actually stop and

285
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,520
Speaker 1: exchange to the mail at a train station, but they

286
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:19,880
Speaker 1: couldn't stop at every single one, you know, most trains

287
00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:23,640
Speaker 1: were not milk runs, and so to exchange the mail

288
00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 1: at some of these towns, they had to figure out

289
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:28,920
Speaker 1: a way to get the mail bag off and a

290
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:32,160
Speaker 1: mail bag onto the train while the train was moving,

291
00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:36,680
Speaker 1: And they came up with these cranes, and the postmaster

292
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:39,360
Speaker 1: would go up and hook a mail bag, a leather

293
00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:42,680
Speaker 1: mail bag to this crane, so it was passing at

294
00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:47,040
Speaker 1: top and bottom stretched out so it was very tight.

295
00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:51,400
Speaker 1: And then the train would come along and the clerk

296
00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:54,280
Speaker 1: on the train would be looking out his door and

297
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:57,920
Speaker 1: he had a long iron crane that was attached to

298
00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:01,280
Speaker 1: the door, and he'd swing that out. And you could

299
00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:03,840
Speaker 1: never swing it out too early because then you knocked

300
00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:07,320
Speaker 1: the telephone poles down. But you had to watch out

301
00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 1: and be very very careful until you saw the cranes

302
00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:12,760
Speaker 1: and you slung your iron crane up and the crane

303
00:16:12,760 --> 00:16:16,240
Speaker 1: would actually grab the mail bag and you would pull

304
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,440
Speaker 1: the crane back in, and while you're doing this, you

305
00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:22,240
Speaker 1: would kick the mail bag full of mails for that

306
00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:27,040
Speaker 1: station off the train. So you do it all of

307
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 1: this at once, and you had to kick really hard

308
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:32,920
Speaker 1: because if you didn't, it got sucked under the train

309
00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:37,240
Speaker 1: and mail bag would explode letters everywhere. And they called

310
00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:42,440
Speaker 1: that a snowfall. Wow, that's pretty actually sounds like could

311
00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:44,400
Speaker 1: be pretty dangerous at the same time. But that that's

312
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:47,880
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. So I know the main vehicle used

313
00:16:47,880 --> 00:16:50,760
Speaker 1: by the postal service, this Grunman l LV or the

314
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,640
Speaker 1: Long Life Vehicle. I read somewhere recently that it gets

315
00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:57,120
Speaker 1: an average fuel economy of about ten miles a gallon.

316
00:16:57,320 --> 00:17:00,400
Speaker 1: If and if that's the case, what are your thoughts on,

317
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:03,640
Speaker 1: you know, why that vehicle was chosen and why we

318
00:17:03,640 --> 00:17:06,080
Speaker 1: haven't seen a move away from that vehicle given how

319
00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:09,480
Speaker 1: much fuel must be used in a given week. The

320
00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:13,399
Speaker 1: l l V was selected after a test run. What

321
00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:17,600
Speaker 1: happened was the Post Office Department UM was tired of

322
00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:20,800
Speaker 1: just buying their vehicles off the rocks. They said, we

323
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:23,959
Speaker 1: have very special needs. We're going to list our needs

324
00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:26,600
Speaker 1: and then we're going to stay build a vehicle to

325
00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:31,760
Speaker 1: those needs. They were put over, you know, horrible ditches.

326
00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:35,080
Speaker 1: They were put over cobblestones. They had to stop and start,

327
00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,119
Speaker 1: stop and start stops, all the things that are a

328
00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:41,000
Speaker 1: male vehicle has to do that our regular cars don't.

329
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 1: And the LLLV, the grummin l l V, won the test.

330
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:49,879
Speaker 1: And because they won that test, that's why they were selected.

331
00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:53,520
Speaker 1: And they were also selected because they could last twenty

332
00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:57,760
Speaker 1: five years. A bigger problem right now is twenty five

333
00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:02,679
Speaker 1: years has expired or most of that fleet, and the

334
00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 1: Post Office Department very much wants to get new cars,

335
00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:11,040
Speaker 1: and they have started bringing in new vehicles um bit

336
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:15,240
Speaker 1: by bit, but it's gonna be you know, millions of

337
00:18:15,280 --> 00:18:19,880
Speaker 1: dollars to replace the total LLV fleets it's left. So

338
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:23,280
Speaker 1: let's talk stamps for a second. Are there any historical

339
00:18:23,320 --> 00:18:26,200
Speaker 1: figures you feel are overdue for a recognition on the stamp.

340
00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:28,760
Speaker 1: I would think Arthur Summerhills should be on a stamp

341
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,600
Speaker 1: if he hasn't been yet. And that was the postmaster

342
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:35,560
Speaker 1: general who did the missile mail, just because he came

343
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:40,359
Speaker 1: up with the whole concept of modernizing the post office

344
00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:43,760
Speaker 1: department in the fifties, because it had been stuck in

345
00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:47,159
Speaker 1: the thirties with no money because of the depression in

346
00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:49,800
Speaker 1: the forties, with no money because of World War Two.

347
00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:53,879
Speaker 1: So by the fifties they were using thirty year old

348
00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:58,239
Speaker 1: trucks that were barely being held together by you know,

349
00:18:58,359 --> 00:19:03,359
Speaker 1: spit and glue. Uh, they're mechan there's systems of moving

350
00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:08,000
Speaker 1: the mail inside a post office were just antiquated. Everything

351
00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:11,679
Speaker 1: was old and i'm stupid and rotten and nothing was

352
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 1: working well. And he came in and basically convinced Congress

353
00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 1: to give him a lot of money to modernize things,

354
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,520
Speaker 1: and he kick started a whole lot of stuff in

355
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:26,760
Speaker 1: the post office department. Got automation going, computerized sorting systems,

356
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:30,040
Speaker 1: the zip code system, all of that would have never

357
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:33,200
Speaker 1: exists if it wasn't for Summerfield. So, yeah, get him

358
00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:37,320
Speaker 1: lot of stamp. Yeah, Well, we'll start the petition. Yeah, yeah, Well,

359
00:19:37,359 --> 00:19:39,680
Speaker 1: for all of our listeners that are visiting the Smithsonian

360
00:19:40,119 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 1: Museums anytime in the near future, we hope you'll check

361
00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:45,640
Speaker 1: out the National Postal Museum. It is a fascinating place

362
00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:47,760
Speaker 1: to visit. But Nancy, thanks so much for joining us

363
00:19:47,760 --> 00:20:05,000
Speaker 1: on part Time Genius. That was my pleasure. You're listening

364
00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 1: to part Time Genius, and we're talking about the fascinating

365
00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:10,760
Speaker 1: evolution of the US Postal Service. So well, we've mentioned

366
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:13,080
Speaker 1: a few times now that an increase in mail volume

367
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:15,040
Speaker 1: was the main reason for a bunch of the mail

368
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:17,959
Speaker 1: system's major changes, Like it's the reason we switched from

369
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:20,879
Speaker 1: horses to carriages and then from tubes to trucks. And

370
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:24,119
Speaker 1: it's also why the number of post offices bloon from

371
00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:28,119
Speaker 1: you know, just seventy five way back in sev over

372
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:31,800
Speaker 1: twenty eight thousand in eighteen sixty. And in fact, this

373
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,560
Speaker 1: ever increasing mail volume became the accepted status quo for

374
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:38,560
Speaker 1: over two hundred years, no matter what changes came in

375
00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:42,600
Speaker 1: the form of new transportation styles or competing communication systems

376
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:46,960
Speaker 1: like telegraphs or telephones or radios or TVs. Like the

377
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:49,639
Speaker 1: one truth for the postal service was that mail volume

378
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,520
Speaker 1: just continued to go up and up. But all of

379
00:20:52,560 --> 00:20:54,880
Speaker 1: that changed in two thousand seven, when for the first

380
00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:58,679
Speaker 1: time in history, mail started to decline. Yeah, and and

381
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,600
Speaker 1: that was the year that the effects of the Internet

382
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,000
Speaker 1: really started to catch up to them. And and ever

383
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:05,760
Speaker 1: since then, the net mail volume flowing through the system

384
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:08,840
Speaker 1: is decreased every single year. And it's a big problem

385
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:11,720
Speaker 1: for the agency, especially being a self funded agency, because

386
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,280
Speaker 1: any decrease in mail is a decrease in revenue exactly.

387
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 1: And at the same time, the public still expects to

388
00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: receive mail every day of the week at any address

389
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,639
Speaker 1: in the country. This has led to the postal Service

390
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,720
Speaker 1: having to increase its number of delivery points, which opposites

391
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 1: operating costs even as profits steadily shrink. It's it's you know,

392
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 1: it's not all gloom and doom, though I was. I

393
00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:35,680
Speaker 1: was reading this article on upworthy that proposed an interesting solution.

394
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:38,200
Speaker 1: You know. They were looking at their their financial woes

395
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 1: and trying to come up with things to do, and

396
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,720
Speaker 1: there's the idea for post offices to start offering financial services,

397
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:47,359
Speaker 1: things like check cashing and payday loans. It's roughly thirty

398
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:51,479
Speaker 1: five million American households rely on alternative financial services like

399
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: that instead of traditional banking, and since they currently have

400
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 1: to go through private institutions, you know, for these different

401
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 1: kinds of services, it can wind up cost way more

402
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: money than it should. In fact, according to a report

403
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,359
Speaker 1: released by the USPS, Americans spend the total of about

404
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:10,240
Speaker 1: eighty nine billion dollars on interest and fees from these

405
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 1: alternative financial services. This was from back in two thousand twelve,

406
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 1: which is crazy, right, it really is. But but see,

407
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 1: if post offices were allowed to compete in that market,

408
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: they could undercut the competition, save millions for Americans and

409
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:25,439
Speaker 1: secure this nice new revenue stream in the process. At

410
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 1: least that's the hope, and and it seems like a

411
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 1: win win and and not that far fetched the concept.

412
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:33,680
Speaker 1: I mean, post offices already offer some banking services like

413
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:36,960
Speaker 1: selling money orders and cashing treasury checks. Yeah, you know,

414
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:39,840
Speaker 1: really the main thing preventing this from happening, it would

415
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: be the banks themselves. They have an awful lot of

416
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:44,359
Speaker 1: clout and government and of course they don't like the

417
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:48,359
Speaker 1: idea of a public institution muscling into their territory. But

418
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:50,880
Speaker 1: who knows. I mean, if the situation continues to worsen

419
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: for the USPS, those voices of opposition might cease to

420
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 1: carry as much sway. Yeah, and the good news is

421
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: that history is on the postal services side, so it's

422
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,880
Speaker 1: faced some any dire challenges in the past, and it's

423
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 1: always smuddled through. I mean, if you need any evidence

424
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: of the resilience of the USPS, you just have to

425
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 1: look at zip codes. That's a good point. And there's

426
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 1: definitely an aspect of mail we take for granted. So

427
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: so actually I think we should spend a little time

428
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: talking about zip codes, sure, so we can give a

429
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 1: little background on it. For starters. Zip codes are a

430
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: much more recent innovation than you'd guess. Although they were

431
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 1: first developed as this time saving tool to help understaff

432
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 1: post offices, and this was during World War Two, they

433
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: weren't actually putting to use until twenty years later in ninete.

434
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: And this was a time before the Postal Service was

435
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,720
Speaker 1: self funding. It's still received the bulk of its funds

436
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: from Congress, but in the mid sixties Congress wasn't supplying

437
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: enough cash to keep up with the post war mail boom. Yeah,

438
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: and post offices wanted new sorting machines so they could

439
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 1: finally automate the process instead of continuing to wage this

440
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: really unwinnable war that was hand sorting at the time.

441
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 1: But Congress thought they were making a big deal out

442
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,480
Speaker 1: of nothing. I mean, after all, they had handled mail

443
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way for over a century at this point,

444
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: so as they saw, you know, why fix what isn't broken,

445
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: except it was broken. I mean. The proof finally came

446
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,360
Speaker 1: in October of nineteen sixty six, and that's the month

447
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 1: when a combination of election mailings and holiday season advertisements

448
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: they totally clogged the system. It was like a mail

449
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,639
Speaker 1: fat burg. And then the whole thing came to a

450
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,719
Speaker 1: staff like the Chicago Post Office, which was the largest

451
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 1: in the country at the time, halted mail delivery for

452
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: a full three weeks while they tried to make sense

453
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 1: of this volume and and all these letters and parcels

454
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: that needed to be sorted. I mean, the whole thing

455
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: led Congress back to the move to automation, And at

456
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: the center of it all was this old zip code idea,

457
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: which was finally taken off the shelf and put into action.

458
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: And with the new machinery and the advent of zip codes,

459
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: postal workers were able to sort up to thirty thousand

460
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 1: letters an hour, which was nearly ten times as many

461
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: as a single worker could sort by hand in the

462
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: same amount of time, which I find almost as baffling

463
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: that a single worker was previously able to sort three thousand.

464
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: I know, us unbelievable, but obviously this was a huge,

465
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 1: huge improvement. But I do think we should take a

466
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: second to explain the role ZIP codes played in that process, because,

467
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: you know, as often as we're exposed the ZIP codes,

468
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: I feel like most of us don't really know that

469
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 1: much about them, or that they're actually an acronym. ZIP

470
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: stands for Zoning Improvement Plan. Yeah, and and the name

471
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: really does say at all. So the numbers were part

472
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 1: of the plan to improve the way that mail was

473
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: sorted by address, and a ZIP code specified which region

474
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: or zone of the country to which a piece of

475
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: mail should be sent. And instead of hand sorting letters

476
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: by city address, which obviously took a good deal of

477
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: time in some cases and required, you know, knowledge of geography,

478
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: machines were able to electronically scan the short string of

479
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,640
Speaker 1: numbers and sort the mail using that coded information. Yeah,

480
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: and that's another thing that I think most of us

481
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: don't really understand is what exactly those five numbers means.

482
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: So I'll just explain that. So, the first digit represents

483
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: the region where the address is located. So for the

484
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: purposes of zip codes, the country split into ten zones.

485
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 1: You start on the East coast, and then you increase

486
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: that number as you move across to the west coast.

487
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: So you know, Maine and New York have zip codes

488
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: that start with zero and one, Maryland's a two, and

489
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: then you go all the way across the country. You

490
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 1: get to California and Washington and they begin with the

491
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 1: number nine. That's pretty awesome. And and I'm guessing the

492
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: other four digits specify the location of an address even

493
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: further Yep, they get even more specific, so that the

494
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: second two digits correspond to a smaller area of the

495
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: country and and the central postal facility that services that region,

496
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: and then the final two digits signify the actual local

497
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: post office that delivers to that given address. But to me,

498
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: the best part of it was that the USPS had

499
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: this advertising campaign they launched in the sixties to raise

500
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: awareness of the new system. Oh that's so, there was

501
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: this little jingle used to promote it or something like that. Yeah,

502
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: and that's underselling it a bit. So it was actually

503
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 1: this fifteen minute musical p s A performed by none

504
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 1: other than the Swinging Six Swinging I love that. It

505
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 1: was fifteen minutes. My god, I know. And and there's

506
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: no way to do this thing justice by talking about it.

507
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 1: You really need to YouTube it. But the short of

508
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: it is that the Postal Service financed this incredibly campy

509
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: video as a means of like selling the public on

510
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: the importance of ZIP codes and how it was going

511
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: to make everything speedier and more efficient. And they also

512
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 1: created this new cartoon mascot named Mr Zip and that

513
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,479
Speaker 1: really helped drive home the point as well. I remember

514
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: Mr Zip, that creepy little male man stick figured And

515
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: they kind of went all out with this campaign. I mean,

516
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: they really had no faith in the American public to

517
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: write these five extra digits to they apparently not. But

518
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: Mr Zip in the Swinging Six like, they really caught

519
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: on and and Mr Zip became something of a pop

520
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 1: culture icon in his own right. He appeared on magazines

521
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: and mail trucks and television and radio ads and even

522
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: on things like lunch boxes. But but of course, the

523
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: surest sign of mr Zip's success was that by seventy

524
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: which was really just seven years after the start of

525
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: the campaign, zip code use had risen to let me

526
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,640
Speaker 1: find these numbers eighty six percent nationwide, and by seventy

527
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 1: nine it had climbed to nine. I mean, those are

528
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: pretty solid results, and it does make you feel for

529
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: mr Zip a little bit. I mean, he seems that

530
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: played a pretty big role in all of this. Kind

531
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: of the uh I don't know, like the smokey bear

532
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 1: of the postal service, but you don't find him anywhere

533
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: these days. I know he's hanging out with Clippy for Microsoft,

534
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 1: but I feel like you're preaching to acquire here. You

535
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: know what's weird, though, is that the USPS actually did

536
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: try out one other mascot before mr Zip and it's

537
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: kind of a weird story. But before we get into it,

538
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: let's break for a quiz. Okay man goes So, when

539
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 1: we put out a call for listeners to let us

540
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: know if they wanted to come on and play a quiz,

541
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: one of them wrote in and it's actually a mail carrier,

542
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: which is perfect for today's episode. I know, it's so awesome, alright, so,

543
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: Sarah Hofferbert, welcome to Part Time Genius. Hi, thank you

544
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: so much, Sarah. Where are you you delivering mail today?

545
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,479
Speaker 1: I'm in Rochester, New York today? Okay, all right, I

546
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: assume that's where you deliver mail every day around the city,

547
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: different places yet, okay? And how long have you been

548
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: a and and his mail carrier? The correct term? What

549
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: is the official title? My my My job title is

550
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: that I'm a letter carrier, but mail carriers just just fine? Okay?

551
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: And how long have you been doing this? About four years? Okay?

552
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you for writing in. We're We're

553
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: glad you're a regular listener of Part Time Genius, and

554
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: so we are going to put you to the test. Mango.

555
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: What is our quiz called today? It's called going Postal

556
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: and it's a true false quiz. If you know everything

557
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: about the post office is history, it should be pretty easy, alright.

558
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: You know every single thing about the history of the

559
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: post office. There's nothing I don't know. All right, confidence,

560
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: here we go. We're gonna read you a statement and

561
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: all you need to do is tell us whether it's

562
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: true or false. You ready to go? Yes? Okay? Question

563
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: number one, the first post office in Colonial America was

564
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:04,719
Speaker 1: in a bar. That is true. Exactly, you're right. So

565
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: it was set up in sixteen thirty nine and operated

566
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: out of the Boston home in tavern of Richard Fairbanks,

567
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 1: where he liked to serve glasses of strong water. Excellent,

568
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 1: All right, she has one for one, okay, Sarah. Question

569
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: number two. In Luxembourg, the post office trained Saint Bernard's

570
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: to carry letters to homes, but the system only lasted

571
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: a month thanks to the city's squirrel population. That sounds

572
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: like something I would want to be true, But yeah,

573
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: you're right. I mean, it's not a totally crazy idea,

574
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: because Belgium did try delivering mail by cats for a

575
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: little bit that that was a total disaster. Okay, okay,

576
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: so far, Sarah, you're delivering this is great. Question number three.

577
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:49,719
Speaker 1: In Victorian London, mail was delivered twelve times a day.

578
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: That is also true. She's amazing at this. Yeah, mail

579
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: was treated more like instant messenger back then, when people

580
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: actually like sent immediate sponsors back and they get upset

581
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: if you didn't respond. Okay, alright, two left, She's three

582
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: for three so far. Question number four. When Harry Winston

583
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian in nineteen It

584
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: was actually sent via US mail. True or faults. I

585
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: want to say that's true. It is true. So they

586
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: sent it by first class mail for just two dollars

587
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: and forty four cents and the Smithsonian still has the packaging. Wow,

588
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: and how much was that worth? Three million dollars? Any

589
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: a little bit of insurance on that? That is incredible.

590
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: All right, we are four for four. Coming up with

591
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: the last question. Let's see if Sarah can score perfect.

592
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: Let's see all right, question number five. Ben Franklin was

593
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: so obsessed with yams as a tasty snack that in

594
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: the winter he insisted that every mail carrier received a warm,

595
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: grilled yam before servicing their route through or faults. That

596
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: would be delicious in the winter. But I want to

597
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: say that's false. That's amazing. You an incredible five for five. Yeah.

598
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: I wanted that one to be true so much. But mango.

599
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: But alright, so Sarah went an incredible five for five.

600
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: What does she want today? So? Uh, Sarah actually gets

601
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: an official part time genius Certificate of Genius, which we're

602
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: we're just making and she's gonna be the first recipient

603
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: all right, we will send that to you. Yeah, we

604
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: will send that to you and the male safe travels

605
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: on your route today. And thanks again for joining us,

606
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Alright, Mango, So you were

607
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: talking about this other postal mascot before the break, So,

608
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: so what's weird about it? Well, for for starters, the

609
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 1: mascot was a dog, which is a surprising choice for

610
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: postal workers given the history between the two. All Right, well,

611
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: I know you're usually the tangent person, but I feel

612
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: like I want to go on one here as well,

613
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: because I was actually kind of curious about the deal

614
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: with dogs and postal workers, so I was looking into

615
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: it a little bit, and and actually this psychology of

616
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: having their turf invaded and understanding why they always go

617
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 1: after the postal workers. So the situations made way worse

618
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: by the fact that the mail carriers keep coming day

619
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: in and day out, and and that's something I had

620
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: not really thought about before. So it reinforces the idea

621
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: that the dog needs to defend its territory. And you know,

622
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: because the carriers do eventually walk away from the home,

623
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: the dog feels rewarded and it's likely to repeat that

624
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 1: same behavior next time. It's basically the definition of a

625
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: vicious cycle, and a major emphasis on the vicious part

626
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: here because actually I was looking at the numbers. According

627
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: to the USPS, more than six thousand of its mail

628
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: carriers are attacked by dogs each man. That's terrible, and

629
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: I'm actually glad I get to talk about this mascot now.

630
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: It's it's a nice throwback to these days when dogs

631
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: and postal workers were actually friends. But uh, at least

632
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: that was the case with this particular dog named Ony

633
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: that was the actual dog. Is that this is a

634
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: real dog? Owny? Yeah, so only was a stray mutt

635
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 1: who started joining a mail clerk on his morning walk. Uh.

636
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: This was in Albany, New York, way back in and

637
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: this morning routine gradually led to any hanging out at

638
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: the office during the day, and he became friends with

639
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 1: other postal clerks, and he also developed this strange affinity

640
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: for the texture of mail bags, both the texture and

641
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: the smell. And once his clerk pal moved away, the

642
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 1: other mail clerks took him in and from there only

643
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: started following his beloved mail bags onto mail wagons and trains,

644
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 1: and he rode with the bags in the post office

645
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 1: train cars traveling all over the country and later all

646
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: over the world, and all these railroad workers were cool

647
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: with some random dog just traveling around with him. Yeah,

648
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: apparently they loved Onny. So train wrecks were really common

649
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: at the time, but no train ever crashed with one

650
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: on board. And he kind of became this good luck

651
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: charm for the railway mail clerks and this unofficial mascot

652
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: whose many travels were marked by people placing medals and

653
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: tags on his collar. That's really sweet. But so did

654
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:01,839
Speaker 1: you get to keep one of the mail bags when

655
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 1: he retired? No, so that this story actually has kind

656
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: of a sad ending. So Oney never made it to retirement.

657
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: In June, only boarded a mail train for Toledo, Ohio.

658
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: And while only was making his rounds and you know,

659
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:18,479
Speaker 1: greeting all these people in Toledo, one postal clerk showed

660
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: him do a newspaper reporter and the full details have

661
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: never been investigated, but supposedly only became ill tempered and

662
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,879
Speaker 1: he was shot on June. God MANO, that really took

663
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: a turn there, I know. But like I said, we

664
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: don't really know that full details, but we do know

665
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: that the mail clerks were totally devastated. They took up

666
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: this collection and used the money to have only preserved

667
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: and today visitors to the National Postal Museum in Washington,

668
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 1: d C. Can actually see one on display, still wearing

669
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:49,760
Speaker 1: his harness and some of his favorite tags. That's pretty neat. Well,

670
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: I guess that's about as happy of an inning as

671
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: you can get with a story like that. But honestly,

672
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear they put his remains in the

673
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 1: museum instead of just stuffing him in one of those

674
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: thematic twos we were talking about earlier. Yeah, I mean

675
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: only never traveled by two, but there are plenty of

676
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: animals who make trips by mail even today. You know.

677
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: I saw that, like, apparently live scorpions are totally fine

678
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: to mail, and you know, as long as they're to

679
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: be used for medical or anti venom research. I don't

680
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: know how you prove that, but that's those are the

681
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: reasons you can mail them, and they're clearly marked as

682
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: live scorpions. Also saw that baby alligators are mailable too,

683
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: as long as they're under twenty. This all feels totally

684
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: crazy to me, but but by the way, my my

685
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: favorite animal by mail story is the one about this

686
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: guy in Ohio who mailed his pet chameleon to Florida

687
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: so they could have a warmer place to live. He

688
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: was worried a little guy wouldn't make it through the

689
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: cold winter in Ohio, so he slipped the lizard into

690
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: this pre stamped envelope and mailed it off to the

691
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: Sunshine State. So did this Did the chameleon make it? Yeah?

692
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: The sender had requested that he'd be informed when his

693
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:54,439
Speaker 1: pet arrived, and sure enough, Orlando's postmaster obliged. He responded, Uh,

694
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: let me find this, Dear David. I received your chameleon

695
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:01,760
Speaker 1: yesterday and he was immediately released on the post office grounds.

696
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 1: Best wishes for a merry Christmas. That's an animal in

697
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: the mail story. Alright. You know, still as weird as

698
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: mailing around chameleons and alligators and scorpions as it's it's

699
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: nothing compared to mailing actual people, which I know we

700
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: both saw in our research has actually happened. I know

701
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 1: I was hoping this would come off. So there's such

702
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: a long successful history of people sending themselves and each

703
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: other through the mail, and as far as we know,

704
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: the first person to travel by mail was baby James Beagle.

705
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:32,919
Speaker 1: He was this eight month old boy whose parents mailed

706
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: him to his grandmother a few miles away. Eight months old,

707
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: I know a baby Graham. And this was just a

708
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: few weeks after the Postal Service began transporting larger parcels

709
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: rather than just letters or magazines, so it really didn't

710
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: take long for someone to try mailing a human. Apparently,

711
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: the main appeal was that postage was way cheaper than

712
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: a train ticket. Baby James's travel apparently only cost his

713
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: parents fifteen cents and stints, though to be fair they

714
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: did spring for fifty dollars and insured nice the parents

715
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 1: of the year right there. But you're right though, mailing

716
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: yourself is definitely an inexpensive way to travel. I was

717
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: reading about this professional javelin thrower from Australia's name was

718
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 1: Red Spears, and in nineteen sixty four he went up

719
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 1: stranded in England after failing to make the cut for

720
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: the English Olympic team. He was all set to return

721
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: home and then his wallet was stolen and so he

722
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: was left flat broken without any way back to Australia.

723
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: His solution, I'll seal himself in a small crate and

724
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: actually mail himself cash on delivery. So how long was

725
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: he in there? I think it was like a three

726
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: day trip and all. And this this includes this particularly

727
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,760
Speaker 1: toasty layover and Mumbai where you know, his limited provisions

728
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: and makeshift bathroom slash water bottle. I mean, these things

729
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 1: were stretched to their limits on this three day trip.

730
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: And in the end though, the plan worked and he

731
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: made it safely back to Australia. Of course, reporters quickly

732
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: caught wind of this embarrassing ordeal, but Spears even managed

733
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: to turn that to his advantage. The airline itself took

734
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: pity on him forgave his dad. He even went on

735
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: to co author a book about the experience. It was titled,

736
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: of course, out of the Box. That's pretty great. But

737
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: my favorite story of all time of someone shifting himself

738
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: in a box has to be Henry Box Brown, the

739
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: slave who mailed himself to freedom. Oh that's a good one. Yeah,

740
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: you should tell this story definitely. So in Eine Brown

741
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: escaped his master's property in Virginia and with the help

742
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: of some abolitionists, he mailed himself across state lines to

743
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: the free state of Pennsylvania. It cost him eighty six dollars,

744
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: which is a little more than today, and the trip

745
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 1: lasted a miserable twenty seven hours, but it actually went

746
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: off without a hitch. The next day, Brown was successfully

747
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: delivered to Freedom, and he went on to become a

748
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: well known entertainer and abolitionist speaker in his later life.

749
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: And that was all thanks to the U S. Mail System. Man, Well,

750
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 1: if that's not a ringing endorsement for the USPS, I'm

751
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: honestly not sure what is. Yeah, but what do you

752
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,439
Speaker 1: say we now honor one of our own sacred institutions

753
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 1: with a good old fashioned fact. Yeah, I'll start with

754
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: the story about how a stamp was used to do

755
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,920
Speaker 1: some serious trash talking and almost started a war. In

756
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, Nicaragua's postal service put out a stamp

757
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,240
Speaker 1: that featured a map of Nicaragua. The stamp also showed

758
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,919
Speaker 1: Honduras north of Nicaragua's border, but instead of just letting

759
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 1: it be, the stamp labeled the territory quote territory in dispute.

760
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 1: And this was despite the fact that the territory issues

761
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,959
Speaker 1: have been settled thirty years earlier. When the stamps first

762
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 1: started arriving with mail and Honduras people started rioting and

763
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: a mob showed up at the Nicaraguan embassy, and after

764
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: both countries sent troops to the border, the US and

765
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: Mexico actually had to interview in just to prevent the war.

766
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: All right, this is pretty different one. So ever, wonder

767
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: where the mail goes when it's the term that it

768
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 1: cannot be delivered and the postal service doesn't know where

769
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 1: to return it to. It's actually not far at all

770
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: from where we're sitting right now. This is to the

771
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: Mail Recovery Center here in Atlanta. So sadly it took

772
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 1: on this name in nine when its name was changed

773
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: from what had been the Dead Letter Office, which I

774
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: just love so much more. But the MRC then auctions

775
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 1: off these items of value, not not individually. They're actually

776
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 1: sold as these big groups of things. So there have

777
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: even been entire tractor trailers of books sold as an example.

778
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 1: That's kind of awesome. So I was looking at some

779
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: stats on junk mail. The amount of junk mail received

780
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: by all American households in the US each year is

781
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,359
Speaker 1: the equivalent of about hundred million trees, and junk mail

782
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: manufacturing creates the equivalent of three point seven million cars

783
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: in greenhouse gas emissions. Alright, So, hikers in Nevada and

784
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 1: Utah and other areas of these vast landscapes have been

785
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: puzzled by these huge concrete arrows on the ground. But

786
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: if you were to fly over these arrows, you'd actually

787
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,760
Speaker 1: see that they're part of this cross country path of arrows.

788
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: So in the nies, Congress approved the creation of a

789
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: nearly three thousand mile line of the seventy foot long

790
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: yellow concrete arrows, stretching from New York to San Francisco.

791
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: They're about ten miles apart, and the purpose was to

792
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:11,280
Speaker 1: give pilots of the time away to navigate safely across

793
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: the various thirteen stops from coast to coast, which is

794
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: actually awesome. So until the nineteen sixties, most college students

795
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 1: actually mailed their dirty clothes home to mom to wash,

796
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: and this was until washing machines became more common. It

797
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: was also expected that mom would send your clean underwear

798
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: back with a fresh batch of cookies. I'm kind of

799
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 1: hoping my mom's not listening to this, because because I

800
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:35,839
Speaker 1: still send my clothes home to mom, I don't want

801
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: her to know that most people don't do this anymore,

802
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: but I gotta admit it. That's a great fact. So

803
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to give you this fact off. Congratulations. Now,

804
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 1: if we missed any of your favorite postal service facts,

805
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 1: you can email us as always part Time Genius at

806
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com or call seven Fact hot

807
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:55,399
Speaker 1: Line one eight four four pt Genius. It is still

808
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: seven right, mengo. Okay, that's great. Well, thank you guys

809
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time

810
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't

811
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: be possible without several brilliant people who do the important

812
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: things we couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil does

813
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and

814
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the

815
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with support

816
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and

817
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the show to

818
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,

819
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: we hope you'll subscribe. And if you really really like

820
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review

821
00:43:43,560 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: for us. Do we do we forget Jason? Jason who