WEBVTT - Why don't we use Rockets to Send Mail Anymore? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.520 Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? All right? So I 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:04.320 was reading this story from a couple of years ago, 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:06.360 and it was about this three year old boy whose 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.239 dog Mo had passed away. So to help the boy 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:11.399 cope with most passing, the boy's mom would get him 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:13.840 to write these letters to MO, and then they addressed 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.919 them to Mo Westbrook, Doggie Heaven Cloud one. And each 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:19.880 time they put the letter in the mailbox, she'd sneak 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.479 back out and remove the letter. And one day she 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:25.080 forgets to do this, and she just assumed the postal 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.840 worker would get it and throw it away. But a 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.040 few weeks later they go out to the mailbox and 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:32.239 there was a letter with the return address on it 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.120 from MO. And the letter read, I'm in Doggie Heaven, 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.480 I play all day, I'm happy, thank you for being 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.160 my friend. I love you, Luke. That's pretty screat Yeah. 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.320 And and here's the thing. So anywhere I've lived, the 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.519 mail carrier has been one of the nicest people in 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.040 the neighborhood. I mean, we chat with ours any time 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.519 we see him. And they're not only so many more 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.600 good stories about heartwarming moments like this, but they're just 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.560 so many fascinating stories in the history of the US 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:14.280 Postal Service. So that's what we're diving into today. Yea, 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.560 hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.520 Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.880 friend Mangesh Ticketer and on the other side of the 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.520 soundproof glass the man who always delivers, Tristan McNeil. And 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.680 on today's show, we're shining the spotlight on one of 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.760 the great unsung heroes of our society, and that's the 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.520 US Postal Service. Of course, everybody is aware of the USPS, 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.080 but many of us tend to take its services for granted, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.840 and you know, not really think about the ridiculous amount 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.760 of planning and work that goes into processing and delivering 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.800 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 --> 0:01:59.360 the postal Service at all this when we need something 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.680 from it, when something's gone wrong, and we want to 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.560 blow off steam by griping about it. So today we're 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:06.640 trying to break that bad habit by sharing some of 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.840 the most interesting pieces of postal history, as well as 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.040 some of the craziest stories to ever make it out 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.600 of the mailbag, definitely, and to make sure we don't 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.240 miss any of the good stuff, we'll be talking to 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.000 the keeper of postal history or itself, Nancy Pope. Nancy 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.720 Post the top historian at the National Postal Museum. So 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:24.480 we'll talk to her about what it takes to be 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.880 a postal historian and find out what she considers to 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.160 be the most interesting pieces of postal office history. All right, 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.119 So I want to start with one of the things 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.320 that really stood out to me while doing our research, 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.680 and that's the immense scope of the Postal Services operations. 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.560 I mean, we're talking about the largest retail network in 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.280 the nation. So there were thirty one thousand active US 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.200 post offices and just to put that in perspective, that's 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.839 that's more than all the domestic McDonald's, Starbucks and Walmart's combined. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.280 And to staff all those locations and handle the deliveries 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.560 between them, the Postal Service employees over half a million 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.320 people and maintains a lead of two hundred and twenty 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.360 seven thousand vehicles. That's one of the largest civilian fleets 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.959 in the world. The US Postal Service is a gargantuan 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:12.840 NonStop delivery machine. Yeah, and the scope of what all 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.079 that manpower and tech can achieve is equally impressive. So 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.320 the USPS is actually responsible for the delivery of nearly 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:24.080 half the mail volume in the entire world. That's but 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.680 I think the most amazing thing about the whole crazy 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.880 operation is that for almost fifty years now, it's cost 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.440 taxpayers virtually nothing. There on a whole lot of government 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.760 departments or agencies you can say that about it is impressive. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.240 But I notice you said costs virtually nothing for taxpayers. 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.280 And I always wondered whether like things like the postage 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.800 sales and products and all their special services like express mail, 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.680 you know, covered those costs. So are you saying it 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.240 actually does receive some government funding though? Well, you're definitely 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.360 right that stamp sales and stuff like that pays for 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.440 the agency's operating costs, but they do receive less than 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.840 one percent of their budget from the govern mint. According 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.720 to PolitiFact, Congress gives the Postal Service a hundred million 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.080 dollars a year to compensate the agency for providing freemailing 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:11.040 privileges to blind people and overseas voters. Okay, well, that 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.120 that's pretty interesting, and it's actually a pretty good return 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.760 on on what I would say overall as a small 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.320 investment from each taxpayer. And and honestly that that's always 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.919 been the case with mail delivery in America, even before 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.120 the US became a country, before became country. So how 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.719 is that? Well, during the Second Continental Congress in seventeen 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.279 seventy five, this is a year before the colonies would 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.880 declare their independence from England, the delegates established this postal 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.560 system and and appointed Ben Franklin as the first Postmaster General. 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.600 And the great thing about that is that Franklin's appointment 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.600 was this act of rebellion in itself. Like he previously 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.080 served as the postmaster General and the colonies for the 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.039 British Royal Mail system, but he'd been dismissed because of 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.880 his involvement in the Revolution. So he was actually appointed 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.920 as the first postmaster General twice. It's a good thing 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.440 we rehired and from our side, because you know, Franklin 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.800 really helped establish the whole basis of the postal system 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.960 as we know it today. He surveyed thousands of miles 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.279 of post roads and made adjustments so that routes would 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.200 be more efficient. He also instituted the idea of having 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.360 postal riders traveled day and night. They'd use landers to 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.120 light the way for their horses, and all these changes 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.719 greatly improved the speed of the mail by some estimates, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.080 cutting delivery times in half. That's crazy. So I had 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.719 no idea that the postal riders were around the clock. 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.920 And I guess that mentality is the same one that 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.480 gives it, like the post office create about not a 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.080 snow nor rain. Yeah, there's the whole thing that people 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.200 always talk about that, you know that neither snow nor 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.320 rain or heat or gloom YadA, YadA, YadA. But actually 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.760 it's pretty interesting. There's no such thing as a postman's creed. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:45.840 I was looking at this and and and so people 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.279 always associate that phrase with the postal Service because it's 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.880 engraved on the outside of a famous post office in 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.719 New York, But there's really no official motto for the USPS. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.520 In fact, the phrase isn't even original to our own 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.320 postal system. It's actually a translation of the Greek historian 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.960 Herodotus and his description of the ancient Persian male courier. 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.400 So apparently they did all of this through neither heat 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.359 nor rain or whatever it was, and all that gloom. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.560 But yeah, I mean, I guess that's a bit of 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.080 a letdown, but it does feel strange that we expect 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.760 our electric bills to be delivered during blizzards. I think 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.280 they've actually done a pretty decent job of meeting these, 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.120 you know, admittedly high expectations. Because there's one other thing 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.160 that amazed me while doing the research, and that's just 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.760 how versatile an organization the USPS is. So it's grown 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.520 right along with the country for hundreds of years, and 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.360 it's had to evolve the fifth expanding needs of the public. Yeah, 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.159 so well, one of the first major transitions took place 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.880 back in eightee, when the USPS first started delivering mail 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.680 by train, and so prior to that most deliveries have 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.560 been made on horseback or by horse drawn wagon. And 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.279 when the mail volume increased, that's when things changed. But 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.600 the burgeoning railroad, with its hubs in major cities, that 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.040 all allowed the mail to be delivered up and down 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.200 the East coast, and the tech changes only increased from there. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.799 So like cars and trucks arrived on the mail scene 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:13.200 in and airplanes soon followed suit in nineteen eleven, I believe, yeah, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:14.920 and you know, you can still see that kind of 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.840 versatility today. According to the Postal Service, they use every 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.240 transportation method available to them while making their rounds. I 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.160 was looking at a list of the different ways they 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:29.960 deliver mail that include planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways, 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:35.760 float planes, hovercraft, mules, bicycles, and of course feat I 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.840 feel like I should be stunned by hovercrafts, but it's 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.040 really mules that's confusing to me. Yeah, it's still on 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.920 the list. There's actually one mail by mule route left 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.600 in the US, and it's this eight mile trail that 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.840 leads down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon where 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.320 the Havasupai tribe. They've lived there for over eight hundred years, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.760 and so six days a week the mule train carries 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.640 about four thousand pounds of male food supplies and even 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.480 for Richard down these steep walls of the canyon. I 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.160 was trying to look to see how long this took. 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.280 It takes about three hours for the team to get 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.240 down there, but it's a five hour trip coming back 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.120 up and it happened six days a week. That's so crazy, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.000 and it's amazing that the mail really does go everywhere. 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.640 But but you know, there's one delivery method that I'm 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:23.480 kind of bummed is missing from the current list. Pneumatic tubes. Right, So, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.559 before mail trucks took to the streets, the six major 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.480 cities I've got these written downs as at Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Brooklyn, 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.600 New York, and Chicago, they all made use of underground 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.880 networks of pressurized air tubes to deliver their mail. And 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.200 at the system's peak in nineteen the city's had a 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.760 combined total of over fifty six miles of pneumatic tubes, 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:49.160 all zigzagging beneath the surface. And while these tube systems 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.319 start popping up in the U S during the eighteen nineties, 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.680 it's actually been used in Europe for almost forty years 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.160 by that point. Apparently there were first put to use 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.079 in stock exchanges so that traders could communicate messages to 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.800 buy or sell stocks, and you know, a faster rate 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.920 than telegraph, and it makes sense as a way to 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.679 get messages across and the noumatic tubes or what the 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.400 banks use, and those are really fast. But you know, 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:13.960 we're talking about a hundred and twenty plus years ago, 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.200 so were they actually fast in the eight nineties. Yeah. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.360 The weird thing is they were pretty fast, Like the 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.280 male tubes in the U s could move a canister 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.360 holding up to six hundred letters an average speed of 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.760 thirty five miles per hour. Yeah. So as one example, 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.320 uh and their stories of postal workers who worked the 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.560 tubes that they were known as rocketeers. But these rocketeers 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.800 in downtown New York City actually ordered sandwiches from this 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.679 deli up in the Bronx and apparently they'd received their 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.599 orders via pneumatic tube within twenty minutes. I want to 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.320 order a sandwich by Nematic. That is pretty awesome, although 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.920 I'm guessing ordering lunch wasn't officially sanctioned for the use 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.240 of the tubes. But so, did you come across any 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.080 other weird stuff that was sent by these tubes? Definitely so. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.680 According to an article and written by Robert Cohen for 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.160 the USPS website, there was this bizar our opening ceremony 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.640 where the first tubes were installed at the General post 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.160 Office in New York City and the higher ups they're 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.520 basically wanted to show the employees what their new toy 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.000 could do. So the very first male canister to travel 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.800 the tubes. It contained a Bible, a flag, and a 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.960 copy of the Constitution, which is super patriotic. And the 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.960 second contained this imitation peach in honor of a Senator 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.480 Chauncey Deput. Apparently he was fondly known as the Peach. 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:30.680 Even more patriotic. And the third carrier is the weirdest. 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.439 It had a black cat inet a black Oh wow, 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.160 that's pretty weird. And as much as I dislike cats, 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.040 I really hate the idea of somebody stuffing a cat 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.160 into a tube. Was the ket Okay? Yeah, well, well 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.760 the cat was fine. It was a little dazed according 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.320 to witnesses, but otherwise all right. And sadly though, this 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.560 was just the first of many animals to be shot 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.280 around New York City through a pressurized tube. So Kenneth Stewart. 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.480 He's the author of a Pneumatic Male Tubes and Operation 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.640 of Automatic Railroads. He says that plenty of other animals 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.480 made the journey to including dogs and mice and roosters, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.520 guinea pigs, monkeys, even some goldfish. Yeah, and in one 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.320 of those cases it actually involved sending a sick cat 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.559 to the animal hospital, so it was a good use. 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.600 But the rest were mostly just examples of postal workers 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:22.040 showing off. I said, it's not this Postal Services proudest moment, 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.160 but but I actually don't get it. So animal cruelty aside. 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.520 I mean, it sounds like the tubes worked pretty well 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:29.600 in these sprawling city so so why don't we see 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.679 New Yorkers and others still using them? Yes, there's actually 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.400 a few reasons. One was that the mail volumes kept 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.800 increasing and it was simply too much for the tubes 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.200 to handle, especially considering the systems pipes were only between 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.200 two and eight inches wide. Oh my god, that poor cat. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.080 I can't about that. Yeah, But the main reason is 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.240 that most of the tube systems were built and owned 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.000 by private companies and and they merely rented to the 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.240 Post Office. So, uh, these rental costs just got too 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.240 high in the long term. And according to Kate Astor, 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.840 who's the author of the work Anatomy of a City, uh, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.840 let me just find this quote. She wrote, by eighteen 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.640 the federal government considered the annual rental payments seventeen thousand 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.040 dollars per mile per annum made by the Post Office 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.000 to be exorbitant, and they endorsed a new alternative with 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.680 greater capacity, the automobile as the delivery method of choice. Yeah, 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.160 I mean, as sad as it is to see does 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.680 go away, I guess it, it makes sense and I 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.319 can't deny that thematic tubes and mule trains they do 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.120 add this pop of color to the Postal Services history though, Yeah, 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.200 totally and in fact, well, why don't we get a 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.880 historian online and see what other weird stories are lurking 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:44.320 in the USPS archives? Sounds like a plan. So our 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.280 guest today has been with the Smithsonian Institution for over 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.400 three decades now, which Mango. I'm pretty sure that makes 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.320 her super smart if I'm not mistaken so, but more 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.599 importantly for today's episode, she's been curating exhibits at the 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.560 National Postal Museum since it opened in nineteen. She's now 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.360 the head curator of the history department there. Nancy Pope, 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.800 welcome to Part time Genius. Thank you, it's good to 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.520 be here. So, Nancy, we've had so much fun digging 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:11.880 into the history of the Postal Service, and we've talked 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.600 about all the things like, you know, delivery by mule 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.320 and pneumatic tubes and all kinds of stuff. But but 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.040 do you have a favorite delivery method that's actually no 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.160 longer being used. I have a favorite method that was 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:32.559 used once. What's that? It's missile mail. On June, the 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:38.040 US Navy fired a Regulus one missile off the USS Barbaro, 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.040 which was floating out in the Atlantic, and they directed 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.400 it to land at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Mayport, Florida. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:52.920 And instead of having a nuclear weapon on board, they 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.720 had two blue and red metal containers that held three 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.480 thousand letters. Wow, So so why were they are doing this? 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:05.360 Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield was a man who really wanted 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:09.400 to modernize his post office, and he was doing anything 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.000 and everything he could do to kind of try that, 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.360 and he was trying a lot of silly things. He 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.240 thought about missile mail, and he talked to the War Department, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.280 and they had their own little idea that they wanted 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.280 to make sure the Russians knew that we were so 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.320 good with our missiles that we could direct them to 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.960 land anywhere we wanted, and they were so useful that 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:33.920 we could use them too. I don't know carry mail. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.160 The letter that Summerfield since and was one of the 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.960 three thousand letters they were actually all the same letters 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:46.080 inside the missile. He says that this is just the beginning, 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.880 but um, he's smarter than that, and I think it 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.400 was a pr stunt from beginning to end for both 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:58.040 the war and the post Office department. Actually, one of 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.320 the other examples I saw was the railway mail crane, 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.640 which doesn't seem that exciting at first, but can you 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:07.160 explain how that worked in terms of the trains passing 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.440 through towns pretty quickly. In the days of railway mail. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.160 Most of the times the trains would actually stop and 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.520 exchange to the mail at a train station, but they 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.880 couldn't stop at every single one, you know, most trains 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.640 were not milk runs, and so to exchange the mail 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.280 at some of these towns, they had to figure out 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.920 a way to get the mail bag off and a 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.160 mail bag onto the train while the train was moving, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.680 And they came up with these cranes, and the postmaster 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.360 would go up and hook a mail bag, a leather 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.680 mail bag to this crane, so it was passing at 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:47.040 top and bottom stretched out so it was very tight. 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.400 And then the train would come along and the clerk 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.280 on the train would be looking out his door and 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.920 he had a long iron crane that was attached to 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.280 the door, and he'd swing that out. And you could 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.840 never swing it out too early because then you knocked 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.320 the telephone poles down. But you had to watch out 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.920 and be very very careful until you saw the cranes 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.760 and you slung your iron crane up and the crane 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.240 would actually grab the mail bag and you would pull 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.440 the crane back in, and while you're doing this, you 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.240 would kick the mail bag full of mails for that 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:27.040 station off the train. So you do it all of 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.680 this at once, and you had to kick really hard 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.920 because if you didn't, it got sucked under the train 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.240 and mail bag would explode letters everywhere. And they called 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:42.440 that a snowfall. Wow, that's pretty actually sounds like could 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.400 be pretty dangerous at the same time. But that that's 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.880 that's very interesting. So I know the main vehicle used 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.760 by the postal service, this Grunman l LV or the 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.640 Long Life Vehicle. I read somewhere recently that it gets 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.120 an average fuel economy of about ten miles a gallon. 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.400 If and if that's the case, what are your thoughts on, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.640 you know, why that vehicle was chosen and why we 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.080 haven't seen a move away from that vehicle given how 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.480 much fuel must be used in a given week. The 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.399 l l V was selected after a test run. What 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.600 happened was the Post Office Department UM was tired of 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.800 just buying their vehicles off the rocks. They said, we 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.959 have very special needs. We're going to list our needs 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.600 and then we're going to stay build a vehicle to 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:31.760 those needs. They were put over, you know, horrible ditches. 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.080 They were put over cobblestones. They had to stop and start, 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.119 stop and start stops, all the things that are a 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.000 male vehicle has to do that our regular cars don't. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.080 And the LLLV, the grummin l l V, won the test. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.879 And because they won that test, that's why they were selected. 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.520 And they were also selected because they could last twenty 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.760 five years. A bigger problem right now is twenty five 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:02.679 years has expired or most of that fleet, and the 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.760 Post Office Department very much wants to get new cars, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:11.040 and they have started bringing in new vehicles um bit 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:15.240 by bit, but it's gonna be you know, millions of 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:19.880 dollars to replace the total LLV fleets it's left. So 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.280 let's talk stamps for a second. Are there any historical 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.200 figures you feel are overdue for a recognition on the stamp. 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.760 I would think Arthur Summerhills should be on a stamp 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.600 if he hasn't been yet. And that was the postmaster 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.560 general who did the missile mail, just because he came 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:40.359 up with the whole concept of modernizing the post office 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.760 department in the fifties, because it had been stuck in 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.159 the thirties with no money because of the depression in 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.800 the forties, with no money because of World War Two. 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.879 So by the fifties they were using thirty year old 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.239 trucks that were barely being held together by you know, 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:03.359 spit and glue. Uh, they're mechan there's systems of moving 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:08.000 the mail inside a post office were just antiquated. Everything 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.679 was old and i'm stupid and rotten and nothing was 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.840 working well. And he came in and basically convinced Congress 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.600 to give him a lot of money to modernize things, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.520 and he kick started a whole lot of stuff in 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:26.760 the post office department. Got automation going, computerized sorting systems, 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.040 the zip code system, all of that would have never 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.200 exists if it wasn't for Summerfield. So, yeah, get him 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.320 lot of stamp. Yeah, Well, we'll start the petition. Yeah, yeah, Well, 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.680 for all of our listeners that are visiting the Smithsonian 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.720 Museums anytime in the near future, we hope you'll check 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.640 out the National Postal Museum. It is a fascinating place 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:47.760 to visit. But Nancy, thanks so much for joining us 0:19:47.760 --> 0:20:05.000 on part Time Genius. That was my pleasure. You're listening 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.480 to part Time Genius, and we're talking about the fascinating 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.760 evolution of the US Postal Service. So well, we've mentioned 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.080 a few times now that an increase in mail volume 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.040 was the main reason for a bunch of the mail 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.959 system's major changes, Like it's the reason we switched from 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.879 horses to carriages and then from tubes to trucks. And 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.119 it's also why the number of post offices bloon from 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:28.119 you know, just seventy five way back in sev over 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.800 twenty eight thousand in eighteen sixty. And in fact, this 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.560 ever increasing mail volume became the accepted status quo for 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.560 over two hundred years, no matter what changes came in 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.600 the form of new transportation styles or competing communication systems 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.960 like telegraphs or telephones or radios or TVs. Like the 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.639 one truth for the postal service was that mail volume 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.520 just continued to go up and up. But all of 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:54.880 that changed in two thousand seven, when for the first 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.679 time in history, mail started to decline. Yeah, and and 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:00.600 that was the year that the effects of the Internet 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.000 really started to catch up to them. And and ever 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.760 since then, the net mail volume flowing through the system 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.840 is decreased every single year. And it's a big problem 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.720 for the agency, especially being a self funded agency, because 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.280 any decrease in mail is a decrease in revenue exactly. 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:17.840 And at the same time, the public still expects to 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.200 receive mail every day of the week at any address 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.639 in the country. This has led to the postal Service 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.720 having to increase its number of delivery points, which opposites 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.800 operating costs even as profits steadily shrink. It's it's you know, 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:32.560 it's not all gloom and doom, though I was. I 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.680 was reading this article on upworthy that proposed an interesting solution. 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.200 You know. They were looking at their their financial woes 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.000 and trying to come up with things to do, and 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.720 there's the idea for post offices to start offering financial services, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.359 things like check cashing and payday loans. It's roughly thirty 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.479 five million American households rely on alternative financial services like 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.000 that instead of traditional banking, and since they currently have 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:57.760 to go through private institutions, you know, for these different 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.720