While mail service has certainly gotten poorer since I was a kid when mail came through our door's mail slot twice a day, as a country we are way ahead of where we were before 1890. 65% of Americans lived in rural areas where if you wanted your mail you rode to town to get it.
But the day came when mail came to almost everyone. On October 1, 1896, rural free delivery (RFD) service began in Charles Town, Halltown, and Uvilla in West Virginia. Within a year, 44 routes were operating in 29 states.
It must have been an incredible feeling of being connected to the world! Rural Free Delivery, championed by John Wanamaker, who served as Postmaster General from 1889 to 1893, embodied a service to the people who deserved as much as the city dwellers enjoyed, and also as a boon to business men (like Wanamaker himself) who saw the 41 million people as an under-tapped market.
Mail order made the seed business thrive. I have been collecting images of company letterheads.
First is some fun stuff, then the older, more sedate examples.
Rice has the coolest stationary I have bumped into!! This is 1895.
Twelve years later! It would make my day to get this in the mail!!
I feel snoopy when I read old letters. It feels oddly exciting...time traveling.
Never occurred to me anyone had to buy a horse chestnut!
Color! But this is a nice reminder of why word processors are a good idea...or even ball point pens.
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