First, I suppose, come letters; then adventure.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
| Trains, planes, and coaches | |
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The British Postal Museum & Archive has a history of the Travelling Post Office (drawing, page 3). There's also an organization of TPO fans whose web site contains many photos of mail train cars and other equipment that's still in existence (though no longer used), as well as an extensive list of links to other sites with information on the Travelling Post Office and other ways of carrying the mail. |
| Trucks, ships, and sleds | |
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A search for "mail" at the Alaska Digital Archives (photo, page 7) brings up dozens of vintage photos, including mail being delivered by sleds, wagons and carriages (drawn by horses and dogs), ships and planes, plus post offices both inside and out. |
| Those little one-sided letters with the picture on the back | |
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Here's handy links to the web sites Tammy Odell mentions in her letter about postcards on page 16:
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| Letters from the midst | |
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There are many books of letters written during the U.S. Civil War, of which Private Norton's Army Letters, 1861-1865 (The World of Letters, page 22) is one. Another, rather unique book is Sarah Rosetta Wakeman's An Uncommon Soldier - Ms. Wakeman was one of many young women who disguised themselves as men in order to join the armies; hers are the only collected letters known to exist. There are also many web sites devoted to collections of Civil War letters; a small sampling includes those of Newton Scott; John Damron, who complains "I had concluded that I could not write to you any more until I had received a letter from home. . . All of you write, or you may consider this my last"; a collection at the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia Library; a collection of more than 200 scanned letters (many including scans of the envelopes they were sent in); scanned letters from the Christie family at the Minnesota Historical Society; transcribed letters in the archives of the Vermont Historical Society; letters at the online Civil War Archive; a discussion aimed at children on the National Park Service site that includes scans, transcriptions, and details about writing and sending letters in wartime conditions; and many others - a Google search for "civil war letters" results in over 22 million hits. There is also an excellent list of dozens of sites containing letters, diaries, and other personal written material from and about the Civil War on the site "A Passion for Letter Writing". |
| Clicking on most of the books on this page will take you to Powell's, the world's largest independent bookstore. You can also use the search engine to the left. Any purchase you make by following one of these links will help support LEX – not just these items but any book or DVD in their inventory. | |
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