National Postal Museum

Remembering the Titanic

By Daniel Piazza, Philately Department

This year’s anniversary of Titanic’s sinking is a pretty low-key affair. Last year was the centenary, and there were hundreds of commemorations all over the world that garnered a lot of media attention. Everyone is interested in a hundredth anniversary, but a hundred-and-first somehow does not seem as important.

A crowd will gather at the Washington, D.C. Titanic memorial, as they do every year, but it will be a fraction of the three to four hundred who showed up last year at midnight.

If you don’t want to venture to the Southeast waterfront, you can instead come to the National Postal Museum and see original sketches of the memorial by its sculptor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, on loan to us from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

 

Loan from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Even if you have viewed Fire & Ice before, a number of new pieces were installed in January that make it worth a second look. The National Archives in New York has loaned us a manual of ship’s regulations that once belonged to Titanic survivor and White Star Line managing director J. Bruce Ismay. Published in 1907, the book was standard issue on all ships belonging to the International Mercantile Marine Co., including Titanic. We have opened it to the page dealing with “Custody of the Mails.”

 

 

Loan from National Archives and Records Administration (New York)

One of the most famous radio transmissions of all time is memorialized on this Marconi company form from Olympic’s radio room. At 1:13 a.m., one hour and forty minutes after striking an iceberg, Titanic tells Olympic, “We are putting the passengers off in small boats.” This was one of the last intelligible messages sent by Titanic. “N.Y.T.” stands for “New York Time,” which Second Officer Charles Lightoller reckoned was 1 hour and 33 minutes behind Titanic’s time.

 

On loan from Dr. Edward and Joanne Dauer.

Chicago physician Frank Blackmarr, a passenger aboard Carpathia when that ship received Titanic’s distress signals, assisted the ship’s surgeon treating survivors. He collected numerous relics of the disaster, including the autographs and addresses of Titanic’s four surviving officers. The autographs, from top to bottom, are: Fourth Officer James Graves Boxhall; Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller; and Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe. Third Officer Herbert John Pitman signed on a separate sheet (not shown).

 

 

Loan from Brian, Maria, and Alexander Green

So, even though the “big anniversary” is behind us, a visit to Fire & Ice at the National Postal Museum is a new opportunity to learn about the disaster and reflect on the enormity of Titanic’s loss.    

 

Singing a Postal Song

By Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator

You might know the lyrics to “Please, Please Mr. Postman,” or “Return to Sender,” but how about “My Parcel Post Man” or “The Old Postmaster?” Folks have been writing songs about their mail, and what it brings (or doesn’t) for more than 100 years. Over the years the museum has compiled a listing of more than 300 mail-themed American songs. The earliest we found was “Mail Line Packet,” copyrighted in 1857 by P.P. Werlein & Company. Between then and now, hundreds of songwriters have weaved musical tales of love letters and sad letters, and a wide world of postal dramas.

Postal workers have inspired more than a few songs. A Boston, Massachusetts music teacher named John G. Murdock wrote “The Letter Carrier’s Grand March” in 1874. Letter carriers received another music tribute when a prolific musician and teacher, Harry J. Lincoln of Philadelphia, wrote “The Letter Carriers March and Two Step” in 1926. The museum has a copy of Lincoln’s sheet music for this piece in its collection.

The year 1881 must have been a hard one for older Americans. Two songs were published that year urging more letter writing. A.W. Filson’s “Write the Old Folks at Home” and the slightly more pleading “Write to the Sad Old Folks at Home” by Robert Hornung and Theodor Wolfram.

The Post Office Department’s brand new free rural delivery system inspired M.C. Bales to write the “Rural Mail Route Waltz” in 1902, the year that Rural Free Delivery became an official service. And a couple of decades after America’s flying mail service began Jimmy Mundy and Benny Goodman set America swinging to their “Air Mail Special”

But aside from a song here or there touting the postal system or its employees, the bulk of America’s postal songs have focused on what was most important to the people – the mail itself. Songs of gratitude for good news delivered by mail are side by side to ballads of despair for the letter that wasn’t written. Max Sturm’s mournful 1886 song “Letter That Never Came” expressed sorrow at not receiving a letter from a loved one. Sorrow that would find itself put into song again a half a century later in Frankie Brown’s “No Letter Today.”

From joy to sorrow, from wondering if a letter will ever come, or wondering what it will say when it gets there, musical mail songs have been created using a wide range of musical styles. From marches to ragtime, swing to pop, songwriters have used the innate drama of the pause before opening a letter, or the wait for the carrier’s footsteps outside the door to see if someone was thinking of you as the backdrop for stories of mail’s role in our lives.

“Good Mister Mailman” by Joseph E. Howard, 1898

 

“The Old Postmaster” by Joseph W. Stern, 1900

Delivering the Hope Diamond

By Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator

On November 8, 1958, an employee of Harry Winston’s New York City jewelry store mailed an ordinary looking package at the mail city post office. The package was anything but ordinary. It held one of the most famous gems in America, the Hope Diamond. The employee paid $145.29 to mail the package. Postage accounted for only $2.44 of the total cost. The rest was for insurance totaling $1 million. This valuable gem traveled safe and sound to the museum through the US mail.

In Washington, the package was delivered by local letter carrier James G. Todd. He picked it up at the Washington, D.C. city post office, which today houses the National Postal Museum. It was a short trip to the Natural History Museum from here. There, Leonard Carmichael, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, brought Todd into the Gem Hall where reporters and cameras watched as Todd plucked the valuable package from his mail satchel and presented it to Secretary Carmichael.

Of course, much of the intrigue of the Hope Diamond comes from its alleged curse. At the donation ceremony Mrs. Winston scoffed at the idea of a curse, noting that her family had held the gem without any ill effects.  Carrier Todd had cause to question just how powerful the curse was. Within a single year after delivering the stone to the Smithsonian, Todd suffered a crushed leg and head wound in two separate automobile accidents, his wife died of a heart attack, his dog strangled on his leash, and Todd’s Seat Pleasant, Maryland, home was partially destroyed by fire.

When reached by a Washington Post reporter who asked if he attributed his misfortune to having delivered the Hope Diamond, Todd replied, “I don’t believe any of that stuff.” He went on to say that it was all in one’s attitude. Referring to the fire he said: “Perhaps I’m actually having good luck. Thank God all four children were outside instead of in those rooms.” Todd added a thought. “If the hex is supposed to affect the owners, then the public should be having the bad luck.”


As visitors to the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum know, the Hope Diamond is still on display at that museum today. And while that museum got to keep the diamond, the National Postal Museum is home to the unique package wrapper (above) used to bring it to the Smithsonian.


Smithsonian Institution Archives, Image ID: SIA2010-0338
From left to right: Ronald Winston, son of jeweler Harry Winston, Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, Secretary Carmichael, letter carrier James G. Todd, Harry’s wife Edna, and Secretary Carmichael at the National Museum of Natural History.

 

Marilyn Travels to New Orleans: The Stamp art of Michael Deas

By Patricia Raynor, Loan Coordinator, National Postal Museum

Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate in the 1955 movie “The Seven Year Itch” is one of the iconic poses of American cinematic history.  It was also the subject of an illustration that artist Michael J. Deas proposed for the Marilyn Monroe stamp souvenir sheet selvage(1)  that was to become part of the 1995 Legends of Hollywood series.

Marilyn Monroe proposed illustration for souvenir sheet selvage.

 

Marilyn Monroe approved stamp art used for 1995 postage stamp (not in Ogden exhibition).

While it wasn’t chosen for the actual Monroe stamp or for the souvenir sheet, that illustration is one of six works of stamp art being loaned by the National Postal Museum to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art at the University of New Orleans (www.ogdenmuseum.org) for an exhibit celebrating the art of Deas, a New Orleans-based illustrator and stamp artist.   The exhibit runs from October 6, 2012 to January 7, 2013.

The other five artworks loaned are the approved stamp art of James Dean, Tennessee Williams, Katherine Anne Porter, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis.

    
William Clark and Meriwether Lewis approved stamp art used for the 2004 commemorative postage stamps.

   
The artist told me that this is his first one man show.  It’s also the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s first loan from a Smithsonian Museum since it became an affiliate in 2001.  So exciting firsts all around!

The stamp art’s journey to the Ogden Museum is unusual.  The illustrations are part of the Postmaster General’s Collection, on long-term loan to the National Postal Museum from the U.S. Postal Service.   As the custodian of the collection, NPM has the mandate to make it available to the public.  With this loan to the Ogden Museum, we are expanding the audience of this significant collection.

(1) The border of paper around a sheet or pane of stamps. It used to be that it was ‘the unprinted marginal paper on a sheet or pane of stamps’, but these days, there is often wording or design included in the selvage.

Note:  All stamp art images are courtesy of the United States Postal Service, Postmaster General’s Collection.

For more information about the Postmaster General’s Collection: http://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2012/07/the-postmaster-general-collection.html

For more information about Michael Deas:
http://www.beyondtheperf.com/biography/michael-j-deas

Bon Voyage Owney

By Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator

Owney, the postal dog already famous for his travels across the United States set out on August 19, 1895 for a trip around the world. Owney left from the Tacoma, Washington port, sailing for China and Japan and through the Suez Canal before sailing back to New York City. He left New York by train and returned to Tacoma on December 29.* Unfortunately, any tags that may have been given to Owney on the international legs of that journey have not survived. The museum does have several tags that show the dog’s connection with the Tacoma area (including several from Seattle, but since Tacoma’s boosters sent Owney on his trip to draw attention to their town, not their larger neighbor; I’ll focus on the Tacoma area tags here).

    
In preparation for his around the world trip, some citizens from Pullyup, Washington (just to the south-east of Tacoma, and on the railway line Owney traveled), gave him this tag with their names on it. Those wishing Owney good luck with this tag were Mrs. R. H. Coffman, Glen C. Elvins, F.T.C. Myers, W.F. Adams, C.A. McLaughlin, Frank McAlpin, Herman Klaber, Thomas McNeff, and Charles Hood of nearby Puyallup, Washington. The tag is dated August 14, 1895.

    
Tacoma’s hotels made Owney feel at home from time to time. These tags come from Tacoma’s Hotel Fife a five-story hotel, built in 1888, and located on the northwest corner of 9th and Pacific. William H. Fife, the hotel’s owner, was born in Ontario, Canada. He was an important figure in the early days of Tacoma, building the first general store and acting as the city’s first postmaster (1874-1882) and became one of the city’s most prosperous citizens. The Fife was torn down in 1925.


After Owney returned to Tacoma from his world-wide journey, the city’s Poultry Association gave him a tag celebrating their upcoming meeting. Given Owney’s demonstrated fondness for chasing chickens, it is hard to imagine he would have behaved himself at a poultry show. Just two years earlier Owney had rewarded a California clerk’s hospitality by chasing the family’s chickens. By the time the clerk responded to the wild cackling and squawking in his yard, Owney was found with the “finest and largest fowl of the yard” in his mouth.


*Read more about Owney’s around the world trip here.

Doonesbury’s Cinderella Story: Protest Stamps and Comic Timing

Ashley Bowen-Murphy, curatorial intern and American Studies doctoral student

In May 1990, former (temporary) postal service employee Zonker Harris bemoaned an upcoming postage rate increase.  Zonker knew that, even after the five-cent rate increase, “US postal rates would still be among the lowest in the world” [1]. Still, he felt frustrated and “fed up” with the postal service’s rate hikes.

Unlike other frustrated United States Postal Service (USPS) customers, though, Zonker had a ready platform to protest this rate hike.  As a fictional character in Garry Trudeau’s long-running comic strip Doonesbury, Zonker commanded the attention of hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers every day.

Where other comic strips may have used the rate hike for an in-strip gag, Doonesbury asked readers to take the gag to the USPS itself!  The May 20, 1990 strip included two designs in a sheet of nine “negative 5-cent” imaginary stamps.  They are adorned with an image of Zonker and the words “Mad as Heck” or “Ticked Off.” Zonker encouraged readers to cut out and glue or tape the fantasy stamps to their mail in lieu of legal postage as a form of protest. These cinderella stamps are “attractive, convenient, and probably illegal,” Zonker noted.

The postal service was not amused.  A USPS spokesman told reporters that these Doonesbury stamps were “definitely illegal.”  In fact, users risked a fine of $300! [2]

The Doonesbury protest stamps are a kind of “cinderella” stamp: an item that looks like, but is not, an official postage stamp. These imaginary issues never had postal validity but were created as souvenirs. The content of cinderella stamps ranges from political protest to mere decoration. Perhaps the most well-known cinderellas are the Christmas and Easters seals sold to raise money for a variety of charities (below). Although the postal service does place restrictions on what can and cannot be affixed to envelopes, it is legal to put a variety of non-postage labels, decorations, or other items on a piece of mail—provided that legal postage is also present.

 

This 1945 patriotic cover includes an official, legal airmail stamp on the top right and a cinderella stamp issued by the private aid organization Bataan Relief of Illinois.

Easter seals of the U.S.A., 1930s and 1940s.
Image via the Creative Commons.

Readers followed Zonker’s instructions and did use the stamps on their mail.  The postal service detected the Doonesbury stamps during normal processing procedures.  In 1990, postage stamps had phosphor-treated surfaces, known as tagging, that allowed processing machines to place mail in the right position and feed it through a cancelation machine. The Postal Service found the Doonesbury protest issues when the sorting machines failed to detect any phosphorus and kicked them out for hand canceling [3]. While the USPS caught many of the protest stamps, a few did make it through to their recipients.

Though the stakes were a bit lower in 1990, Zonker’s plea to Doonesbury readers is one of many examples of American newspapermen using the newspaper to protest taxes in the form of stamps. For example, in 1765, The Boston Gazette caricatured the Stamp Act’s proposed stamps with a skull and crossbones and the words, "This is the place to affix the STAMP.” With this phrase, The Gazette’s editors taunted loathed Stamp Act, a 1765 law imposed by the British government that taxed paper. The Stamp Act proved so unpopular that the British repealed it in 1766.

There is no information on exactly how many Doonesbury readers attempted to use the protest stamps to mail a letter.  Likewise, there is no evidence that the protest stamps had an impact on the USPS rate hike. However, it is worth noting that in 1991 the cost of postage went up just four cents—not the planned five—to 29 cents for first class mail.

References:
1 Trudeau, Gary. Doonesbury 1990 May 20.
2 Van Natta Jr., Don. “‘Doonesbury’ Protest Stamps Fool Machines.” Knight-Ridder Newspapers [Wire Service] 30 May 1990. Google News.
3 Healey, Barth. “Pastimes: Stamps.” New York Times 8 July 1990.

Remembering Author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

Source: Associated Press/New York Times

Yesterday, June 5, 2012, pulitzer prize winning science fiction and fantasy author Ray Bradbury passed away. In honor of this important figure in the history of American literature, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum has published a mini-online exhibit: Ray Bradbury: The Man, His Life & His Work

Read Today's News About Ray Bradbury: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post

Celebrating Girl Scouts through Postage Stamps

by Melody Parker, National Postal Museum intern

Girl Scouting is a significant part of women’s history. More than 59 million American women participated in scouting during their childhood, including many prominent figures in fields ranging from acting to politics. No wonder that Girl Scouting is represented on commemorative postage stamps from around the world. 

This summer’s Celebrate Scouting stamp issue, coinciding with the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the first American Girl Scout Troop in 1912, “pays tribute to scouting organizations for the opportunities and pleasures they have provided millions of youths worldwide,” according to Beyond the Perf. 

[At right: Celebrate Scouting, to be issued by the USPS on June 9, 2012. © United States Postal Service, All Rights Reserved.]

On March 12, 1912, Juliette Gordon Low (featured on a 1948 stamp) organized 18 girls in her hometown of Savannah, GA, into what was initially known as a Girl Guide troop, reflecting Low’s inspiration by British scouting movement founder Robert Baden-Powell. Ever since, with a mission to “build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place,” the Girl Scouts of the United States of America has helped girls grow through enriching experiences including outdoor and community projects. The recognition of the organization on a stamp indicates American respect for and acceptance of scouting’s contribution to the nation.

For their 50th anniversary, the American Girl Scouts were issued their first commemorative stamp at the July 1962 Girl Scout Roundup in Button Bay, Vermont. Since the worldwide female scouting movement began in 1909, 25 other countries had previously pictured Girl Guides or Girl Scouts on stamps.

Postmaster General J. Edward Day announced the stamp issue, which would depict a senior Girl Scout in uniform in front of the red and white stripes of the American flag, at the March 12, 1962, 50th anniversary luncheon of the Girl Scouts. The stamp would “serve to re-awake and re-inforce…an appreciation of the great service American Girl Scouts have given to their community, their country, and the world,” said Postmaster General Day.

About 9,000 senior Girl Scouts from all over the country attended July’s Button Bay Roundup to celebrate the anniversary. At the dedication ceremony of the Girl Scout stamp on July 24, Judicial Officer of the Post Office Department Reva Beck Bosone (the highest ranking female in that office) addressed attending Girl Scouts as a “select group of womanhood” with an “unselfish devotion to an organization which has at its purpose the building of girls into good citizens.” “You are facing a world that is different from any that a new generation has faced before,” Bosone said, reminding the Girl Scouts of the exciting future that they faced as 1960s women. “The Space Age and all the scientific development…accompanied by elements of world devastation constitutes a challenge of huge proportions. Women, the mothers of men, must participate in this challenge.”

Bosone closed her speech noting that the commemorative stamp would serve as “an artistic daily reminder to millions of Americans both young and old of a great organization dedicated to living high ideals.”

Gloria Negri described the celebration as a “humdinger” in a follow-up article on the Button Bay Roundup in the Boston Globe titled “Girl Scouts Light 51 Candles—1 to Grow on—at Button Bay.” During the ceremony, a giant letter with the commemorative stamp issue adorned the stage, as well as a massive fake cake on which the scouts lit electric candles to honor Juliette Gordon Low and her 12 original scouts. The Girl Scouts sent letters with the stamp to the governors of all 50 states.

Mixed Opinions: Though many Girl Scouts and Americans alike were appreciative of the commemoration of the Girl Scouts with a stamp, as reflected in letters to the Post Office Department and the Postmaster General, the public’s response to the stamp was mixed. Curious individuals wondered why the stamp wasn’t printed in green, the Girl Scouts’ color, and why it didn’t highlight recognizable symbols of the scouts like the golden Trefoil. Others called the design and color choice “cheap” and “garish,” and a few went so far as to call upon the P.O. Department to reissue the stamp with a new design or color scheme, including one postal employee who wrote that the stamp could be confused with airmail issue stamps.

A handful of irritated postal customers were concerned that the stamp’s image and red color would beget communist associations. “It’s a pity, that such a beautiful stamp looks like a Russian stamp with a 'Komsomolec' (Communist Youth Organization) girl dressed in their red and white uniform,” Mecys M. Petrus wrote. “Isn’t it possible to direct those who design these stamps to emphasize U.S.A. with the good, clear, and strong colors despite whatever the stamps commemorate?” asked T. Marie Saline in September, 1962.

In response, the Post Office Department stated that there wasn’t enough time to produce the stamp in multicolor in order for it to be issued at the July Girl Scout Roundup. Because the stripes of the American flag predominated the background of the design, printing the stamp in red on white paper was the only “logical color choice,” the P.O. Department replied.

Though there was to be no reissue of the stamp, the Girl Scouts (as well as other youth organizations) have since been honored with a myriad of stamps. For the American organization’s 75th anniversary, a stamp was issued featuring 14 Girl Scout badges on a green background of the same color as the sash on which they’re worn.

Prior to the 1962 Girl Scout stamp, founder Juliette Gordon Low had been featured on a stamp of her own (more information on the Juliette Gordon Low approved die proof). Known as “Daisy” to friends and family, Low was remembered as a charming, enthusiastic, and vivacious woman. She had previously founded Girl Guide troops in Scotland and London before bringing the concept to the United States. During World War I, membership in the scouts expanded dramatically. Low became an international leader and central figure of the American scouting movement; in 1915 she became president of the Girl Scouts of America, and was dedicated to her troops with constant enthusiasm until the end of her life.

Many Smithsonian programs, exhibits, self-guides, and other activities are planned for the Girl Scouts Rock the Mall. Check out other blog posts, the calendar of events, and more here.  

Click here for more resources on women featured on stamps, female involvement in postal history and philately. And don't miss our Women's History in Postage Stamps collecting activity at Girl Scouts Rock the Mall 2012. 

Fantasy Philately: Collecting Stamps from Tatooine and Alderaan?

A stamp marked “Magyar Posta” is from Hungary. “Deutsche Post” is from Germany. But stamps purporting to be from Tatooine or Alderaan, fictional planets from the Star Wars saga, are pure fantasy. That didn’t stop London-based graphic artist Stefan van Zoggel from creating postage stamps from the high tech world of droids and the Millennium Falcon. He even designed a fictional postmark featuring R2-D2 as postmaster general.

Stamp images © Stefan van Zoggel, from website of Stefan van Zoggel. 

The US Postal Service has issues its own Star Wars stamps, though they probably don’t pay for enough postage to be used on interplanetary mail. 

 

The 30th Anniversary of the Premiere of "Star Wars" stamps © US Postal Service

The recent Star Wars stamps aren’t the first to indulge in fantasy philately. Bogus stamps may bear names of imaginary postal authorities or services and these have been used to trick collectors for a long time. There are some bogus versions of Confederate postage stamps, especially postmaster provisionals. It took the Confederate States of America five months to issue official postage and, in the meantime, southern postmasters printed provisional stamps to act as temporary substitutes. Perhaps the stamps’ homemade look makes them popular to fake.

 

Two New Orleans stamps created by the postmaster for temporary use until the Confederate States of America issued official postage.

“Cinderella” stamps are so called because, just like the fairy-tale character who was not invited to the ball, Cinderella stamps are normally left out of the stamp catalog. What they lack in postal validity they make up in the fun of fantasy. There has been a Cinderella Stamp Club in London, England, for over 40 years. Collectors have amassed a large gallery of Cinderella stamp images on Flickr with the tagline “it looks like postage, but it’s not.” 

 

On this envelope, a Cinderella stamp honors humanitarian relief efforts for Bataan War Prisoners.

Philatelist Allan Lee was passionate about collecting maps on postage stamps. He traveled to 110 countries and compiled a collection of 26 volumes. He owned every map stamp he knew of, except for three very obscure ones. Not limiting himself to only regular, federally issued stamps, he included some fantasy stamps in his collection. Of the fantasy Star Wars stamps, the Mon Calamari issue represents a map-like view of the planet, which was attacked twice by the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars, and may have tempted a “maps on stamps” collector like Lee.  

 

Two examples of Allan’s Lee’s “maps on stamps” collection. See more here.

What fictional world do you think should get its own postage stamps next? Stamps inspired by "Lord of the Rings" for the sending of postcards between Minas Tirith and Pelennor Fields? Narnia? And how about postal service between the Twelve Colonies of "Battlestar Galactica?" And who would you appoint postmaster general? Let us know in the comments! 

The 10 Best Postal Movies

By Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator

Stepping out of any professional postal museum curatorial role, I have compiled an only moderately arbitrary and completely personal list of the films I would call the 10 best movies with postal themes. Have you noticed how many films have postal themes in them? You will now!

#10    Overland Mail (1942)
Technically not a movie, but instead a 15-chapter serial, “Overland Mail” told the story of stagecoach company men sent to investigate a series of robberies. The cast includes Lon Chaney Jr. (Jim Lane) and Noah Beery Jr. (Sierra Pete) as the investigators and Helen Parrish as the daughter of the company’s manager. The chapters range from the first, “A Race with Disaster,” to the happy ending of chapter 15, “The Mail Goes Through.” The agents discover that it was not Indians attacking the stages, but white men dressed as Indians, trying to disrupt the mail line. The serial also featured father and son actors Noah Beery and Noah Beery, Jr.

#9    Diva (1981)
This French film stars Wilhelmenia Fernandez as a Paris mail carrier. He lives an eclectic life and is devoted to opera. He secretly tapes an American diva at a concert. His tape is confused with one that ties a police chief to criminals. While the main character is a mail carrier, the postal system is not important to the film.

#8    Air Mail (1932)
Ralph Bellamy plays the owner and operator of an airmail operation. The film looks at the high risk careers of the nation’s early airmail pilots. The film also features Pat O’Brien in the roll of a young and boastful airmail pilot – a depiction that played to many Americans’ thoughts about these wild young (and possibly crazy) men.

#7    The Aviator (1985)
Not to be confused with the more recent film about Howard Hughes, this film stars Christopher Reeve as an early US airmail pilot. He is flying as a contract pilot along CAM-5 (Contract Air Mail route #5) between Elko, Nevada, and Pasco, Washington. Although regulations and Reeve are only interested in carrying the mail, a rich man insists on his daughter (Rosanna Arquette) being carried as a passenger. Of course the pair fight, and are endangered when the plane crashes in a mountainous region. The pair survives the crash (and wolves) with a hint of a romantic future in the end.

#6    Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Cary Grant plays a brave airmail pilot operating in South America, flying mail over the Andes mountains. Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth make life more interesting (and challenging) for our pilots while they are on the ground. In a nod to real life, the plot revolves around the need for the company to secure a government mail contract in order to survive. In the United States, it was the airmail contracts of the late 1920s and early 1930s that allowed commercial aviation to grow and flourish.

#5    Dear God (1996)
Greg Kinnear plays con man Tom Turner in this late 20th century film. After his latest arrest the court sentences him to getting a real job Tom ends up working at the local post office’s Dead Letter Office where undeliverable mail ends up. He mistakenly sends money to someone who had addressed a letter plea “to God.” The accidental good deed inspires his co-workers, and finally even the con man himself. Before long the workers are doing all they can to answer the “Dear God” letters, helping people and of course, finding the good in themselves.

#4    Il Postino, i.e., The Postman (1994)
This amusing Italian film shares the story of an exiled poet who is befriended by a man who is hired as a letter carrier to deliver all the new extra mail following the poet to his new tiny island home. The poet becomes the young postman’s guide to expressing himself, and of course, helps him woo a young woman.

#3    Appointment with Danger (1951)
One of the few films featuring a US postal inspector hero, “Appointment with Danger” features Alan Ladd as inspector Al Goddard. When a fellow inspector is killed, he has to find and protect the witness, a nun played by Phyllis Calvert. Ladd also infiltrates the criminal gang responsible by pretending to be on the take. One of the amusing side notes of this film is the appearance of Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, later famous as the no-nonsense detectives in “Dragnet” as part of the criminal gang.

#2    Charade (1963)
If you haven’t seen this film, then you probably don’t know why it’s on this list. And the last thing I’m going to do is spoil that for you. So let’s just say that any movie that has Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in it is worth watching, regardless. And if there’s a connection to mail or the post, so much the better!

#1    Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
This quintessential Christmas movie is also a quintessential postal film. The film’s most dramatic point is when Kris Kringle is on trial and under pressure to admit that there is no such thing as Santa. But Santa’s cause is saved by the appearance of workers bearing sack after sack of letters addressed to Santa. His young lawyer argues that “every one of these letters is addressed to Santa Claus. The Post Office has delivered them. Therefore the Post Office Department, a branch of the Federal Government, recognizes this man Kris Kringle to be the one and only Santa Claus.” Faced with such overwhelming evidence, the judge has no choice but to admit that “since the United States Government declares this man to be Santa Claus, this court will not dispute it.”

Although not the topic of this blog, I could not end this blog without mentioning the worst postal movie of all time. It has to be Kevin Costner’s “The Postman.” In which an acclaimed science fiction novel is turned into a mush of a film.