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Inside a Railway Post Office, pre-1912
Railway mail clerks sort mail in a traveling Railway Post Office. Railway mail clerks had one of the toughest jobs in the Post Office Department, sorting mail on swaying and lurching trains from 1864 to 1977. Although electric lighting was installed in some cars beginning in the 1890s, oil lamps continued to be used for decades. Coal and wood stoves were also sometimes used, posing another hazard. Many clerks survived crashes and derailments only to die in fires that engulfed the cars afterward from overturned stoves.
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Inside a Railway Post Office
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Crane and catcher arm, ca. 1910s
Shown is a side view of Railway Post Office No. 71 on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska, with its catcher arm grabbing a pouch of mail “on the fly” from a crane and a pouch of mail for local delivery being tossed out for pick-up by a local mail messenger or postal employee. Exchanging mail at small towns without stopping speeded delivery to those communities without disrupting mail schedules between major terminals.
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Crane and catcher arm, ca. 1910s
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Railway mail clerk, 1913
A railway mail clerk in Washington, D.C., poses with a catcher arm in February 1913. This scene was pictured in the three-cent Parcel Post stamp issued later that year. Clerks used the swiveling steel rods to catch mailbags “on the fly” while trains were in motion. Pushing down on the handle, which this clerk grips in his left hand, extended the catcher arm outward to hook a pouch of mail hung on a trackside crane by a local mail messenger or postal employee. Serving some stations without stopping speeded up delivery times. Clerks exchanged mail “on the fly” for more than 100 years, from the 1860s to 1971.
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Railway mail clerk, 1913
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Loading mail, ca. 1915
Employees transfer bags of mail from a truck into Railway Post Office No. 1012 of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which connected New York City and Buffalo by way of northeastern Pennsylvania and Geneva, New York. All-steel Railway Post Office cars like the one pictured here were used as early as 1905 on some lines and grew more numerous following the Steel Car Act of 1912. The Post Office Department first issued safety specifications to railroad companies for car construction in 1891, following a particularly deadly train wreck at Kipton, Ohio, which claimed the lives of six clerks.
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Loading mail, ca. 1915
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Railway mail clerk, 1916
This railway mail clerk leaning on the catcher arm of a Kansas City Southern Railway Post Office was photographed by Lewis W. Hine in Springfield, Missouri, in August 1916. At the time, Hine was working for the National Child Labor Committee. One of the most influential American photographers, Hine was honored in 2002 with a 37-cent stamp, part of the Masters of American Photography issue.
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Railway mail clerk, 1916
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Burglar-proof rail cars, 1921
A steel container is hoisted onto a rail car in Chicago in 1921. In May 1921, the Post Office Department began testing burglar-proof container cars for mail transportation between Chicago and New York; the container cars were put into regular service in 1922. Developed by the New York Central System, the cars consisted of steel “safes” that were lifted onto and off of the cars by crane and were locked in place, providing greater security to the mail. These cars could be emptied of cargo in about 20 minutes, roughly one-fifth the time needed to empty a regular car.
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Burglar-proof rail cars, 1921
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Railway mail clerks, ca. 1929
From the 1870s to the 1950s, railroads were the primary mode of mail transportation in the United States. To speed delivery, clerks rode in the cars, sorting mail en route. In 1921, due to a rash of train robberies following World War I, Postmaster General Will H. Hays armed railway mail clerks, ordering them to shoot to kill to protect the mail. In 1921 and again in 1926, U.S. Marines were also assigned to guard mail trains.
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Railway mail clerks, ca. 1929
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Target practice, ca. 1929
By most accounts, Railway Mail Service clerks had the toughest job in the Post Office Department. Trains derailed because of open switches, livestock on the tracks, on-coming trains, broken rails, and washouts, to name a few things. With their predictable schedules, trains were also targeted by armed robbers. A spike in robberies following World War I prompted the Postmaster General to arm railway mail clerks in 1921. By the early 1930s, .45 caliber revolvers, visible in this photograph, had been replaced with smaller .38 caliber “pea-shooters.”
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Target practice, ca. 1929
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Mail waiting to be loaded, ca. 1930s
Bags and parcels wait to be loaded into storage mail cars at the Birmingham, Alabama, Terminal. The improvement of interstate highways and an increase in automobile ownership, along with the growth of the commercial airline industry, led to a decrease in passenger train service in the 1950s and 1960s. With fewer trains running, mail transportation gradually shifted from railroad to highway and skyway.
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Mail waiting to be loaded, ca. 1930s
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Railway mail clerk, ca. 1940s
An African-American railway mail clerk rests at the Jacksonville, Florida, station in the doorway of Southern Railway’s Railway Post Office No. 61, which was assigned to the Atlanta, Valdosta, and Jacksonville route. African Americans served as railway mail clerks as early as 1869. In 1913, African-American railway mail clerks formed their own union, the National Alliance of Postal Employees. Now called the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees and open to all federal employees, the union still works to improve its members’ lives and working conditions.
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Railway mail clerk, ca. 1940s
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Railway Post Office, 1940
In Carson City, Nevada, men load mail into Railway Post Office No. 13 of the Virginia & Truckee Railway, which carried mail between Reno and Minden, Nevada, until 1950. Through the early 20th century Railway Post Offices were a dangerous place to be on a train – they were of relatively lightweight construction and were located near the front of the train, behind the much-heavier locomotive. Casualties in the railway mail service were high: between 1885 and 1908, 180 clerks were killed and 1,598 were seriously injured. This photograph was taken by Photographer Arthur Rothstein during the 5 years he spent documenting rural America for the U.S. Farm Security Administration.
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Railway Post Office, 1940
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Loading mail, 1940
Men load mail into the storage section of a 30-foot Railway Post Office car at a station along the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in northern Florida in June 1940. This photograph was taken by Photographer Marion Post Wolcott during the 3 ½ years she spent documenting rural America for the U.S. Farm Security Administration.
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Loading mail, 1940
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Inside a Railway Post Office, 1945
Clerks sort mail inside a Railway Post Office (RPO). Railway mail clerks “dressed” RPOs before each run by hanging sacks on the iron racks and then labeling them with the destination Post Offices along a particular run. Letter sorting machines, which began appearing in postal facilities in the 1960s, gradually reduced the need for manual sorting of mail, including en route in RPOs. The last RPO route, between New York City and Washington, D.C., was discontinued in 1977.
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Inside a Railway Post Office, 1945
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Loading mail, ca. 1950s
A transfer clerk checks the label on a mailbag at Union Station in Washington, D.C., before it is loaded into a Pennsylvania Railroad Railway Post Office. In the 1950s and 1960s, improved highways, affordable automobiles, and the growing airline industry contributed to a decline in passenger train service. Fewer available trains, along with modern letter sorting machines that rendered much hand-sorting of mail obsolete, spelled the end of an era. On July 1, 1977, at 4:05 a.m., the last Railway Post Office ground to a halt at Union Station in Washington, D.C., after a 5-hour journey from New York City.
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Loading mail, ca. 1950s
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Railway mail clerks, ca. 1960s
Clerks sort mail in the cramped interior of a Railway Post Office (RPO). RPO interiors typically ranged from 15 to 60 feet long and were about 9 feet wide. Tight-knit crews of up to 20 men worked in the larger cars, racing the clock to sort mail in time for dispatch to the stations en route. “Working the mail” consisted of sorting letters into “pigeon hole” distribution cases and tossing mail accurately into labeled pouches, correctly routed to as many as 5,000 destinations. Whenever one man finished his work he often pitched in to help another. Clerks had to memorize complex distribution schemes and studied and practiced continuously in order to pass regularly-scheduled examinations.
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