Ladies Delivery Windows

Ladies delivery windows — special counters reserved for women picking up their mail — operated in some U.S. Post Offices from at least the 1830s through the early 1900s.

During the nineteenth century, many Americans believed that women were fragile creatures, needing protection from interaction with the rougher elements of society. Prior to the establishment of home delivery of mail, customers had to pick up their mail at the Post Office. In small towns, Post Offices were often in the homes or stores of trusted neighbors, but in large cities, visiting the Post Office required venturing into city streets and encountering men who were strangers. According to historian Richard John, women visiting urban Post Offices entered into an environment that was “a bastion of white male solidarity and an adjunct to the racially and sexually stratified world of politics and commerce.”(1)

In an attempt to prevent “timid females” from encountering “detention, rudeness and a thousand vexations” while picking up their mail, Post Offices in some cities had a special ladies delivery window dedicated to their use.(2) Other businesses also created separate areas for women. Some steamboats, railroad cars and libraries maintained segregated spaces, while special parlors for women and families were common in urban hotels. 

The Post Office building designs of Ammi Burnham Young, the first Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department (1852–1862), called for separate men’s and women’s windows and sometimes gender-segregated waiting areas and entrances.(3) In several cities, there was even a separate window designated for men picking up letters for women. 

Ladies Delivery Window, New York City, 1871
The ladies delivery window in the New York City Post Office was pictured in the October 1871 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine.
Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum

Mobile, Alabama, Post Office Building Plan Detail, 1852 
This detail of the building plan for the Mobile, Alabama, Post Office, designed by Ammi Burnham Young in 1852, shows a separate area for ladies picking up letters. 
From Architectural Drawings for Government Buildings (U.S. Treasury Department, Office of the Supervising Architect), in Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Post Office Building Plan Detail, 1860
This detail of the building plan for the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Post Office, designed by Ammi Burnham Young in 1860, shows a separate window for ladies picking up letters, as well as a separate window for gentlemen picking up ladies' letters. 
From Architectural Drawings for Government Buildings (U.S. Treasury Department, Office of the Supervising Architect), in Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

Anthony Trollope, the popular novelist and influential British postal official, disapproved of the degree to which the sexes were segregated in the U.S. In 1863, he wrote “I confess that in the States I have sometimes been driven to think that chivalry has been carried too far….There are ladies’ doors at hotels and ladies’ drawing-rooms, ladies’ sides on the ferry boats, ladies’ windows at the post office for the delivery of letters.”(4) Trollope felt that ladies delivery windows, in particular, were 

an atrocious institution, as anybody may learn who will look at the advertisements called personal in some of the New York papers. Why should not young ladies have their letters sent to their houses, instead of getting them at a private window? The post-office clerks can tell stories about those ladies’ windows.(5)

Ladies delivery windows were established at Post Offices in more than 75 cities coast to coast (see "List of Known Post Offices with a Ladies Delivery Window" beginning on page 4). In 1888, Postmaster George Paul of Milwaukee claimed that “most cities of over 100,000 inhabitants” had special windows for women.(6) Even Post Offices in some smaller towns such as Tombstone, Arizona, and Perth Amboy, New Jersey, with less than 10,000 inhabitants, maintained ladies windows.
 
Women were able to have mail addressed to them in care of the ladies window, allowing them to shield their addresses from correspondents. In 1867, an article in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine noted that some American women even enjoyed 

the privilege, if she chooses to exercise it, of her own private box or pigeon-hole at the post office of the town where she resides, where she can have her letters addressed, and whither by a “Ladies’ Entrance” where no profane male can intrude, she can resort when she pleases and unlock her box from the outside, and take away her letters without observation.(7)

In 1871, a writer for Harper’s Magazine found “people of every nationality” in line at the ladies window at the New York City Post Office and felt that “the appearance of the sex dressed in gay colors and wreathed in smiles lightens up the otherwise care-worn, pell-mell, rushing, and sombre-looking crowd.”(8)

Other New Yorkers feared that trips to the Post Office could provide an opportunity for women to encounter unsavory company. In 1869, author Junius Browne claimed that New York’s Post Offices were “the favorites of intriguers of both sexes, and are frequently made rendezvous for interdicted communication and illicit pleasures.”(9) The next year, another New York author alleged that madams preyed upon young women at the Post Office, attempting to lure them into prostitution.(10) 

Newspaper writers, meanwhile, condemned the ladies delivery window for allowing women to carry on courtships away from the scrutiny of their parents; a New Orleans journalist stated that it “affords opportunities for modern Juliets to carry on clandestine correspondence.”(11) A newspaper account reprinted across the country claimed that a New York Postmaster decried the ladies delivery window as “that satanic ladies window,” upset that he could withhold letters from those underage but “all the women who are of age can keep on misusing the government’s service and there is no lawful way to stop them.”(12) 

In 1887, Rose Elizabeth Cleveland was said to have written to her brother, President Grover Cleveland, and to Postmaster General William Vilas, complaining that ladies delivery windows had become “an agency of demoralization,” charging that they were used to circumvent parental authority and encourage improper relationships.(13) 

In San Francisco, the press was more positive. An article in Hutchings California Magazine observed that the polite conventions of society were being maintained at the San Francisco Post Office in 1858: 

Further on, too, at the end of the building, and apart from the rest, is the ladies’ window; and here stand a row of ladies and gentlemen, waiting as patiently as at the others, the gentlemen, who form part of the line, do so to obtain letters for their wife, or sister or perhaps sweetheart, or other lady friend; and if they are there first, they invariably give precedence to the ladies no matter how many may come, or how long they may be thus detained.(14)

In 1869, the San Francisco Post Office was again commended for providing a ladies delivery window where “women are shielded and will be protected.”(15) 

In some Post Offices the ladies windows were staffed by female postal clerks. In 1858, it was reported that the Postmaster of New York City “placed on duty a lady, to attend the window at the ladies’ delivery.” The reporter continued “this is a good move and will meet with the hearty approbation of our citizens.”(16) In 1865, Chicago’s ladies delivery window was staffed by women to “stop the flirting with the clerks.”(17) It was not stated if this was to increase employee productivity or safeguard female propriety. 

As free mail delivery was introduced in cities, the delivery of letters at gender-segregated Post Office windows gradually ended.(18) Residents of cities having free mail delivery were discouraged from calling at the Post Office for their mail. Section 342 of the 1879 Postal Laws and Regulations stated

mail-matter directed neither to a box-holder nor to a street and number, must be delivered by carrier if its address is known or can be ascertained from the city directory; otherwise, at the general delivery.(19)

The November 18, 1879, issue of the Sacramento Daily Union reported

Owing to a reduction in the number of callers at the Postoffice since the establishment of free delivery, the delivery of ladies' letters at a separate window was yesterday discontinued, and hereafter ladies must apply at the general delivery for their letters.(20)

In 1887, postal regulations reiterated that general delivery windows in Post Offices were meant for the use of travelers with no fixed address, not residents:

Letters must be frequently and promptly delivered by the carriers, so that citizens may have no inducement to call at the post-office; and the local addresses of those receiving mail through the general delivery should be secured, and their mail delivered by carriers to the greatest practicable extent.(21)

In 1912, Postmasters were reminded to comply with this policy and were authorized to require any residents using the general delivery window to "furnish in writing … their reasons for preferring to be served at the general delivery."(22)

The last known reference to a ladies delivery window in a specific Post Office occurred on October 23, 1911, when the Atlanta Georgian and News noted that patrons could “get advertised letters at the ladies’ general delivery window.”(23)

Some modern writers have noted that the creation of separate areas for women in public spaces “reinforced the cultural message that, as the weaker sex, women needed special home-like havens when they ventured into the threatening public realm.”(24) Historian David Henkin has suggested that the gender separation had the effect of marginalizing women using the Post Office; at the same time, he acknowledged that it gave some women a new freedom, since previously, for many, "the mail box was inside the coat pockets of men.”(25)

List of Known Post Offices with a Ladies Delivery Window

Note: Post Offices in the cities listed in italics had a ladies delivery window included in their 1850s building plans by the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. It's unclear if the windows were retained in the final designs. The years listed for these cities are the years in which the construction of the planned buildings was completed.

City	State	Ladies Window in Use by (Year)  	Source	
Mobile	AL	1856	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1853-1855, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (P&P, LOC)	
Phoenix	AZ	1896	Arizona Republican (Phoenix, AZ), November 22, 1896	
Tombstone	AZ	1880	U.S. Congress. House. Report of John P. Clum, 50th Congress, 1st session, 1888, Report No. 2187	
Los Angeles	CA	1885	Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1885	
Sacramento	CA	1851	Watertown (WI) Chronicle, January 1, 1851	
San Francisco	CA	1852	Daily Alta California (San Francisco, CA), March 31, 1852	
San Jose	CA	1888	The Evening News (San Jose, CA), July 13, 1888	
Oakland	CA	1877	Oakland Tribune, December 8, 1877	
Aspen	CO	1896	The Aspen Tribune, March 18, 1890	
Denver	CO	1873	Daily Rocky Mountain News (Denver CO), October 26, 1863	
Longmont	CO	1905	Longmont Ledger, December 8, 1905	
Hartford	CT	1856	Connecticut Courant (Hartford, CT), January 26, 1856	
New Haven	CT	1874	New Directory of the … City and Town of New Haven, for 1874–75 (New Haven, CT: Greenough, Jones & Co., 1874)	
Wilmington 	DE	1857	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1853-1855, P&P, LOC 	
Washington 	DC	1858	The Merchants' Magazine & Commercial Review, May 1, 1858	
Jacksonville	FL	1895	Sprit of Jefferson (Charles Town, WV), February 22, 1887	
Pensacola	FL	1906	The Pensacola Journal, March 11, 1906	
Americus	GA	1892	Americus Times-Recorder, November 4, 1892	
Athens	GA	1898	The Athens Daily Banner, February 23, 1898	
Atlanta	GA	1869	The Atlanta Constitution, August 28, 1869	
Columbus	GA	1882	Columbus Daily Enquirer, September 3, 1882	
Gainesville	GA	1899	The Georgia Cracker (Gainesville, GA), March 4, 1899	
Honolulu	HI	1894	Hawaii Progress (Honolulu, HI), November 1, 1894	
Davenport	IA	1870	The Davenport Daily Gazette, February 3, 1870	
Dubuque	IA	1866	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Chicago	IL	1860	Chicago Press and Tribune, January 23, 1860	
Ottawa	IL	1877	Ottawa Free Trader, January 20, 1877	
Rock Island	IL	1899	Rock Island (IL) Argus, December 12, 1899	
Springfield	IL	1869	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Evansville	IN	1862	Evansville Daily Journal, April 19, 1862	
Fort Wayne	IN	1869	Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, September 2, 1869	
Greencastle	IN	1877	Greencastle Banner, July 12, 1877	
Indianapolis	IN	1861	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Atchison	KS	1879	The Globe (Atchison, KS), November 03, 1879	
Chanute	KS	1903	The Sun (Chanute, KS), July 31, 1903	
Kansas City	KS	1893	The Kansas City Gazette, December 31, 1893	
Lawrence	KS	1879	Lawrence Daily Journal, August 29, 1879	
Leavenworth	KS	1889	The Leavenworth Times, June 13, 1889	
Parsons	KS	1881	The Parsons Daily Sun, April 24, 2881	
Salina	KS	1894	Salina Daily Republican-Journal, September 18, 1894	
Topeka	KS	1884	The Topeka Daily Capital, March 1, 1884	
New Orleans	LA	1870	New Orleans Republican, July 12, 1870	
Bangor	ME	1855	Bangor Daily Whig & Courier, January 18, 1855	
Belfast	ME	1857	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Lewiston	ME	1871	Lewiston Evening Journal, February 18, 1871	
Portland	ME	1871	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Boston	MA	1858	Ballou's Pictorial (Boston, MA), July 31, 1858	
Gloucester	MA	1858	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Lowell	MA	1874	Lowell Daily Citizen & News, August 14, 1874	
Baltimore	MD	1845	Baltimore Sun, July 9, 1845	
Frederick	MD	1883	Catoctin Clarion (Mechanicstown, MD), July 12, 1883	
Detroit	MI	1859	Detroit Free Press, May 12, 1859	
Minneapolis	MN	1887	The Saint Paul (MN) Globe, February 27, 1887	
Sedalia	MO	1890	The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo, January 28, 1890	
St. Louis	MO	1867	Walter B. Stevens, Centennial History of Missouri, Volume 4, 518 
(St. Louis, MO: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1921)	
Vicksburg	MS	1875	Harrisburg (PA) Telegraph, June 7, 1875	
Butte	MT	1882	The Montana Standard (Butte, MT), October 10, 1882	
Helena	MT	1887	Helena Weekly Herald, January 13, 1887	
Lincoln	NE	1891	The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, NE), July 2, 1901	
Omaha	NE	1881	The Omaha Daily Bee, May 11, 1881	
Concord	NH	1862	New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette (Concord, NH), December 31, 1862	
Portsmouth	NH	1860	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, at Library of Congress     	
Perth Amboy 	NJ	1892	U.S. Congress. House. Letter From the Postmaster General, Transmitting the Claim of George H. Tice, Postmaster at Perth Amboy, N.J., 52nd Congress, 2nd session, 1893, H. Doc. 215.  	
Trenton	NJ	1874	Daily State Gazette (Trenton, NJ), March 16, 1874	
Buffalo	NY	1858	The American Merchant (Buffalo, NY), May, 1858	
New York	NY	1833	National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), June 12, 1833	
Oswego	NY	1858	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Plattsburgh	NY	1858	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Charlotte	NC	1891	The Charlotte News, March 30, 1891	
Concord	NC	1897	The Concord Times, April 1, 1897	
Raleigh	NC	1890	The Lenoir (NC) Topic, March 19, 1890	
Cincinnati	OH	1855	Genius of the West magazine (Cincinnati, OH), August 1855, at digital.cincinnatilibrary.org (accessed January 19, 2016)	
Cleveland	OH	1858	The Daily Cleveland Herald, December 23, 1858	
Toledo	OH	1856	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Portland	OR	1878	The Daily Oregonian (Portland, OR), February 15, 1878	
Harrisburg	PA	1861	Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph (Harrisburg, PA), June 26, 1861	
Philadelphia	PA	1845	Public Ledger (Philadelphia, PA), November 18, 1845	
Pittsburgh	PA	1854	Pittsburgh Daily Gazette, June 12, 1854	
Reading	PA	1889	Reading Times, February 21, 1888	
Providence	RI	1857	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Charleston	SC	1896	The Weekly News and Courier (Charleston, SC), May 20, 1896	
Sumter	SC	1889	The Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), October 30, 1889	
Memphis	TN	1870	Public Ledger (Memphis, TN), February 22, 1870	
Nashville	TN	1874	The Tennessean (Nashville, TN), April 2, 1874	
Galveston	TX	1873	Galveston Daily News, April 25, 1873	
San Antonio	TX	1882	The San Antonio Light, January 18, 1882	
Salt Lake City	UT	1891	The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT), October 16, 1891	
Burlington	VT	1857	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Rutland	VT	1859	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Windsor	VT	1858	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1856, P&P, LOC 	
Petersburg	VA	1858	Architectural Drawings for a Government Building, 1855, P&P, LOC 	
Richmond	VA	1858	Richard K. Perkins, A Brief History of the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. United States Courthouse, 1858–2012 (Richmond, VA: Office of the Circuit Executive, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2012), at  www.ca4.uscourts.gov/docs/pdfs/BriefHistoryofPowellCourthouse.pdf (accessed January 7, 2016) 	
Milwaukee	WI	1855	Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, July 2, 1855	
Oshkosh	WI	1875	Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, December 14, 1875	
Wheeling	WV	1854	Wheeling (VA) Daily Intelligencer, April 8, 1854	

Endnotes:

1. Richard R. John, Spreading the News: the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 162.
2. Samuel Gridley Howe, “Postal Reform,” Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 2, 1848, 99. HathiTrust Digital Library, https://www.hathitrust.org (accessed December 15, 2015).
3. The Treasury Department was responsible for the construction of federal buildings until 1939, when the responsibility transferred to the Federal Works Agency. Less than 10 percent of Post Offices were located in federal buildings; most were in privately-owned buildings.
4. Anthony Trollope, North America (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1863), 261–262.
5. Ibid, 262.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
6. Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, July 29, 1888. Gale 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, http://infotrac.galegroup.com (accessed January 14, 2016). 
7. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1867, 84. HathiTrust Digital Library, https://www.hathitrust.org (accessed December 15, 2015).
8. Harper’s Magazine, October, 1871. HathiTrust Digital Library, https://www.hathitrust.org (accessed December 18, 2015).
9. Junius Browne, The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York (Hartford, CT, American Publishing Company, 1869), 423. HathiTrust Digital Library, https://www.hathitrust.org (accessed December 16, 2015).
0. George Ellington, Women of New York (New York, NY: New York Book Company, 1870), 477. HathiTrust Digital Library, https://www.hathitrust.org (accessed December 14, 2015).
1. The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), December 28, 1887. Gale 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, http://infotrac.galegroup.com  (accessed January 14, 2016).
2. Pittsburgh (PA) Daily Post, December 17, 1887. https://www.newspapers.com (accessed January 27, 2016).
3. Letter quoted in The Evening World (New York, NY), December 21, 1887. Library of Congress: Chronicling America, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov (accessed January 6, 2016).
4. “The History of a Letter,” Hutchings California Magazine, January, 1858. Dan Anderson, Yosemite Online Library,  http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library (accessed December 10, 2015).
5. California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, Volume 32, Number 20, December 9, 1869, 156. University of California, Riverside: California Digital Newspaper Collection, http://cdnc.ucr.edu (accessed January 21, 2016).
6. Frank Leslie's Weekly (New York, NY), June 19, 1858. Accessible Archives, http://www.accessible-archives.com (accessed January 14, 2016).
7. The Wheeling (WV) daily intelligencer, December 7, 1865. Library of Congress: Chronicling America http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov (accessed January 6, 2016).
18. Residents of 49 large cities began receiving free home delivery of mail in 1863; by 1880, 104 cities were served, and by 1900, the service had spread to 796 cities. 
19. U.S. Post Office Department, Postal Laws and Regulations, 1879, 99.
20. Sacramento Daily Union, November 18, 1879, California Digital Newspaper Collection http://cdnc.ucr.edu (accessed January 22, 2016).
21. U.S. Post Office Department, Postal Laws and Regulations, 1887, 260.
22. U.S. Post Office Department, Postal Bulletin 9885, July 27, 1912.   
23. Atlanta Georgian and News, October 23, 1911, Digital Library of Georgia http://atlnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu (accessed March 24, 2016).
24. Harvey Molotch and Laura Noren, Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2010), 152.
25. David M. Henkin, The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 75–76.

HISTORIAN
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE
JULY 2016