WBRE: PA State Archives digitizes historic postcards. “The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) has completed a multi-year project, digitizing a collection of 23,260 postcards into an archive anyone can use ranging from the 1800s to the 1970s.”
US Postal Service: U.S. Postal Service Launches Service Performance Dashboard. “After prompting users to enter only a ZIP Code, the website provides customers with a variety of useful information, including the percentage of on-time delivery for specific mail and shipping products in each USPS district. This data, updated weekly, is based on scans collected when mail enters the network, during processing and at the point of delivery.”
Linn’s Stamp News: Ukraine asks UPU for philatelic sanctions on Russia. “Ukraine’s post office, Ukrposhta, has asked the Universal Postal Union and its members to impose philatelic sanctions against Russia related to joint issues, according to a March 18 press release on the Ukrposhta website. The UPU describes itself as the ‘United Nations specialized agency and the postal sector’s primary forum for international cooperation.’”
The Mail: Introducing The Mail, a Newsletter and Zine About the USPS. “A lot of people have been talking about the United States Postal Service lately, including us. It is a key link in a safe and fair election this November. It delivers bills, medication, packages, and other vital mail during a time when we need affordable, reliable delivery more than ever. It is also in a financial crisis, has a new boss who is changing all the rules, and its future is in jeopardy. The United States Postal Service is both critical infrastructure for a functioning democracy and society, and a potential election attack vector. That’s why Motherboard is launching The Mail, a weekly pop-up newsletter about the United States Postal Service, written by me, Aaron Gordon, senior staff writer at Motherboard, that will run from now until the end of November on Substack. Every week through the election, […]
9News: Denver Public Health orders a closure of facility that handles all mail for Colorado and Wyoming. “The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment (DDPHE) has ordered the closure of a mail facility that handles all mail for Colorado and Wyoming. The public health order was issued to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Processing and Distributing Center at 7550 E. 53rd Place in Denver, following an investigation on Wednesday. The state of Colorado has confirmed five employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at the facility that employs 1,800.”
The Guardian: Huge historical archive of mail from captured ships to go online . “An archive of thousands of undelivered personal letters from all over the world, seized from ships captured during Britain’s naval wars over three centuries, are to be digitised in a project offering an intimate glimpse into people’s lives. The letters, found in mailbags, with many bearing wax seals and some still unopened, have so far yielded personal accounts, some heart-rending, and journals, sheet music, drawings, poems and a packet of 200-year-old seeds from South Africa.”
The National Archives (UK): Prize Papers Project launches at Oldenburg Castle. “Imagine being the first person to open a letter written 250 years ago but which never reached its intended recipient. What might you find? What might you learn? This is the part of the daily work of the Prize Papers Project, exploring around 160,000 undelivered letters seized in their mail-bags from ships captured by the British in the wars of the 17th to the 19th centuries. Some of these letters are still unopened.”
My friend Kevin Savetz dropped me a note to tell me about a new Internet Archive initiative: Ted Nelson’s Junk Mail. From the about page: “Throughout his long and varied career, pioneer and visionary Ted Nelson investigated technical possibilities of all kinds. He checked reader service cards from magazines in a wide variety of industries, unleashing torrents of further information on products, services and academic research…. After looking, Dr. Nelson threw these in cartons, which have survived by accident. These items are now being scanned in and presented for browsing at the Internet Archive. Whether for nostalgia, reference or research, this collection gives deep insight into the self-image and language of many companies, as well as the visual style of many long-lost aspects of the 20th century’s industries.”
A postcard project created by a professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro has gone online. “Since 2004, Sheryl Oring has typed out postcards at 71 performances at college campuses, on city streets and in public spaces across the nation. Oring (or sometimes an assistant) would invite people to sit down and write out a postcard to the current or future president — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — or a political candidate. As people talked, Oring used a vintage manual typewriter to put their words — their hopes, their fears, their praise, their scorn — onto a blank postcard.” The project has almost 3300 postcards.
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