July 1st is National Postal Worker Day. I have several books to honor those men and women of the United States Postal Service.
My library presentation begins with “How They Carried the Mail” by Joseph Walker, 1930. The title continues with”From the Post Runners of King Sargon to the Air Mail of today.” The book was published by the Sears Publishing Company.
This book tells wonderful stories of how mail has been delivered. The author begins with a tale of “mail carriers of King Sargon 3,000 years before Christ, who sped over the deserts of Asia, with the King’s great seal and his message”, and then the tale of “the mail carrier of Greece who, at the cost of his life, ran twenty-six miles in the shortest time ever known to tell the people of Athens of the victory on the plain of Marathon-the first Marathon runner.” He continues with other ancient stories, and then up to modern days of Charles Lindbergh using an airplane to deliver mail. This great book also has 12 beautiful illustrations. A beautiful book for anyone interested about mail. He also includes the poem by Herodotus, who wrote over twenty-four hundred years ago:
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.“
When a new post office was built in New York City, President Wilson ordered this quote to be engraved on the front of the building.
My next book is “The Barefoot Mailman” by Theodore Pratt, 1993-the 50th anniversary edition. This is a fictionalized account of actual mailmen who walked the roadless area between Miami and Palm Beach, a hundred mile stretch. It is a great story, as is the actual story of James E. Hamilton who lost his life delivering the mail (thought to have been eaten by an alligator.) My grandmother, when living in our home, asked me if I had the book. It was a favorite of hers. When I told her I didn’t, she had me get a copy for her. When I gave it to her, she took it to her room, came back several minutes later, with the book wrapped, and said ” for you and your library.”
In 1939 the Treasury Departent’s section of Fine Arts contracted with Steven Dohonos to paint six murals depicting the “Legend of James Edward Hamilton , Mail Carrier” in the West Palm Beach Florida Post Office. Charles W. Pierce, who had been one of the carriers on the “barefoot route”, was Postmaster in Boynton Beach, Florida at the time, and corresponded with Dohanos, providing photos of James Hamilton in the clothes he wore on the “barefoot route”. Dohanos later recalled that Pierce first used the term “barefoot mailman” in their conversations, and that the term thereafter was applied to the murals.
That story, along with others is in the book “Democratic Vistas, Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal” by Marline Park and Gerald E. Markowitz, 1984. The authors state:
“The subjext of this book is one of the New Deal Art programs, the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, Later the Section of Fine Arts, which between 1934 and 1943 commissioned murals and sculpture for federal buildings and for eleven hundred post offices throughout the country. We forget how few people in the 1930s has ever seen original paintings and how extraordinary was the effort to place murals and sculpture in communities of every size.”
This book goes into the New Deal program which was quite detailed. It also has many of the illustrations of murals, some in color, some in black and white, including a panel from the “barefoot mailman” James Edward Hamilton. It is beautiful book with a beautiful story during the Depression. People were amazed to walk into their post office and see these unusual murals in their little town or city.
My last book is also about that program. It is Post Office Mural Guidebook for Illinois” by David W. Gates Jr., 2021. It also briefly tells of the murals and art that was commissioned and installed under the United States Treasury Department’s section of Painting and Art, ‘first to give light and hope to those in Great Depression, and second to employ artists during this difficult time.”
It’s main purpose though, lists the 75 places in Illinois that have these murals and artwork. It gives you for each place: the building photo, the address, the artist, the title, the status (a few building have been torn down, or the post office has moved. Sometimes the murals have been moved.), and links for further reading. It does not actually give one the actual picture of the art. You will have to go and see it for yourself.
My local Post office participated in this program. Everytime I go to the Morton post office to get stamps, or mail a package, I get to see “Spirit of Communication” in stone by Charles Umlauf. It is about four foot by four foot, and hanging in the current post office lobby.
I have seen six of these post office murals in person so far, so there is a long way to go. Now whenever I travel in Illinois, I have to look at this book first just to see if I am to drive near one of these post offices.
Make sure you wish your Postal Worker a happy day today!
What has just one letter, but has three “E”s in it? An EnvElopE
Did you hear the joke about the unstamped letter? You won’t get it.
Librarytomes 