The DC Traveler

During World War II, the War Department worked with the Post Office to find an effective, fast and low cost way to allow soldiers deployed in the Pacific and European theaters to send letters home.
V-Mail or Photomail used single sized stationery which was then photographed onto 16 mm microfilm. Hundreds of letters could be transported on cargo ships to and from war zones in the same size as just a few letters, allowing for more onboard space for war supplies and troops.
With 16 million soldiers sending an average of 6 letters a week, the Post Office was overwhelmed with …read more

4 Comments

These days, with TV, radio, instant messaging, e-mails and overnight delivery, we take for granted that getting news and information was once a very slow and unreliable process.  But in America’s colonial days, things were very different. Letters and news could take weeks or months to reach the colonies or travel from settlement to settlement.
The first private mail delivery service in the U.S. began in 1673, with riders delivering mail between Boston and New York. Twenty years later, King William of England granted the right to deliver mail to Thomas Neale, who ironically had never been to the colonies. Neale appointed the …read more

Comments Off