From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office
-
Upload
aebowenmurphy -
Category
Education
-
view
37 -
download
1
Transcript of From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office
![Page 1: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office
Ashley Bowen-Murphy, PhD@BowenMurphy
![Page 2: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
![Page 3: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
“Blind Reading”
Image courtesy of National Postal Museum
![Page 4: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Post Office Department, c. 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Original Location7th and 8th Streets and E and F Streets NW
![Page 5: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Second LocationPost Office Pavilion
11th & Pennsylvania Ave NW
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
![Page 6: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Post Office Department, c. 1900. Image courtesy of National Postal Museum
One Day’s Collection!
![Page 7: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? … By the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.
Herman Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” Putnam’s Monthly, November 1853.
![Page 8: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Missing Soldiers in the Mail
Image courtesy of the George Eastman House Still Photograph ArchiveImage number 1985.1103.0001-0035
![Page 9: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Unidentified soldier’s photograph, Dead Letter Office album number 2803Image courtesy of Kurt Luther
![Page 10: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Album of soldier’s photosImage in The Story of Our Post Office (1893) via Google Books
![Page 11: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Inside the Dead Letter Office, c. 1900
![Page 12: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
The Dead Letter Office Museum
Image reproduced from J.A. Truesdell, “Dead Letter Office.” The New North-West. March 11, 1887. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
![Page 13: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
“Found In The Mails.” Pittsburg Dispatch. December 26, 1890. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
![Page 14: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
A specimen of Guiteau’s hair is seen with this inscription:This contains my hair. Charles J. Guiteau
Accompanying this was a request for the modest sum of $1,000 to aid the compensation of his counsel.
Marshall H. Cushing, Story of Our Post Office (1893), pp. 273-274
![Page 15: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Dead Letter Sale, c. 1910-1925
![Page 16: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Dead Letter Office Museum to National Postal Museum
Images courtesy of National Postal Museum
![Page 17: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Mail Recovery CenterAtlanta, GA
Image via the Department of Defense
![Page 18: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Thank you!
Ashley Bowen-Murphy, PhD@BowenMurphy twitter
Dead letter mail, Supt. Marvin McLean and Mrs. Clara R.A. Nelson, c. 1917, Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
![Page 19: From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office](https://reader034.fdocuments.us/reader034/viewer/2022042906/58ab4bfc1a28ab61758b6319/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Selected Works Cited• Ames, Mary Clemmer. Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital, as a Woman Sees Them. Hartford, CT: A. D.
Worthington & Company, 1873.• Bagger, Louis. “The Dead-Letter Office.” Appletons’ Journal of Literature, Science and Art (1869-1876), November 8, 1873.• Castle, Henry A. “Trials of the Dead-Letter Office.” Evening Star. April 15, 1906. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.• Collins, Patti Lyle. “The Deadletter Office.” St. Nicholas; an Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks (1873-1907), February 1894.• “Curiosities of the Dead-Letter Office.” Scientific American (1845-1908), May 12, 1883.• “Curiosities of the Mail.” Northern Tribune. February 26, 1885. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.• Cushing, Marshall Henry. Story of Our Post Office: The Greatest Government Department in All Its Phases. A. M. Thayer & Company, 1892.• “Dead Letter Curios.” The Evening Star. August 8, 1903. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.• “Dead Letter Office Museum: A Collection of Strange Finds in the Mails.” Barton County Democrat. July 29, 1897. Chronicling America: Historic
American Newspapers.• “Dead Letters.” The Youth’s Companion (1827-1929), December 9, 1915.• Dom Pedro. “Washington Letter.” Weekly Graphic. May 4, 1883. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.• “Found In The Mails.” Pittsburg Dispatch. December 26, 1890. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.• Howard, Clifford. “Marvels of the Dead-Letter Office.” The Youth’s Companion (1827-1929), March 3, 1898.• Kiger, Patrick. “Washington’s Dead Letter Office.” Boundary Stones: WETA’s Washington DC History Blog, May 21, 2014.
http://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2014/05/21/washingtons-dead-letter-office.• Malloy, Daniel. “Post Office Moving Atlanta Unclaimed Mail Auction Online.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution. March 7, 2013.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/post-office-moving-atlanta-unclaimed-mail-auction-/nWkQs/.• Palmer, Alex. “Saving Santa’s Mail Bag.” Slate, December 11, 2014.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/holidays/2014/12/letters_to_santa_why_charity_groups_fought_to_have_kid_s_letters_end_up.html.• “Post Office Museum: A Unique Collection Pertaining to the U.S. Mail Service.” The National Tribune. September 11, 1902.• Reynolds, Charles Bingham. Washington, the Nation’s Capital. New York: Foster & Reynolds, 1912. https://books.google.com/books?
id=yQwyAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA164&ots=4DNo6W400F&dq=dead%20letter%20office%20museum&pg=PA164#v=onepage&q&f=false.• “The Dead Letter Office.” Literary Museum 3, no. 8 (1846): 60.• “The Dead Letter Office.” In The Standard Guide, Washington: A Handbook for Visitors. [1896- ], 122–24. B. S. Reynolds Company, 1898.• “The Letter Cemetery.” The Youth’s Companion (1827-1929), May 28, 1874.• Truesdell, J.A. “Dead Letter Office.” The New North-West. March 11, 1887. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.• Zezula. “Washington Letter.” Bismarck Weekly Tribune. February 19, 1886. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.