From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office

From Live Snakes to Missing Men: Inside the 19th Century Dead Letter Office

Ashley Bowen-Murphy, PhD@BowenMurphy

“Blind Reading”

Image courtesy of National Postal Museum

Post Office Department, c. 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Original Location7th and 8th Streets and E and F Streets NW

Second LocationPost Office Pavilion

11th & Pennsylvania Ave NW

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Post Office Department, c. 1900. Image courtesy of National Postal Museum

One Day’s Collection!

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.

Missing Soldiers in the Mail

Image courtesy of the George Eastman House Still Photograph ArchiveImage number 1985.1103.0001-0035

Unidentified soldier’s photograph, Dead Letter Office album number 2803Image courtesy of Kurt Luther

Album of soldier’s photosImage in The Story of Our Post Office (1893) via Google Books

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Inside the Dead Letter Office, c. 1900

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.

“Found In The Mails.” Pittsburg Dispatch. December 26, 1890. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

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

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Dead Letter Sale, c. 1910-1925

Dead Letter Office Museum to National Postal Museum

Images courtesy of National Postal Museum

Mail Recovery CenterAtlanta, GA

Image via the Department of Defense

Thank you!

Ashley Bowen-Murphy, PhD@BowenMurphy twitter

ashley.bowen-murphy@atlasobscura.com

Dead letter mail, Supt. Marvin McLean and Mrs. Clara R.A. Nelson, c. 1917, Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

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.