Letter Writers Alliance

Vintage Etiquette & Postal Queries

The types of etiquette questions we handle today are very different than those of the 1920s, but I got a real kick out of reading this little antique guide. Did you know that you were supposed to have different custom stationeries for when you were traveling, and for when you were on your yacht, and for when you were at your club? Nowadays, it's considered the height of good manners to send a thank you note, but stationery and letter writing used to be a strictly regulated system of social graces. Here are some examples from The Etiquette of Letter Writing.

While I'm not advocating for a return to the rules about what alignment of monogram is acceptable for a correspondence card, I am a champion of courtesy and kindness. Kathy and I have, in the past, gotten a lot of questions surrounding the world of modern letter writing. We've decided to start a feature on this blog called "Postal Queries" or "Ps & Qs" for short. If you have a question for us, please send us a note to the P.O. Box or an electronic mail.  We'll answer what we can to the best of our ability. Tune in later this week for our first question and answer.

 

The Palace of Postman Cheval

Ferdinand Cheval was a French postman in the late 1800s. He was also a sculptor and an architect and probably some sort of , though he probably wouldn't have described himself as thus. Working nights after his postal shift for the next thirty-three years, Cheval created this structure of naive art architecture. When he finished this “Palais Ideale”, he was in his seventies, but that didn't stop him. When the law prohibited that he be buried in his palace, he then went to work decorating his own mausoleum in the town cemetery.

The legend is that it all started with one interesting rock that Cheval stumbled across along his postal route in 1879. "Inspired by its shape, he began collecting more small stones each day. At first he would carry home the pebbles he found on his mail rounds in his pockets, but as he began collecting more, he started carrying them home in baskets, and eventually a wheelbarrow." The palace is made of these found rocks, cement and lime mortar. He is quoted as saying "I wanted to prove what willpower can achieve."

The palace is still standing and is a cultural landmark in France. It has over 100,000 visitors a year and is certainly on my list should I ever get to France. It even got its own stamp in 1984. Thanks to Carolee for the tip and for the excellent write up at Messy Nessy and the New York Times for the information.

Crossed Letters

I received this curious post-script from my pen pal Alan. If you're having trouble reading it, here is the transcription:

"Thinking of log and log graph paper got me thinking. Have you ever come across 'crossed' letters? In the days before adhesive stamps and the Penny Post in 1841, letters were charged by the sheet rather than by weight. To save money some people developed really tiny handwriting but others used to fit more on the page by 'crossing' their letters, writing across the lines at 90°. I read a few of these while researching for my book on Charles Clark and they are not as impossible to read as they might at first appear. Still, however expensive the mail gets, I do not think the practice will return. At least, I hope not! -Alan"

In truth, it's not that difficult to read, as he says. I think your brain gets used to it after a while. Alan's letter sent me to the Internet to look for more historic examples. I'd seen letters of the tiniest of tiny scripts, but never a crossed letter.Delightedly, in my search, I discovered this write up by Mary Robinette Kowal on the Lettermo site about letter writing in the Regency where she specifically mentions crossed letters. Facsinating! What's the weirdest letter you've ever had to decipher? Tell us about it in the comments.

Letters of Science

Last week, an anonymous buyer purchased a letter from Francis Crick for a record sum of over 5 million dollars. The letter, written to Crick's son Michael who was twelve at the time, explains the discovery of the D.N.A. double-helix. I've only seen portions of the letter, but it seems to me to be an amazing blend of love and history. Not only is he writing to his son to connect to him as a parent, but he's explaining in clear terms this pivotal scientific discovery. I would love to read it in its entirety. No word on wether it will be displayed or made fully public.

In the meantime, you can satisfy your hunger for science letters at The Darwin Correspondence Project. Cambridge University has released over 7000 letters to and from Charles Darwin online. Some of these letters have never before been made public. Recently, they added over 1000 letters between Darwin and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker to the site.

"Their letters account for around 10% of Darwin’s surviving correspondence and provide a structure within which all the other letters can be explored.  They are a connecting thread that spans forty years of Darwin’s mature working life from 1843 until his death in 1882, and bring into sharp focus every aspect of Darwin’s scientific work throughout that period. They illuminate the mutual friendships he and Hooker shared with other scientists, but they also provide a window of unparalleled intimacy into the personal lives of the two men."

I'm particularily fond of the "Darwin's Postbox" widgit that tells you what letters Charles Darwin sent and/or received on this day in 1826. And it's not all science, all the time (though there's nothing wrong with that); here's a telegram sent to Darwin for his birthday.

Write (and Read) More Letters,

 

The Case of the Cut Paper Ransom Note

Inspired by a suggestion from Ana of the Well-Appointed Desk, I decided I wanted to know more about the classic ransom note. You know the one, with its message written out in letters meticulously cut from newspapers and magazines. The idea is to conceal the handwriting of the sender. I’ve tried making them for fun, and discovered that they take a long time to do and, to me, are more trouble than they’re worth. However, I was making them on a lark, not using them as a tool to disguise my identity during nefarious acts.

The first recorded ransom note of this style was… any guesses? Well, it’s a trick question. According to a CBS 48 Hours program write-up on famous ransom notes, the “… kind of ransom note you're used to imagining - letters cut out of a magazine and pasted onto a piece of paper. As far as I can tell, that exists only in the imagination of Hollywood screenwriters.” –Peter LaRosa They do have an interesting, if morbid, gallery of famous ransom notes here. 

Well then, where did it start? There’s a faxed cut paper ransom note sent in The Big Lebowski, but that movie is from 1996 and is itself homage to tons of older movies. According to a thesis entitled “The Ransom Note Effect: Cut-and-Paste Typography in American Visual Culture,” Arden Stern claims that the first instance of the iconic cut paper note is from Sherlock Holmes “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” This wasn't even a ransom note, really, but it was a warning.  Still, all evidence seems to show that is the progenitor for all the notes in popular culture that follow.

The FBI does keep a database of papers, glues, typefaces, toners, and all other sorts of paper identifiers around just in case life imitates art imitating life in the case of the ransom note. If you’re into making one of these creations for fun purposes only, there is currently a call for participants in the “Handsome Ransom” project through UPPERCASE magazine.

Two Dangerous Things

Keen-eyed member Lisa sent over a fascinating link from Lapham's Quarterly-- Post Secrets by Angela Serratore. The article opens with a quote from an 1867 magazine:

“The post-office system offers a facility for clandestine correspondence which no respectable father or mother on the European side of the Atlantic would think of without a shudder, if it were proposed to give our young women a similar privilege.” —Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1867

The mid 1800s were a fascinating time in the development of modern postal systems. Postal rates became standardized and more affordable. The freestanding pillar box in Britain (invented in 1852) allowed mail to be sent by anyone at anytime. In New York, there were boxes to be rented at the Post Office where women could "both send and receive mail almost entirely unmonitored by those who might want to regulate their epistolary lives." To quote Serratore further, "Suddenly, wide swaths of women had access to two dangerous things—the mail and the post office."

The thought that, had I been born in another time*, the men in my life would have had direct control over who I contacted and how I did so, is so alein and frightening to me. What a marvel mail must have been for these intrepid women! To have a key to something wholly your own in a place removed from your home, a place where your thoughts and feeling were finally private and yours to disperse to whom you wished. I loved this article. It reminded me to not take the mail for granted, or, for that matter, to take for granted the freedom that I now enjoy.

Gratefully yours,

*Or this time, but another place.

 P.S. Photo is from the Vermont Historical Society on Flickr under CC license.

Happy Saint Paddy!

Happy St. Patricks Day! The Texas Collection of Baylor University has an excellent Flickr set of old holiday (and other) postcards. They are certainly worth sorting through over your weekend.

Don't get pinched!

Dear Danville

When I went to the link sent by Member Alice M. about the Danville postcard project, I didn't expect to be emotionally moved. I had missed the mention of Anne Frank in her email and was unprepared for the depth of the story on The Gazette. What I expected to be a light-hearted call for postcards turned out to be a symbolic memorial of the children killed during The Holocaust. I'm still trying to process it.

It's been a long time since I read The Diary of a Young Girl. I had no idea or no memory that both Anne and her sister Margot had pen pals in the U.S., much less a pair of sisters in Danville, Iowa. I also didn't know that Anne Frank collected postcards. The students of Danville are trying to raise money to expand a museum in their town which would help tell this tale.

From the Gazette article:

"We’re trying to collect 1.5 million postcards to represent the number of children who died in the Holocaust,” says Grace Palmatier, 13.

The eighth graders have produced hundreds of postcards with their class photo, which they’ve mailed to Jewish individuals, schools and organizations world-wide with hand-written notes detailing the project. Each postcard asks for one in return. A personal message isn’t necessary, but the students hope some people will include one.

“It’s a lot more personal than sending an e-mail and hoping for a response,” says Rylee Molter, 13.

You can help Danville students with their goal of collecting 1.5 million postcards. Postcards should be mailed to:

Danville Schools
419 S. Main Street
Danville, Iowa 52623

A worthy postal cause if I ever read one, even if I am feeling emotionally downtrodden by that horrifically high number. To end on a happier note, here is one of Anne's postcards as seen on the Anne Frank Museum website:

The Case of the Missing Telegram

I'm a lover of ephemera. I like to hoard it, to look through it, to think about the world that came before me. I even like to cut it up and use it in art. If it's old and made of paper and related to the postal world, chances are I will like it. But there's a dark side to ephemera, particularily letters.

Someone, somewhere loved that piece of paper before I did. A lot of my collection comes from estate sales and ebay auctions, meaning a lot of it comes out of the houses of the deceased. They treasured those letters all of their life and now, their jerk grandkid just wants to make a buck*. (*Or has medical bills to pay or something equally tragic and noble, not all of them are jerks, I know.) It is something that is in the back of my mind whenever I go through a box of old postcards or letters.

That said, I have some wonderful news to share with you. One of our new members, Rachel, sent me a link to her blog where she shares the tale of the above telegram. It came to her as part of a gift packet of miscellanious papers. She was so intrigued by it that she put it up on her blog and asked for ideas about how to research the sender further. With help from her commentors and Google, she solved the mystery. It's a really touching story and I encourage you all to read it. I hope it brightens your day, like it did mine.

 

Mystery Paper Seal

Photo by Mark D.

Sometimes I really really love Flickr. The history nerds on there are normally quite helpful and kind and I lvoe to see what kind of info gets brought to light when a mystery item or photo is put up for further info. A little while ago Mark D posted this image  (shown above) of a paper seal and asked for some help identifying it.

Alan B came in with some great guesses and between the two. I found Alan's first stab at it quite interesting:

"I reckon the figure in the middle, with wings on his hat and heels, is Mercury, the god of merchants and trade. He's carrying scales, which are relevant to this, and something else which I can't interpret — is it a book? It can't be a pocket calculator ;-)

The inscription says (I think) INSIGNE NEGOTIATORUM HAFNIENSIUM : the badge of the merchants of Copenhagen.

The date of 1655 might be part of the badge and represent the date of foundation or a charter, not the date of this paper seal."

Check out the Flickr page of this image for more of their conversation on the seal. Do any of you have further info on this paper seal? I know squat-all about it, but I find it a very striking image and item. It kind of makes me want to make some paper seals for myself.

-Kathy