History of the Chain Letter

Chain letters are the worst. At least junk mail can be recycled into mail art. At least bills sometimes come with response envelopes you can turn inside out and reuse. Chain letters just want you to waste your time and precious stamps. The decline of the chain letter due to the rise of the email forward is the one decline in posting that I can applaud. "Based on informal polling, a typical American adult received at least 8 luck chain letters in the period 1980 to 2000. Thus for a recipient population of a quarter billion English speaking adults (U.S., Canada, and the U.K.), two billion English language luck chain letters were received in that 20 year period."

That's a quote from the exhaustive work by Daniel VanArsdale on the history and evolution of the Chain Letter. The phenomena of sending and receiving letters promising you wealth or fame or blessings from on high have been circulating widely through the mails since the early 1900s, though there are some letters which set the precedent for the modern chain letter as far back as 1795.  "As they replicated through the decades, some accumulated copying errors, offhand comments, and calculated innovations that helped them prevail in the competition with other chain letters. For example, complementary testimonials developed, one exploiting perceived good luck, another exploiting perceived bad luck. Twelve successive types of luck chain letters are identified which predominated circulation at some time in the twentieth century."

At Mr. VanArsdale's site, you can read abstracts about what determined particular types of chain letters and there is also an archive of transcripts from every chain letter used to inform his article. I especially like that there are notes for what type of paper used, what color ink, etc. Now write five copies of this blog post and send it to your best friends.

Comments

[CMN]

"Now write five copies of this blog post and send it to your best friends." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!

Thanks for the entertaining article and the little "easter egg" at the end! :)

[Kelly]

Thanks for the interesting article. I am now sending this out to 5 of my friends, so as not to break the chain, lol

[Cynthia]

I think this postcard is wonderful! Especially since it shows Boston Common.

[Alan B]

Chain letters! Haven't received one for years; I'm almost nostalgic for them, they could be amusing if you're not superstitious. Some mail art projects have a similar feeling, though.

[colleen wilshire]

I just found your blog and I absolutely love this post. So interesting! Ahh, the good old days of chain letters!