From the "Mailstrom"

Tidbits, this 'n' that from around the web about letters and letter-writing, selected by Lex editors, Gary and Lonna.

2024

The evaporating peace

March 26, 2024

Various things can be done with letters someone has saved for a long time - they can made into a collage, returned to the letter writer's descendants, donated to a historical society (or a museum, especially if the writer was famous) - or they can be projected onto fog...

The look of the mail

March 19, 2024

Articles on mail delivery vehicles over the years are common, and we've featured some of the images in issues of Lex. This article, though, examines the changes in the uniforms of British mail carriers since the 18th century.

"...a thin card..."

March 11, 2024

Getting information from postcards isn't only for history buffs - here's an article about a school program to get postcards mailed to elementary school students in observance of Reading Month last year. And it even defines what a postcard is for those who've perhaps never received or even seen one!

Mini-memories add up

March 2, 2024

Many articles over the years have talked about how collections of letters - both the ones from famous people and the ones found in closets and attics - can give a greater understanding of history. But postcards can do that too - both civic and personal history.

Time and again

February 23, 2024

In the 1950s school pen pal programs matching students from differing countries were quite common, and it's likely that most matches lasted for a short time and faded away as the kids grew older. But not always, as this article shows.

Something fishy in the mail

February 14, 2024

Through the years people have sent various articles through the mail other than letters, postcards, and traditional packages. (We featured a thong sandal sent to Lex by RubberStampMadness magazine in Issue 15.) Sometimes it's been for the fun of it, and sometimes to test just how far from a traditional "mailpiece" one can get and still have it delivered. A few years ago an example, probably of the first reason, was found in an old house in New Zealand.

1,442 and counting

February 4, 2024

During the beginning and height of the pandemic, articles about connecting through mail were quite common, many of them pretty much saying the same basic things. This one, however, which is much more recent, focuses more on the mail.

Speaking of stamp prices...

January 27, 2024

Here's one that goes way, way beyond all the recent increases in postal systems around the world. But it's not just for any stamp - it's for the one on the envelope (which is also part of the sale) that's the first known mail sent with a stamp. Maybe not the very first one sent, but apparently the oldest one yet found to have survived the years.

A surprising pen pal

January 20, 2024

Occasionally someone who writes to a famous person - most typically an actor or author, it seems - gets a personal response that turns into a continuing correspondence. In this case, however, the relationship began in person and continues mostly in writing, between a woman in Iowa and China's political leader.

Educational and personal at the same time

January 12, 2024

Here's an article about an anthropologist who created his own mail art postcards to tell his granddaughter what he was learning and doing on his research trips.

Better late than never?

January 5, 2024

Occasionally one comes across a report of a letter (more often a postcard) that was delivered late - sometimes by years, sometimes by decades. Here's a report about letters that were "delivered" a bit late, but not read for more than two centuries. And though the title calls them "love letters," they were mostly letters between family members.

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