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5 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o h i s t o ry a n d t e c h n o l o g yFigure 1. Individuals in a city post office checking out the list of goods available through the farm- to- tableprogram, which sought to match rural produce with urban demand. Courtesy of the National Postal MuseumLibrary, Smithsonian Institution Libraries.service that brought mail directly to rural residents. DuringPresident William Howard Taft’s time in the WhiteHouse, Rural Free Delivery was enlarged to include ParcelPost Service. That service, officially launched in the waningdays of the Taft Administration in early 1913, allowed theshipment of packages that could not be delivered throughregular mail within rural communities. The service turnedout to be highly popular; in its first six months alone, approximately300 million parcels were handled.Albert S. Burleson, postmaster general for the fledglingWilson Administration, sought to capitalize even furtheron Rural Free Delivery’s dramatic success. One wayto accomplish that was an experiment, implemented in1914, encouraging farmers to export more of their goodsvia the mail to consumers in the city. This experiment focusedon a perceived gap in the existing Rural Free Deliverysystem: while farm families extensively used the parcelpost service to request and receive such items as newspapers,magazines, and mail- order merchandise, there wasunmet marketing possibility in the goods that could just aseasily flow from the country to the city. 5 As a departmentspokesman explained, “The Postmaster General has thefirm conviction that this plan is the one thing necessaryto enable the people of this country to enjoy the potentialbenefits of the parcel post.” 6The program’s first year was on the whole promising,with 26 large cities selected for experimental deliveryroutes. Basically, postmasters in rural areas compiled listsof farmers and others wishing to sell their products to cityresidents by way of parcel post. Those postmasters wouldthen forward the lists to their urban counterparts, who inturn shared the information through such means as lettercarriers going door to door and posted advertisements(Figure 1). Ultimately, the urban consumer could place orderswith his or her local post office and then await thearrival of farm- fresh products at home. 7The Post Office Department, by serving as the conduitbetween producers and buyers, hoped to profit from
n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 1business that most likely otherwise would have gone tosuch middlemen as general stores, express companies,and railroads. A lot of emphasis, though, was placed onhow the farmers themselves could benefit from this maildeliveryundertaking. “Every possible thing has been doneto give the farmer an equal chance to compete with thecorner grocery store on equal terms,” reported an April1915 article entitled “Butter from the Post Office” in TheIndependent. “Special fast auto service is used in manycities to effect immediate delivery of perishable goods.” 8An example of this transportation service could be seen inCleveland, Ohio, where in the fall of 1914 the postmasterobtained five new automobiles to facilitate deliveries fromfarms in the region. 9By 1916, the groundwork was laid for the program’senlargement. A joint congressional resolution that summerauthorized new routes, and postal officials beganplanning accordingly. Meanwhile, however, the UnitedStates found itself being drawn more deeply into the warin Europe. The nation formally entered that brutal conflicton April 6, 1917, when Congress declared war on Germany.10 President Wilson, in a subsequent address to theAmerican people, appealed to the nation’s farmers for helpwith food conservation efforts. He asserted, “Withoutabundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples nowat war, the whole great enterprise upon which we haveembarked will break down and fail . . . Upon the farmersof this country, therefore, in large measure, rests the fateof the war and the fate of the nations.” 11With those words, Wilson voiced the need to produceand preserve ample food for the duration of the war. Theconservation of food became one of the most crucial goalson the homefront and, in terms of wartime mobilizationefforts, among the most far- reaching. U.S. Food Administrator(and future president) Herbert Hoover firmly andconsistently exhorted his fellow Americans not to wastefood so that enough of it could be shipped overseas to feedAmerican troops and others.Under Hoover’s leadership, the Food Administrationused every means, medium, and method possibleto promote its message to the public and make sure thateveryone did what they could to ensure the availabilityof adequate rations abroad. “Meatless Mondays” and“Wheatless Wednesdays” became a regular part of eachperson’s calendar. “Food Will Win the War” was a familiarrallying cry, and posters and signs carrying that mantraand others blanketed the nation. A host of likeminded slogans,which regularly showed up in newspapers, included:“Don’t let your horse be more patriotic than you are—eata dish of oatmeal!;” “Wheatless days in America makesleepless nights in Germany;” “U- boats and wastefulnessare twin enemies;” “Serve beans by all means;” and “TheBattle Cry of Feed ’Em.”As Wilson underscored, however, a special burden wasplaced on farmers when it came to this entire campaign.They were under pressure, stronger than ever before, tonot only produce enough food but also make sure that asmuch of it as possible went to market without rotting orsimply going unused. 12 The Post Office Department, havingalready received authorization for more farm- to- tableroutes, stood ready to help accomplish those aims. FourthAssistant Postmaster General Blakslee, who both dreamedand talked big anyway when it came to motorized transportation’spotential role in mail delivery, pushed for motortrucks rather than automobiles on those new routes.A total of eight motor truck routes came into existenceafter postal officials wrestled extensively with logisticsand unsuccessfully sought to secure additional fundsfor the endeavor. The routes, located mostly in the MiddleAtlantic region, took effect between December 1917and June 1918. They were specifically situated betweenPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, and Atlantic City, New Jersey;Baltimore, Maryland, and Solomons Island, Maryland;Washington, D. C., and Leonardtown, Maryland; Washington,and Baltimore; Baltimore and Lancaster; Philadelphiaand Washington; Savannah, Georgia, and Statesboro,Georgia; and Columbus, Ohio, and Zanesville, Ohio.The Post Office Department, which kept thoroughrecords of all expenses for this part of the farm- to- tableprogram, announced that the net profit for these routes intheir first few months of operation was substantial. 13 In addition,Blakslee stressed how at least some of these routesprovided essential transportation services that could notbe easily duplicated. “There is no rail or water transportationpossible between Baltimore and Solomon’s Island norbetween Washington and Leonardtown,” he offered as anexample of this, “and there are over 1,000 similar localitieseast of the Mississippi River.” 14Overall, though, the most salient feature of thesemotor trucks was how they could pick up and deliverlarger- than- before quantities of farm goods for city residents.The Lancaster- New York City test run during thistime further confirmed that advantage. That shipment wastaken, within 45 minutes after reaching the New YorkCity post office, to the customer—a produce dealer namedHarry Atlas. His order, incidentally, included 400 newlyhatched chicks, 18,000 fresh eggs, 200 pounds of honey,500 pounds of butter, and 500 pounds of smoked sausage.This experimental trip was the longest postal run ofits kind up to that time. The trip was also noteworthy due
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Smithsonian InstitutionScholarly Pr
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smithsonian contributions to histor
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ContentsLETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR OF
Page 9: AcknowledgmentsThe symposium would
Page 12 and 13: 2 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t
Page 20 and 21: 1 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n
Page 25 and 26: “Little Colored Bits of Paper”C
Page 27 and 28: n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 7as something
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Page 33 and 34: WWI Philatelic Censuses of East Afr
Page 35 and 36: n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 5Table 1. GEA
Page 37 and 38: n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 7Figure 5. MA
Page 39 and 40: Explorations in the Official Regist
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Page 43 and 44: n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 3TABLE 2. Pop
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Page 47: Introduction to the Second Symposiu
Page 59: “Food Will Win the War”: Motor
Page 63 and 64: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 3support for
Page 65 and 66: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 53. “Postal
Page 67: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 7“Farmers W
Page 81 and 82: Picking Up the Pieces: The Aftermat
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Page 87 and 88: n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 7Figure 9. Th
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Page 101: Introduction to the Fourth Symposiu
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 3and prepai
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 5Figure 3.
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 7Figure 5.
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 9A Final No
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America’s First Carrier Service:T
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 3Figure 3.
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 5The glazed
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 7Intercity
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 9The End of
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The U.S. 1847 Issue:Stamps That Cha
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 4 3the positi
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From the Pulpit to the Post: Anti-
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 4 9The allege
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n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 5 1Individual
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