The Letter Exchange

We still come across a lot of articles that refer to letter-writing as an "old-fashioned" activity - but according to Pinterest, it's an increasing interest for younger people as well. And here's an article about letter-writing among young people in New Zealand which mentions some of the same things, including the use of decorative stationery and small enclosures, as well as the emotional value of writing and receiving physical letters.

There are a number of articles about people who find old letters they received and re-read them, but here's one with a different twist - a woman who found an old letter she had written and never mailed. The letter was written as a child, and inspired her to create a series of letter-writing kits for children.

Generally stamps on letters and postcards are cancelled by machine, with the city and date of cancellation (which may or may not be the date it was mailed), sometimes a short phrase or even fuzzy picture relating to mail or holidays or other topical things. But not always - here's an article that briefly explains the other types of cancellations that can happen.

Here's an article about the value of letters, by a woman reflecting on more than 40 years of writing letters to friends and family, with excerpts from letters over the years.

In this case, the person sharing was Gah-Ning Tang, and the person she shared with was children's author Robert Munsch. Several years after her first letter (at age 8), he wrote Where is Gah-Ning?, and 35 years after that first letter they're still corresponding and occasionally visiting, although his health is beginning to interfere with his writing.

This time of year a lot of people are thinking of the mail going to the guy in the red suit at the North Pole. But here's an article about the other place - mail going to and from Antarctica.

Here's an article about Jewish holidays cards and letters being mailed in New York during the early 20th century, including a couple of postcard examples and a comment about mailing early because of the large volume.

Here's an article about a man in India who recently read an assortment of letters that his father had saved in the attic.

As this article mentions, letters can be personal without necessarily being to a person, at least not a human one. And the insides of envelopes can be as useful as the outsides.

That's the name of a new book by Yorkshire author Jean Illingworth, reflecting on a lifetime of writing letters, both personal and political.

Last month we had a blog entry about a postcard mailed in 1953 that finally made its way to Ottawa, and the postmaster's attempt to track down the addressee's next of kin, with the hint that the sender might not still be alive either. But two weeks ago the postmaster found him and returned the card.

With all the woes being reported about mail delivery these days, it might seem like no one really wants to be a mail carrier (although that's obviously not true, or there wouldn't be any!) Apparently, though, it used to be a particularly coveted job, at least among some people. Here's an article reminiscing about one of those.

It's fairly common to come across reports of letters and (especially) postcards that went astray somehow and are finally, decades later, being delivered. Sometimes there's a special effort made to find the person they're addressed to, or their descendants. In this case there's a concerted effort to find descendants or relatives for letters that have been languishing in a museum for 15 years, and somewhere else for another 65 years.

Today is World Letter Writing Day, and in this article from Bahrain about half a dozen people reflect on what letters have meant to them over the years.

Perhaps it should have been sent in a bottle (see the last blog entry), because a postcard mailed in 1953 didn't arrive in 28 years - it took 72. Here's an article about it.

Mail being delivered too quickly is probably not what most people complain about...but if you do, you might consider the message-in-a-bottle method of delivery. Here's an article about one that took 28 years to go about 100 kilometers (about 60 miles).

Periodically we come across an article or blog post suggesting that writing letters can be a thoughtful and valuable change from the brevity and speed of digital communication. Here's a recent one from the University of Cambridge student newspaper.

There's a new science fiction book written in the form of letters, This is How You Lose the Time War, about secret agents in a war writing to each other from opposite sides of timelines. This article discusses how they wrote the letters that comprise the book, and briefly mentions that letters always involve to some extent past selves and future selves.

A few months ago we had a note about a program that connected children as pen pals with dogs. Now here's another species getting in on the action - hedgehogs.

Interested in reading books where letters or postal history play a big part? The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum has an online program about such books. Every three months they host a free Zoom meeting for discussion, and for books featured in the last four years there's a list of discussion topics and further resources.

Here's an article about a local museum's post office exhibition which includes not only the buildings and the delivery but the letters as well, dating from a time when cities sometimes took their names from their post offices rather than the other way around.

Typically when one writes to a famous person, there's either no reply or a form reply sent by a publicity department. There are rare exceptions, of course, when the person addressed actually writes back, and even continues to correspond for some time. We've mentioned a few of them on the blog over the years; here's another, about an aspiring artist who wrote to Georgia O'Keeffe and received an encouraging reply that turned into an ongoing correspondence.

Here's an Australian article lamenting the decline of the letterbox (known in some countries as the mailbox).

...and way more impressive than a drone delivering packages. Half a century ago a new type of Air Mail was tried out, but for some reason never really caught on...

Some articles in recent years have reported or predicted a decline in postcards, but that's not true everywhere. This Wisconsin tourist center finds that visitors want to send postcards, and the center takes care of the stamping and mailing (and gives them out free) to make it easier.

Pen pal programs connecting school students and seniors in senior centers have been around for a long time, but here's one with a twist we haven't heard of before - the seniors use pen names drawn from pop culture (the article says also from literature, but none of the examples given are from there). The article is a little more detailed than many on this subject.

There are often special postcards and special mailing stations at popular tourist destinations, especially ones on islands. But Vanuatu, a country composed of 83 islands, has the distinction of having the first underwater post office, opened 20 years ago this month, as well as a volcano postbox. (There are also underwater postboxes in Japan and Malaysia, and an underwater stamping station in Norway.)

Here's a recent article about the renewed popularity of non-digital communicating, with an emphasis on pens and stationery. It also mentions sending cards and letters, and the difference between the type of thinking process encouraged by writing letters by hand instead of typing.

We came across a YouTube channel about mail recently: "Mail with Mr. ZIP." It's short computer-generated animations with music for kids about a mail carrier's adventures delivering mail - and while packages are included, some of the mail he delivers is actual personal envelopes, in bright colors.

"Letter writers," books of instructions on how to write letters (usually focusing on the etiquette), were popular in the past, especially in the 19th century. But they're still around - here's a recent one that not only includes some thoughts on the modern version of etiquette, but also explores the related paraphernalia and techniques and includes examples from famous writers of the past. A blog review calls it "a very enjoyable read."

Here's an article we came upon recently about a long-term correspondence between a newspaper reporter and a dairy farmer in Pennsylvania.

Over the last few years we've mentioned several articles about surprising animals that interfere with the mail - not just dogs and cats, but seagulls as well. Here's an article about another postal bird problem - a hawk.

Letter writing was a popular topic for the famous painters of the past. Vermeer was an example, and three of his paintingss of women and letters will be on display at the Frick Collection in New York this summer. This article gives more information and large pictures of two of the paintings, and this press release has small pictures of all three.

That's a good description of Lex, whose subscribers send mail all year round. But outside of Lex, there are also observances such as National Card and Letter Writing Month...

For decades there have been programs to match students from different schools - especially in different countries - as pen pals. Even in the digital age the activity continues, though probably more sporadically. Now there's a different twist on the idea - a project that matches young students with a particular breed of dog.

Blogs from people who have continued (or returned to) writing physical letters in the digital age are fairly common. Here are two of them - a longish article aimed at a senior audience although the blog writer is 30 years old, and a shorter one aimed at those who aren't quite 30 yet.

A lot of people collect old postcards for the pictures, and often for the glimpses of the history of the places shown. Here's an article about a different use of old postcards - researching one's genealogy. And in the process, the author of the article became interested in sending postcards as well, particularly through Postcrossing

Sometimes people write fan letters to the authors of books they've read, and most of the time, at best, they get a form letter in reply. But here's an article about a long-term correspondence with a famous author that began with a letter written shortly after a radio interview.

Last month we linked to a project in Humboldt County, California, that uses old postcards to document the area's history. Here's another link to that site, featuring a card whose writer uses a humorous reference to Robert Burns' famous rendering of an old Scottish song for a purpose familiar to most people who've ever written postcards or letters - prompting the recipient for a reply.

Occasionally one reads about mail - usually a postcard, perhaps because they're small and thin - that got lost in the postal system for years and was finally delivered. That's not the only way mail can show up decades later, though. Here's a story about a group of postcards from a century ago that were found at an auction and sent to the descendants of the writer.

The text at this site is not very exciting...but the classic Peanuts cartoons are worth reading, including one that might be the beginning of the "pencil-pal" motif that ran through the strip for a long time.

We often hear that the number of letters people are writing continues to drop - and here's a site with a chart showing a 35% decrease in the U.S. during the 9-year period ending a year ago. After that dim statistic, though, the site goes on to explore the value of snail mail pen pals and mail art, with examples from a group of high school students in California. Ironically, despite the fact that the web is often blamed for the decrease in physical letters, this article mentions that posting pictures of snail mail envelopes online can inspire more people to create physical mail art.

Nowadays the main focus for postal services sometimes seems to be package delivery, or maybe it's junk mail, with the continued decline in personal correspondence by mail. But in other times and places, post offices did everything from reporting the local temperature to performing marriage ceremonies. An exhibit at a museum in New Zealand details some of what the post offices (and the old telephone systems) used to do.

The second full week in January is Universal Letter Writing Week, and this year retired letter carrier Carol Christmas challenges everyone to write a letter - or at least a card or note - each day.

Stories about postcard collections often focus on the pictures on the cards, sometimes from a standpoint of history, especially if the collection is of cards from a particular location or a particular time period. Other times they focus on the content of what people wrote on the cards - here's one of those.