THE STORY OF THE U.S. MAIL

[Music] [Applause] [Music] the vast job of handling the mails is a mystery folks simply drop their mail in the neighborhood mailbox and don't give it another thought they just have faith that it will be delivered to the addresse within a day or so anywhere in the United States or the whole world for that matter your post office has given such Dependable service for so long that speed and accuracy are taken for granted we're glad for this confidence but today we can't take it for granted any longer let's face it our method of handling the mail is oldfashioned our population today is nearly 180 million and it's growing so rapidly that by 1985 we will have about 250 million people to serve by 1985 our suburbs will at least double in size which means that we will have to cover much more ground to deliver your mail we're building a million new homes every year and by 1985 we'll be building two and A4 million new ones each year every one of which will need regular mail service what's more today America has over four and A4 million businesses and by 1985 it'll have more than 6 million each will depend upon the mail service to help it succeed now let's look at our mail needs another way our USA occupies only 150th of the globe but we handle nearly 2/3 of all the maale in the world over 61 billion pieces each year these are happy facts for our people but they create real problems for your Postal Service because of this growth and prosperity we must handle more male than ever before with a postal plant that is already bursting at the [Music] Seas starting in 1953 the management of your post office Department began an aggressive program to modernize the handling of your mail and other postal operations I want to show you some of these modern machines but you'll understand them better if First We Take a look at some of the outmoded operations still in use today just look at the crowded conditions under which these clerks must work certainly we urgently need improvements here and many of our post offices were great edifices in their day but they were designed more for Victorian Elegance than for modern convenience this old Lobby is a good example of wasted space it's a Drey place in winter it's likely to be poorly heated and in summer it's badly ventilated and behind the lobby we still sort Letters by hand in much the same manner as they did in Ben Franklin's day and when we're crowded like this your mail is slowed down and money is wasted on the average your letter must be handled at least 17 times each time by hand this is slow and tedious parcel post problems are severe too clerks must read each address throw the package into the right hamper workers must push the hampers by hand then lift each package by hand to send it on its way again slow and tedious now you know that our big bottleneck is is speeding the mail into through and out of post offices but we are making real progress and improvement in our determination to speed up your mail for example here is the two-story transforma which sorts letters with five trained operators this machine can sort 15,000 of your letters each hour and do it hour after hour and day after day it doesn't get tired clerks here can sort to 300 destinations compared comp this with a hand sorting clerk who can only sort to about 84 destinations at a time the Transformer is faster and [Music] sure here is another new way to speed the mail it's called the mail flow system we've installed it in Detroit to move mail mechanically between areas on working floors eliminating disorder early Bly confusion and a lot of costly walking and manual hand Ling of mail the conveyors are electrically controlled and move the mail to the clerk who's ready to sort it incidentally the new trays weigh less than a pound the old ones weighed 4 1/2 lb let's suppose it's dispatch time for Arizona the dispatcher simply calls Arizona Arizona into the loud speaker the clerks then take the mail from their Arizona pigeon holes and place it on the conveyor belt which speeds it on its way and after some 50 years we are at last mechanizing the handling of parcel post too now in Baltimore conveyor belts bring the packages to a keyboard operator who reads the address and then punches the right Keys an electronic eye measures the parcel operates these patterns your parcel post packages are accurately and swiftly pushed into the proper shoot [Music] now these new machines are only the beginning of our modernization program other machines to do the job better and faster are in the process of development but not all of our new Machinery is inside the post offices we're making improvements outside too let's look in on your old friend and neighbor the postman who calls on you day after day rain or shine by regulation he is limited to 35 lb of mail in that sack on his shoulder yet he has to deliver much more than that every day so we use storage boxes we call them relay boxes along the way the letter carriers can then reload their shoulder sacks at these buckes but postal trucks must load the relay buckes and other trucks have to deliver your parcel post packages along the same route the carrier walks because the packages are too big too heavy for him to carry in his shoulder sack this means it takes two trucks two drivers and a foot carrier to serve a mail route to help solve this problem the new mailster has been developed with the mailster your Postman can carry up to 500 lb of mail and parcel post packages this speeds your deliveries and your mail is better protected from bad weather and so is your carrier and here's another way we are taking the load off the mailman with this Satchel cart he can handle two bags of Mals instead of one and they're on Wheels not on his back among our most important improvements are these new modern buildings functional beautiful specially designed to serve as post offices you will find the interior pleasing too there are open counters similar to those in modern Banks replacing the old barred Windows whether the post office counters are open or closed this Lobby is always open so that you can serve yourself day or night Sundays or holidays here's a new device that helps eliminate those tiresome waiting lines to buy stamps you simply deposit your coin and dial the denomination on the number you want the machine returns your exact change too if you rent a lock box you can get your mail even when the post office is closed and I know you'll be pleased to know that new ballpoint Pens have replaced old scratchy these are some of the ways we are trying to make your mailman's job easier and your Postal Service [Music] better and here's a way you business people can help you simply sort your outgoing mail into three piles local out of town and air mail special delivery we call this Patron separation your post office can give you these local and outof town labels and here's something new we're introducing through our larger post offices to help heavy mailers we call this pressure sensitized tape it won't stick to your clothes to your desk to your letters but it will stick to itself like this see how easy it is to use here's another tip mail your letters two or even three or four times during a day doing this helps relieve the heavy load that backs up in your post office after 6:00 p.m. much of it missing the best con ction to other cities so we ask all patrons to follow this advice separate local from out of town tie bundles securely with twine or the new tape you just saw use Zone numbers and above all mail early and often we will continue to work with the National Bureau of standards and leading research and engineering firms on methods and machines that will speed your mail even faster than those you've just seen right now in various Laboratories we are building and testing some of these machines of tomorrow for example this is an experimental automatic culing machine which separates ordinary letter size mail from parcels and other offsize items such as extra large letters Hotel keys and so forth we must make this separation since the facing and cancelling machines can handle only normal letter size pieces and here's the next step after the culling machine has collected the ordinary May in a bin or stacked it vertically in trays this is the experimental automatic cancellor facer regardless of whether the letter enters the machine upside down or right side up or facing forward or backward an electronic eye finds the stamp the next component automatically cancels the stamp and postmarks the envelope letters move through these machines at the rate of 30,000 per hour cancelled letters held in trays then are ready for the next operation by this experimental machine here an electronic scanner automatically reads typed and printed addresses for 18 different cities or states and here is a code control automatic letter sorting system we have under test at another laboratory this one can be expanded to sort to 1,000 different destinations this machine greatly reduces the number of times a letter has to be sorted by hand the operator reads the address on the letter punches the right keys to code that address onto the envelope then the machine takes over and by reading that code sorts the letter properly here it is reading the codes and sorting letters there is practically no limit to the number of bins to which it can sort but for testing purposes this experimental machine uses only a few and we are working on many other machines some of these are about ready to leave the laboratory for testing under actual work conditions in a post office others are still being improved by the research engineers while still more are in the idea stage for new equipment in the near future so you can see that with what we already have in some post offices and what we are developing and planning for tomorrow in Research Laboratories we are making very real progress toward our goal of next day delivery of your letters between any two cities anywhere in the United States [Music] [Applause]