An American Postal Portrait

An American Postal Portrait PDF Author: United States Postal Service
Publisher: Collins Reference
ISBN: 9780060199005
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The mail has a powerful connection with the American people. Who hasn't shared the experience of waiting eagerly for a letter to arrive or felt the rush of excitement at hearing footsteps near the door signaling the arrival of a delivery? This first-ever photographic history of the United States Postal Service pays tribute to the everyday people who have worked through rain, sleet, and snow to bring mail to American families. In over 200 rarely seen photographs, beginning with the advent of photography in 1860 and continuing to the present, An American Postal Portrait celebrates the fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, the innovative technological accomplishments, and the unique imprint the Postal Service workforce has made on American life. Starting with the earliest Post Office outposts on the remote western frontier, the photographs highlight the great events, ideas, and inventions of the past century and a half--from mail delivery by stagecoach and horseback to the rapid utilization of the railroads and airplanes to the sophisticated sorting machines automating the processing of mail today. Captivating and unforgettable, these pages trace our nation's progress from its rural and isolated past to the high-tech, information-driven present, revealing a Postal Service that has helped to bind our growing nation together--one that continues to march in unison with America into the future. Compiled from the collection of the United States Postal Service, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and other sources, An American Postal Portrait is a well-deserved tribute to our nation's foremost communications institution and the enduring American spirit. For more than 200 years, the United States Postal Service has provided the American people with a secure and efficient delivery connection that binds our nation together. Today, postal employees handle approximately 41 percent of the world's volume--more than 650 million pieces every day, 3.9 billion pieces every week--delivering to a total of 130 million households and businesses. The United States Postal Service is the universal gateway to the American household.

An American Postal Portrait

An American Postal Portrait PDF Author: United States Postal Service
Publisher: Collins Reference
ISBN: 9780060199005
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
The mail has a powerful connection with the American people. Who hasn't shared the experience of waiting eagerly for a letter to arrive or felt the rush of excitement at hearing footsteps near the door signaling the arrival of a delivery? This first-ever photographic history of the United States Postal Service pays tribute to the everyday people who have worked through rain, sleet, and snow to bring mail to American families. In over 200 rarely seen photographs, beginning with the advent of photography in 1860 and continuing to the present, An American Postal Portrait celebrates the fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, the innovative technological accomplishments, and the unique imprint the Postal Service workforce has made on American life. Starting with the earliest Post Office outposts on the remote western frontier, the photographs highlight the great events, ideas, and inventions of the past century and a half--from mail delivery by stagecoach and horseback to the rapid utilization of the railroads and airplanes to the sophisticated sorting machines automating the processing of mail today. Captivating and unforgettable, these pages trace our nation's progress from its rural and isolated past to the high-tech, information-driven present, revealing a Postal Service that has helped to bind our growing nation together--one that continues to march in unison with America into the future. Compiled from the collection of the United States Postal Service, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and other sources, An American Postal Portrait is a well-deserved tribute to our nation's foremost communications institution and the enduring American spirit. For more than 200 years, the United States Postal Service has provided the American people with a secure and efficient delivery connection that binds our nation together. Today, postal employees handle approximately 41 percent of the world's volume--more than 650 million pieces every day, 3.9 billion pieces every week--delivering to a total of 130 million households and businesses. The United States Postal Service is the universal gateway to the American household.

An American Postal Portrait

An American Postal Portrait PDF Author: Patrick McCabe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780756794088
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
This first-ever photographic history of the U.S. Postal Service pays tribute to the everyday people who have worked through the rain, sleet, & snow to bring mail to American families. In over 200 rarely seen photographs, beginning with the advent of photography in 1860 & continuing to the present, this book celebrates the fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, the innovative technological accomplishment, & the unique imprint the Postal Service workforce has made on American life. Captivating & unforgettable, these pages trace our nation's progress from its rural & isolated past to the high-tech, information-driven present, revealing a Postal Service that has helped to bind our growing nation together.

Neither Snow Nor Rain

Neither Snow Nor Rain PDF Author: Devin Leonard
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802189970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
“[The] book makes you care what happens to its main protagonist, the U.S. Postal Service itself. And, as such, it leaves you at the end in suspense.” —USA Today Founded by Benjamin Franklin, the United States Postal Service was the information network that bound far-flung Americans together, and yet, it is slowly vanishing. Critics say it is slow and archaic. Mail volume is down. The workforce is shrinking. Post offices are closing. In Neither Snow Nor Rain, journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over seventy percent of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology, from mobile post offices on railroads and airmail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers. Neither Snow Nor Rain is a rich, multifaceted history, full of remarkable characters, from the stamp-collecting FDR, to the revolutionaries who challenged USPS’s monopoly on mail, to the renegade union members who brought the system—and the country—to a halt in the 1970s. “Delectably readable . . . Leonard’s account offers surprises on almost every other page . . . [and] delivers both the triumphs and travails with clarity, wit and heart.” —Chicago Tribune

How the Post Office Created America

How the Post Office Created America PDF Author: Winifred Gallagher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399564039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A masterful history of a long underappreciated institution, How the Post Office Created America examines the surprising role of the postal service in our nation’s political, social, economic, and physical development. The founders established the post office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time, it was the U.S. government’s largest and most important endeavor—indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind thirteen quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen—a radical idea that appalled Europe’s great powers. America’s uniquely democratic post powerfully shaped its lively, argumentative culture of uncensored ideas and opinions and made it the world’s information and communications superpower with astonishing speed. Winifred Gallagher presents the history of the post office as America’s own story, told from a fresh perspective over more than two centuries. The mandate to deliver the mail—then “the media”—imposed the federal footprint on vast, often contested parts of the continent and transformed a wilderness into a social landscape of post roads and villages centered on post offices. The post was the catalyst of the nation’s transportation grid, from the stagecoach lines to the airlines, and the lifeline of the great migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It enabled America to shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy and to develop the publishing industry, the consumer culture, and the political party system. Still one of the country’s two major civilian employers, the post was the first to hire women, African Americans, and other minorities for positions in public life. Starved by two world wars and the Great Depression, confronted with the country’s increasingly anti-institutional mind-set, and struggling with its doubled mail volume, the post stumbled badly in the turbulent 1960s. Distracted by the ensuing modernization of its traditional services, however, it failed to transition from paper mail to email, which prescient observers saw as its logical next step. Now the post office is at a crossroads. Before deciding its future, Americans should understand what this grand yet overlooked institution has accomplished since 1775 and consider what it should and could contribute in the twenty-first century. Gallagher argues that now, more than ever before, the imperiled post office deserves this effort, because just as the founders anticipated, it created forward-looking, communication-oriented, idea-driven America.

On the Farm

On the Farm PDF Author: Aliza Eliazarov
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 198485741X
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A collection of moving and soulful portraits of beloved farm animals, alongside surprising facts, entertaining anecdotes, and captivating histories of these heritage breeds on American farms. “The beauty and breadth of heritage animal breeds is on full display in this delightful and gorgeous book.”—Isabella Rossellini, actress and author of My Chickens and I Animal lovers, homesteaders, eco-conscious consumers, and fans of beautiful photography alike will cherish the charm of On the Farm’s stunning portraits and stories. With over 150 photographs, renowned animal photographer Aliza Eliazarov invites us to take a closer look at the animal breeds taking center stage in the regenerative farming movement. Along with fun facts about the domesticated animals who have shaped and changed our world—goats, sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, llamas, alpacas, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and farm dogs—On the Farm features sometimes quirky, sometimes harrowing personal tales of amazing animals. Meet Bilbo, the donkey in love with truck tires; Kurt, the diminutive Angora goat with a miraculous birth story;and Princess Peppermint, an anxious pig with a taste for cocktails. The focus on rare and heritage breeds will enlighten and inform you about the astonishing variety of livestock and poultry, as well as the impact that the loss of this biodiversity is having on global food security. Equal parts fine art and field guide, shot entirely on location at small farms and homesteads, On the Farm delivers us to the pastoral with an enjoyable meditation on the animals that civilization has grown alongside.

An American Portrait

An American Portrait PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Modern Portrait Poem

The Modern Portrait Poem PDF Author: Frances Dickey
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813932696
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
In The Modern Portrait Poem, Frances Dickey recovers the portrait as a poetic genre from the 1860s through the 1920s. Combining literary and art history, she examines the ways Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Swinburne, and J. M. Whistler transformed the genre of portraiture in both painting and poetry. She then shows how their new ways of looking at and thinking about the portrait subject migrated across the Atlantic to influence Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, E. E. Cummings, and other poets. These poets creatively exposed the Victorian portrait to new influences ranging from Manet’s realism to modern dance, Futurism, and American avant-garde art. They also condensed, expanded, and combined the genre with other literary modes including epitaph, pastoral, and Bildungsroman. Dickey challenges the tendency to view Modernism as a break with the past and as a transition from aural to visual orientation. She argues that the Victorian poets and painters inspired the new generation of Modernists to test their vision of Aestheticism against their perception of modernity and the relationship between image and text. In bridging historical periods, national boundaries, and disciplinary distinctions, Dickey makes a case for the continuity of this genre over the Victorian/Modernist divide and from Britain to the United States in a time of rapid change in the arts.

How the Post Office Created America

How the Post Office Created America PDF Author: Winifred Gallagher
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143130064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
“’The history of its Post Office is nothing less than the story of America,’ Ms. Gallagher’s opening sentence declares, and in this lively book she makes the case well.”—Wall Street Journal A masterful history of a long underappreciated institution, How the Post Office Created America examines the surprising role of the postal service in our nation’s political, social, economic, and physical development. The founders established the post office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time, it was the U.S. government’s largest and most important endeavor—indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind thirteen quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen—a radical idea that appalled Europe’s great powers. America’s uniquely democratic post powerfully shaped its lively, argumentative culture of uncensored ideas and opinions and made it the world’s information and communications superpower with astonishing speed. Winifred Gallagher presents the history of the post office as America’s own story, told from a fresh perspective over more than two centuries. The mandate to deliver the mail—then “the media”—imposed the federal footprint on vast, often contested parts of the continent and transformed a wilderness into a social landscape of post roads and villages centered on post offices. The post was the catalyst of the nation’s transportation grid, from the stagecoach lines to the airlines, and the lifeline of the great migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It enabled America to shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy and to develop the publishing industry, the consumer culture, and the political party system. Still one of the country’s two major civilian employers, the post was the first to hire women, African Americans, and other minorities for positions in public life. Starved by two world wars and the Great Depression, confronted with the country’s increasingly anti-institutional mind-set, and struggling with its doubled mail volume, the post stumbled badly in the turbulent 1960s. Distracted by the ensuing modernization of its traditional services, however, it failed to transition from paper mail to email, which prescient observers saw as its logical next step. Now the post office is at a crossroads. Before deciding its future, Americans should understand what this grand yet overlooked institution has accomplished since 1775 and consider what it should and could contribute in the twenty-first century. Gallagher argues that now, more than ever before, the imperiled post office deserves this effort, because just as the founders anticipated, it created forward-looking, communication-oriented, idea-driven America.

Mailing May

Mailing May PDF Author: Michael O. Tunnell
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064437248
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
Nowadays it's no big deal or a girl to travel seventy-five miles. But when Charlotte May Pierstorff wanted to cross seventy-five miles of Idaho mountains to see her grandma in 1914, it was a very big deal indeed. There was no highway except the railroad, and a train ticket would have cost her parents a full day's pay. Here is the true story of how May got to visit her grandma, thanks to her won spunk, her father's ingenuity, and the U.S. mail. 00-01 CA Young Reader Medal Masterlist and 01 Colorado Children's Book Award (Pic. Bk Cat.)

Black Is the Body

Black Is the Body PDF Author: Emily Bernard
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0451493036
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.” In these twelve deeply personal, connected essays, Bernard details the experience of growing up black in the south with a family name inherited from a white man, surviving a random stabbing at a New Haven coffee shop, marrying a white man from the North and bringing him home to her family, adopting two children from Ethiopia, and living and teaching in a primarily white New England college town. Each of these essays sets out to discover a new way of talking about race and of telling the truth as the author has lived it. "Black Is the Body is one of the most beautiful, elegant memoirs I've ever read. It's about race, it's about womanhood, it's about friendship, it's about a life of the mind, and also a life of the body. But more than anything, it's about love. I can't praise Emily Bernard enough for what she has created in these pages." --Elizabeth Gilbert WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD PRIZE FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PROSE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWS ONE OF MAUREEN CORRIGAN'S 10 UNPUTDOWNABLE READS OF THE YEAR