Texting in the 1800s

I do enjoy postal history from the 1860's - so you will periodically find that I put things I find interesting out onto our blog.  Perhaps some of you will enjoy them as well.  At the very least, it gives the farmer a chance to pursue and share things that are not directly related to the farm.

In this electronic/wireless age we take the ability to communicate instantly for granted.  In the 1860's, if you wanted to 'text' someone overseas, it took some time.  For example, a letter to England typically took 10 days to cross the Atlantic.  So, a very quick response to an inquiry would easily take 25 days to receive.

Here is a page from my collection with two envelopes sent from the United States to Europe.  Both of these have slits cut into them that were used to fumigate the envelopes.  These were cut open during a cholera outbreak in an effort to reduce the spread of the disease.  It was known at that time that the mail wasn't carrying the disease, but people felt better if it seemed efforts were being taken to protect the public.

If you want to read the details on the page below, the text will be bigger if you select the image and open in a second window.

If you look carefully, you can see both slits on the top envelope, for display, I have placed a white strip of paper into the slits to highlight where they are.  There is a single slit on the second envelope.

There are instances of mail being disinfected in the United States by fumigation, or sometimes soaking, in various ways to prevent the spread of disease as late as the 1920's.  Even recently, we have seen disinfection of mail using irradiation in response to the mailing of anthrax.