Women Mail Carriers Boer War and WW1

liverpool annie · Nov 8, 2009

I found these snippets interesting .... in America ... I can't find out anything about Britain !!

Only Single Women Need Apply

On November 24, 1902, Postmaster General Henry C. Payne ordered that effective December 1st - a classified woman employee in the postal service who shall change her name by marriage will not be reappointed.

According to an article in the November 25, 1902, issue of The Washington Post, Postmaster General Payne thought that after marriage women “should stay at home and attend to their household duties.” The policy affected both rural carriers and city carriers; both types of positions were “classified,” meaning they came under Civil Service rules. It also affected village carriers at second-class Post Offices, clerks at large Post Offices, and, beginning in 1908, some small-town postmasters.

Although some exceptions were made – notably during World War I – the policy remained in effect until November 1921. A similar policy was adopted by the federal government during the Great Depression. The Economy Act of 1932 decreed that federally-employed spouses of federal employees would be the first to be dismissed in the event of a reduction in force. This provision was repealed in 1937.

An article in the March 3, 1905, issue of The [Atlanta] Constitution, described the near-tragic accident of another rural carrier, Miss Etta E. Bolton of Mobile, Alabama - She was driving her mail wagon across a swollen stream over a rickety bridge, when, just as she reached the middle, the structure gave way . . . . . . With great presence of mind and exceptional pluck she managed to extricate herself from the debris and the struggling horse and gain the shore. The wagon, horse and contents of the vehicle were doing their best to make an end to all, but Miss Bolton plunged again into the torrent and worked like a heroine of old to save the property. Nearly exhausted, she finally gained the bank, having saved every sack and pouch of mail . . .

In 1907, three of the four rural carriers at Boise, Idaho, and two of the nine rural carriers at Los Angeles, California, were women. On December 8, 1907, the Los Angeles Sunday Times printed an interview with one Los Angeles carrier, Mrs. Sarah George, titled "Life Not All Cake and Ale: Woman Mail Carrier Has Her Share of Trouble." George's greatest complaint was of rough roads. She explained that one road was “so narrow that two [horse] teams cannot pass in safety at any part of it,” and another was practically a swamp – “if you once get into that mud hole, all the king's horses and all the king's men can hardly get you out.” Despite the challenges, George loved her job, avowing that she owed "her health, if not her life, to her occupation in the open."

Flying the Mail by 1913

Mail was first carried experimentally by airplane at aviation meets, fairs, and exhibitions nationwide in 1911. The first woman pilot to carry mail at such an event was famed aviatrix Katherine Stinson, who dropped mailbags from her plane at the Montana State Fair in September 1913. Stinson also was the first woman to carry regular airmail. In the spring of 1918, when regular airmail service began, Stinson flew an airmail trip from Chicago to New York. She had hoped to make the trip in one day, to break the world's nonstop distance record, but a lack of fuel forced her to land Library of Congress photo near Binghamton, New York, on the evening of May Katherine Stinson coming in for a landing, May 1916 - The field she landed on was so muddy it tripped her plane, toppling it, smashing the propeller, and damaging a wing. Before crash-landing, she had flown 783 miles in about 11 hours, breaking two American records – for distance and for endurance (she had set the latter record herself the previous year). Though Stinson was uninjured, her plane needed repairs; she completed the remainder of the trip on June 1 in about three hours.

The first known woman to regularly fly the mail was Miss Helen Richey, who co-piloted a contract route between Washington, D.C., and Detroit beginning December 31, 1934. Richey, a veteran pilot with 1,000 hours of flying time when she was hired, had competed against eight other pilots for the job, which required her to co-pilot a round trip every other day, including at night

First City Carriers, 1917

The first women known to have delivered mail in U.S. cities were appointed during World War I, when manpower shortages induced the Post Office Department to test women as city letter carriers. On November 6, 1917, Mrs. Permelia S. Campbell and Mrs. Nellie M. McGrath began delivering mail to customers in Washington, D.C., in the vicinity of Union Station. Campbell, about 40 years old, was the widow of a letter carrier and had four children to support. McGrath, in her early 30s, had two young sons. McGrath’s husband, who had also been a letter carrier, was serving in the military. Washington’s postmaster, Merritt O. Chance, explained: This is the first time in the record of the Post Office Department of the United States that women have been used for carrying mail on routes in a city. It must be considered more or less in the nature of an experiment !

The two women were appointed as temporary substitute letter carriers. Although their service was “highly satisfactory,” after about two weeks they were taken off their routes and were offered “indoor” work in the Post Office.

On November 23, 1917, First Assistant Postmaster General John C. Koons asked the postmasters of eight of the largest U.S. Post Offices to also conduct 15-day tests of women as letter carriers, to prepare for a future possible wartime necessity. Koons chose December as the test month because hundreds of extra carriers were normally employed then anyway, to help with Christmas mail. In December 1917, dozens of women delivered mail experimentally in Chicago, New York, and St. Louis. In August 1918, twenty-five women took the Civil Service carrier exam in Washington, D.C., with the understanding that they would be offered positions only if no men were available. On September 5, 1918, Miss Irma G. Craig, who had scored the highest, became the first regularly-appointed woman letter carrier in Washington, D.C.

In 1918, women also delivered mail in other cities, including Detroit, Michigan, and Portland, Oregon. Although most of the women gave up their jobs to returning veterans after the war, in at least one city women continued delivering mail. Miss Anna McDonald of Anaconda, Montana, delivered mail for 20 years, from September 1918 to about December 1938.
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liverpool annie · Nov 9, 2009

Looks like Mr Koons had a full load on his plate !!

Speeding Up the Mails for American Soldiers; Every Week 450,000 Letters Go to France, and Lack of Ships Has Complicated the Postal Problem--Cantonment Service Systematized Speeding Up the Mails for American Soldiers

IN recent dispatches from the American front in France there was one paragraph to the effect that the only complaint our soldiers made was that when they returned to camp from the firing line trenches there was no American mail awaiting them.

The New York Times Magazine, Page SM5 November 18 1917

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70D16F83A5E11738DDDA10994D9415B878DF1D3

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Women Mail Carriers Boer War and WW1

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