Posties, Letterboxes and Postal Services in Illustration

In or around June 1995 human character changed again. Or rather, it began to undergo a metamorphosis that is still not complete, but is profound – and troubling, not least because it is hardly noted. When I think about, say, 1995, or whenever the last moment was before most of us were on the internet and had mobile phones, it seems like a hundred years ago. Letters came once a day, predictably, in the hands of the postal carrier. News came in three flavours – radio, television, print – and at appointed hours. Some of us even had a newspaper delivered every morning.
In the Day of the Postman
Rebecca Solnit

1883, Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) London Town back cover

Walter Crane 1845 – 1915 London Town The Shoeblack Brigade

Septimus E Scott ‘Postcards Home’ 1954

James Clarke Waite – The Widow’s Consolation

1960 post office by Gordon Stewart Cameron

Mommies by Lonnie C. Carton, illustrated by Leslie Jacobs (1960) postie

A child’s WW1 era writing pad Royal Mail

Ladybird Easy-reading Book People At Work The Postman and the Postal Service

The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters by Enid Blyton modern paperback

Seven Little Postmen

Liberty Magazine April 28 1934 postman

Menemsha Post Office, Massachusetts, by Stevan Dohanos (1907-1994) 1950

Maxwell House Coffee 1950 art by James Bingham ‘Everybody knows the sign of good coffee’

FEODORA (1947) Jan Goeting

The following illustrations are from a 1952 children’s book called The Little Mailman of Bayberry Lane. Post war children’s books tended to be very cosy and calming. This picture book is a good example.

Fernand Le Quesne post

The poignant–and funny–story of a girl trying to be brave and find her place in the world after she’s sent to live with scheming relatives.

Right before Wavie’s mother died, she gave Wavie a list of instructions to help her find her way in life, including this one: Be brave, Wavie B! You got as much right to a good life as anybody, so find it! But little did Wavie’s mom know that events would conspire to bring Wavie back to Conley Hollow, the Appalachian hometown her mother tried to leave behind. Now Wavie’s back in the Holler–and in the clutches of her Aunt Samantha Rose. Life with the devilish Samantha Rose and her revolting cousin Hoyt is no picnic, but there’s real pleasure in sleeping in her own mother’s old bed, and making friends with the funny, easygoing kids her aunt calls the “neighborhood-no-accounts.” With their help, Wavie just might be able to prevent her aunt from becoming her legal guardian, and find her courage and place in the world.