The Mail: A Story of the United States Postal Service 1938 Miller Productions

more at http://quickfound.net/

'Early airmail operations... Betty Barton of Los Angeles, with her mother's help, writes a letter to her aunt Myrna in Scranton, Pennsylvania.'

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airmails_of_the_United_States

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Airmails of the United States or U.S. Air Mail was a service class of the United States Post Office Department and its successor United States Postal Service delivering mail flown by aircraft within the United States and its possessions and territories. Letters and parcels intended for air mail service were marked as "Via Air Mail" (or equivalent), appropriately franked, and assigned to any then existing class or sub-class of the Air Mail service.

After an intermittent series of government sponsored experimental flights between 1911 and 1918, domestic U.S. Air Mail was formally established as a new class of service by the Post Office Department on May 15, 1918, with the inauguration of the Washington–Philadelphia–New York route for which the first of special Air Mail stamps were issued.

The exclusive transportation of flown mails by government operated aircraft came to an end in 1926 under the provisions of the "Kelly Act" which required the USPOD to transition to contracting with commercial air carriers to fly them over Contract Air Mail (CAM) routes to be established by the Department, although during the first half of 1934 the U.S. Army Air Forces temporarily took over the routes — with disastrous results — when all CAM contracts were summarily cancelled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt owing to the Air Mail Scandal. Domestic air mail became obsolete in 1975, and international air mail in 1995, as distinct extra fee services when the USPS began transporting all First Class long distance intercity mail by air on a routine basis...

The first scheduled U.S. Air Mail service began on May 15, 1918, using six converted United States Army Air Service Curtiss JN-4HM "Jenny" biplanes flown by Army pilots under the command of Major Reuben H. Fleet and operating on a route between Washington, D.C. (Washington Polo Grounds) and New York City (Belmont Park) with an intermediate stop in Philadelphia (Bustleton Field). Among those who were on hand for the departure of the first flight from Washington, D.C., were President Woodrow Wilson, U.S. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt...

Scheduled Transcontinental Air Mail service flown between New York (Hazelhurst Field, L.I.) and San Francisco (Marina Field ) began on September 8, 1920, over a route laid out in July and August by Eddie Rickenbacker and Bert Acosta who had helped pilot the first experimental through flight carrying about 100 letters which landed at Durant Field located at 82nd Ave and E. 14th St. in East Oakland. The transcontinental mails were originally flown only during daylight hours while being entrained at night, although on February 22, 1921, a nighttime leg on this route (Omaha to Chicago) was flown for the first time with Jack Knight as the pilot. The first daily Transcontinental Air Mail service involving both day and night flying over the entire route was opened on July 1, 1924, which reduced the time of the trip from more than 70 hours to a schedule of 34 hours 46 minutes Westbound, and 32 hours 3 minutes Eastbound.. In addition to New York and San Francisco, the route included thirteen intermediate stops where mails were exchanged and aircrew relieved. This was accomplished at airfields located at Bellefonte (PA), Cleveland (OH), Bryan, (OH), Chicago (IL), Iowa City (IA), Omaha (NE), North Platte (NE), Cheyenne (WY), Rawlins (WY), Rock Springs (WY), Salt Lake City (UT), Elko (NV) and Reno (NV)...

Air Mail as a distinct service was effectively ended within the United States on October 10, 1975, however, when all domestic intercity First Class mails began to be transported by air whenever practical and/or expeditious at the normal First Class rate. Domestic Air Mail as a separate class of service (and its rate structure) was formally eliminated by the successor to the Post Office Department, the United States Postal Service (USPS) on May 1, 1977...