Foot-prints of a Letter Carrier or, a History of the World's Correspondence

Rees, James, 1802-1885Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7
Word count
756K words
Chapters
76

Tags

English Originals History and Culture Letter DeliveryTransportation ChangesFolk ArchivesSocial ObservationCareer ExplorationCommunication EvolutionPostal HistoryHumanistic CareDocumentary NarrativePopular Narrative

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Foot-prints of a letter carrier; or, a history of the world's correspondece by ReesAuthor: Rees, James, 1802-1885,Language: English, Class: HE: Social sciences: Transportation and communications, Release Date: Oct 24, 2014

Editor's review

Written by nineteenth-century American postal worker James Rees, this book surveys the history of world communications and postal development from the perspective of a letter carrier, and belongs to the popular literature on the history of transport and communications. It links postal routes and letter delivery with local communication customs, combining an industry insider's observations with an account of the evolution of postal institutions. It is suitable for readers interested in postal history, communication history, and the history of everyday technology. The Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book is easy to search and cite, but the original was written long ago, so some facts and views should be checked against modern research. It can be read as an introductory work on communication history, alongside works on postal institutional history or the social history of technology, taking care to distinguish the author's personal observations from broader historical narrative.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents first to grasp the author's narrative thread, then select chapters on postal institutions and the evolution of postal routes by theme.
  2. Compare with modern works on communication or postal history to verify facts and dates.
  3. Note details about letter-delivery customs as material for the social history of everyday life.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
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  11. 11
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  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76

FAQ

Is this book a complete scholarly history of communications? No. It was written by a nineteenth-century postal worker and reflects an industry insider's perspective and popular style; its coverage and personal observations are limited. It is better suited as an introduction or supplementary reader on communication history than as a systematic scholarly history.
What should be kept in mind when using the Project Gutenberg e-book? This is a public-domain e-book, convenient for searching and citation, but it generally lacks modern scholarly annotation and updated research. When citing specific facts, readers should check them against contemporary postal history sources rather than treating them directly as the latest research findings.
How is the book's content related to the author's occupation? The author, James Rees, was himself a letter carrier, so the book often observes postal institutions and letter-delivery customs from a mail carrier's perspective. It has the feel of an industry insider's experience but may lean toward personal observations rather than macro-level institutional analysis.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Rees, James, 1802-1885 Author · American · 1802–1885

James Rees (1802–1885) was an American playwright and theater historian. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life are difficult to verify; he is chiefly known to later generations for compiling The Dramatic Authors of America. He also left another work, Foot-prints of a Letter Carrier; or, A History of the World's Correspondence, whose title indicates a subject involving the history of the postal service and communication, showing the author's interest in everyday correspondence and documentary records. His two kinds of writings—one a roster of dramatic figures, the other a history of correspondence—both share the character of organizing historical materials and preserving documents, suggesting that his writing leaned toward historical arrangement and compilation rather than original literary creation. Though few in number, his works offer useful reference points for the study of early American theater and the history of communication.