In social networks there are publications, the authors of which claim: before the First World War, the Americans glued stamps to children and sent them by mail. We checked the reliability of such messages.

For several years, Internet users have published a photograph of the beginning of the last century, which states the postman and the child in his work bag. Signatures to them vary (and sometimes even contradict each other): it can be a capacious “US legislation of the United States allowed the sending of children by mail until 1913” or rather voluminous stories about how to send children, at what tariff for this was paid and what responsibility were the employees of the American postal service.

Similar posts can be found in numerous publics on VKontakte, among which "5 interesting facts" (4.4 million subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), "Do you know?" (1.6 million), "It is interesting to know!" (1 million), #Tech (654 000), "Interesting facts" (256,000), "History of mankind" (177 000) and "Amazing world | Science and facts " (144,000). This statement is also popular in Telegram - examples are found in channels "World of facts" (304,000 subscribers), "Factorium" (231,000) and "Historical photos" (133,000). Similar publications can be found in Facebook*, Twitter, "Zen" and other social networks.

Let's start with photographs, which together or separately use Internet users to illustrate the statement of the legality of sending small Americans by mail. There are two of them. Both can be found in article, published on the website of the National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian Institute - one of the largest scientific and cultural centers in the United States. In both cases, photos are signed as comic (it is even claimed that one of them is the most popular in Collections Museum on the Flickr website). Similar assessment expressed In 2020, the curator of the Museum Lynn Heidelbo.

However, is it possible that, despite the incorrect interpretation of photographs of Internet users, the basis of their publications is the correct information? 1913 in many posts in social networks is mentioned for a reason. It is then that the US Postal Service Beginning Take parcels significantly exceeding the weight of postal correspondence. In other words, until 1913, the Americans could not send a parcel in principle, and not just with children inside.

The maximum package weight first Installed At the mark of 11 pounds (about 5 kg), then gradually increased to 50 pounds (about 22.5 kg). At the same time, the US postal service did not prescribe in detail the requirements for departures, and some addressees decided that thanks to this new and rather cheap service, you can use it very freely. For example, in Utah they thus tried Transfer At a distance of 127 miles (about 200 km) 40 tons (!) Bricks with separate parcel (this turned out to be four times cheaper than transporting wagons, but as a result, the post office refused to deliver bricks).

This loophole was noticed not only by people who needed to transport building materials from one city to another. January 17, 1913 (two and a half weeks after the start of the US postal service with parcels) The New York Times newspaper told About an unusual letter directed by the head of the USA. The addressee from Georgia said that he has no children, but he is discussing adoption with correspondents from Pennsylvania. Either in a joke, or seriously, he was interested in how to “pack” the child when delivering by mail. The chief postmaster replied that since children “do not fall into the category of bees and beetles” (the only animals that could be sent in this way), he cannot help the author of the letter. By the way, a number of publications in social networks say that children were sent at a tariff for chickens or a tariff for chickens, but their allowed Send by mail only in 1918.

Two weeks later in The New York Times appeared A note that in the state of Ohio the child was still sent by mail. True, everything was not as scary as it sounds with this formulation: the postman named Vernon O. Little received from the parents of the baby weighing 10.75 pounds (about 4.8 kg) and for 15 cents carried it to his grandmother, who lived at a distance of one mile (1.6 km).

The case was not single, and by the next year the distances increased, but the postmen still played the role of accompanying, and the children were not packaged in boxes or bags. So, in February 1914, the press told About a two -year -old boy, whose grandmother provided him with an identification tag and sent him from Oklahoma to Aunt to Kansas for 18 cents. “The child was traveling with postal employees, shared his lunch with them and arrived in good condition,” wrote in The New York Times.

Then a similar story It happened With five -year -old May Pierstorf. Her parents decided to send the girl to visit her grandparents, but did not want to pay for travel on the train. They noticed a loophole in the postal rules, attached a brand worth 53 cents on the girl’s coat and designed as a parcel. However, little May I drove All the way in a compartment with a relative who worked on the railway, and the postman at the station at the station then accompanied the girl to the house of her grandparents.

The cases described above have several common features. Firstly, the children were not sent by mail in the same sense as letters or parcel, that is, in boxes or bales that would casually throw them into a cargo car or crew, and then disassembled at the post station. The child was transferred from hand to hand (sometimes literally) to the postman, and he delivered it to the recipient (usually a relative). Secondly, parents (like some merchants, as in the case of bricks) used the short-sightedness of the US postal service-they did not provide that the cheapness of the processing of parcels will attract people who will look for loopholes in non-most detailed rules.

American legislation of that time did not contain norms allowing to send children by mail. “No one thought that someone would commit such a stupidity,” said Nancy, the historian and one of the founders of the National Postal Museum, which worked There from 1984 until his death in 2019. The researcher wrote several texts about sending children by mail in America at the beginning of the 20th century and gave a number of comments, including the largest American media like The Washington Post and our colleagues from Snopes And Politifact, interested in English -speaking posts on this topic on social networks. POUP emphasized that some American parents used the innovation for the innovation for a reason. “The trust in the mail at that moment was almost indisputable,” the historian explains. With the POUP agrees And her colleague, US Postal Histor, Jenny Lynch.

At the same time, the number of children whom the parents decided to send somewhere by mail was extremely insignificant, and unusual “parcels” traveled only over very small distances within the country. Moreover, as the PRU pays attention, in some cases Not preserved documents or material evidence of the veracity of newspapers of that time.

Already in 1914, the head of the US postmaster Albert Berniel compiled a official note for his colleagues, in which Forbidden Take as a premise of a person of any age. However, messages in the press about attempts (successful and not so) in this way on a train ticket continued to appear in the press for several more years. In 1920, the US Postal Service repeatedly Issued Corresponding Resolution.

*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Photo on the cover: Smithsonian Instition