I love prehistoric junk mail! I read an article somewhere about a seed company that sent out several catalogs a year, all addressed by hand. I do notice typewritten addresses from this era, but a good number of companies still writing on the envelopes.
The article said that they had a big room full of young women, they hired women because they were more patient and had better penmanship than men. For each customer, the woman would write the same address on 6 envelopes in succession, and each envelope would go into a different box for the bi-monthly mailings. A big labor operation! And we take it for granted today when we just click for a label run!
I also love the penmanship on old mail! I've actually saved a few nice ones in my misc album. My daughter is an elementary school teacher and said they no longer teach penmanship and cursive writing. The kids are just taught to print, and type on a computer!
You might be surprised how much commercial mail still comes with handwritten addresses. Tourist bureaus, Chambers of Commerce, etc. in particular have their materials sent out with hand written addresses.
"You might be surprised how much commercial mail still comes with handwritten addresses. Tourist bureaus, Chambers of Commerce, etc. in particular have their materials sent out with hand written addresses."
I used to hand write my envelopes when I was a realtor and was canvassing neighborhoods. Statistics showed that it was more likely to get opened and read than a typed or labeled envelope.
My wife and I were taught to type by Miss Cerny, a spinster unmarried older woman who lived in hotel near my parent's office supply store. Her only activity outside of school seemed to be sitting in the hotel lobby and knitting.
She was an excellent, if unexciting, typing teacher. She would stand in front of the class barking out individual letters, strings of letters, words, and sentences which we were expected to type on manual Underwood typewriters without letters on the keys. A large poster on the wall behind her showed the location of the keys. We were not allowed to look at the keyboard, only the poster and the paper we were typing on, although all of us tried sneaking peaks at the keyboard to make sure our hands were where we thought they would be. Did we learn to type? You bet. And both my wife and I have had jobs in which excellent typing was a requirement.
In the latter part of our teaching careers here in British Columbia, our high schools began to dump typewriters in favour of computers, and typing classes were replaced by "keyboarding" lessons, which were part of what is now known as "Information Technology" classes. Very little time was actually spent in teaching kids to type, and as a result not many good typists were produced. But, the young being what they are, sometimes achieved typing success. Our son, Paul, had a terrible typing teacher, and he never did learn fundamental touch typing. Instead he uses a combination of touch typing and hunt-and-peck, but at a blinding speed. He's easily twice as fast as his mom, and she's a lot faster than me.
To return to philately, one of my yet-unborn dreams is to collect covers with typed addresses representative of the changes in typing technology.
the mute cancel in this instance refers to the absence of a date. Certain classes of mail (registry, third class {now the poetically renamed Standard B}) use mute cancels (registry will include the date on the back cancel, and all transit cancels). I am not sure why this has a mute cancel. Assuming it's not overweight, it pays the 2c first class rate in effect until April (I think) when rates were increased to 3c as part of a war measures act. All first class mail should be date stamped, although there's a California PO with mute cancels.
David
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"Save the USPS, buy stamps; save the hobby, use commemoratives"
"She was an excellent, if unexciting, typing teacher. She would stand in front of the class barking out individual letters, strings of letters, words, and sentences which we were expected to type on manual Underwood typewriters without letters on the keys. A large poster on the wall behind her showed the location of the keys. We were not allowed to look at the keyboard, only the poster and the paper we were typing on, although all of us tried sneaking peaks at the keyboard to make sure our hands were where we thought they would be. Did we learn to type? You bet. And both my wife and I have had jobs in which excellent typing was a requirement.
"
I learned to type in the eighth grade, while I was a student at a US military school for dependents in Germany. As a kid, my first thought when I saw "Typing" on my schedule, I thought it was an error. Once confirmed I, and other boys, were supposed to be there I got intrigued with the big ole IBM manual typewriters with no digits on the keys.
Something told me that I needed to learn this. I couldn't have foretold that I'd someday spend most of my workday on a computer, but I did know that I spent a lot of time hunting and pecking letters to my grandparents in the USA on a manual portable typewriter my mother owned. So at least knowing how to type would help me with my letter writing.
I was scared to death with the digitless keyboards and had no idea how we'd ever learn this. But soon enough we were doing the fff jjj exercises and in a semester I could type like the wind. I was quite pleased with myself that I had mastered something, since I hadn't done so with musical instruments.
I started high school in the USA and was scheduled for a Typing class. I told the teacher I could type and she just said, "yea, yea, sit down". So I sat down and quickly typed a full page that started out "I don't know why teachers don't listen to their students..." She was stunned and sent me to the principal's office for reassignment of that hour.
All through school my typing skills did me well. I typed term papers for pay, so I wound up getting my very own portable electric typewriter for Christmas. I set up my little mail order business "TnT Stamps" and typed all my letters and invoices.
I was working for an engineering firm as a draftsman and Computer Aided Design was invented and installed in our company. I used my typing skills to secure a place on the pilot team for that system. While everyone else was trying to learn the complicated command structure AND find the keys, I just had to concentrate on the commands. The next ten years I was a consultant installing CAD systems in companies.
When my kids were little my daughters thought it was amazing to come up behind me as I was typing on our home PC, and cover my eyes, to watch me continue to type. Today I continue to use my typing skills, as I am right now. Full ten fingers! I work from home a lot and spend my days communicating via the Internet and phone with colleagues around the world. I sure got my money's worth out of that eighth grade typing class!
"I also love the penmanship on old mail! I've actually saved a few nice ones in my misc album.
My daughter is an elementary school teacher and said they no longer teach penmanship and
cursive writing. The kids are just taught to print, and type on a computer!"
Good luck to all those kids if they try to sign a real estate contract. The last time I checked printed
signatures are not legally binding on contracts.
Actually, when my sister and I sold our mom's house, I was able to use a "graphical" digital signature (which looked nothing like my actual signature) on the final documents. Ditto on the documents we signed to sell our previous apartment here in Vancouver and to buy our new apartment.