The Mail box at 100

One hundred years ago, Postmaster General John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia mercantile king, introduced an experimental household mailbox in Washington and St. Louis.

Used for both delivery and pickup, the letter box eliminated the necessity of having the postal carrier ring a doorbell or knock and wait for the householder.

The boxes were considered a success for mail delivery, but a flop for mail collection, which was ended in 1896, apparently because too many patrons were depositing letters in unauthorized boxes.

But city postmasters pushed for adoption and use of household boxes. It was estimated in 1909 that a 15-second delay at each house deprived the letter carrier of an hour and a half in daily working time. “This theoretical loss was considered quite serious because letter carriers were regarded as high paid employees at $1,000 a year,” wrote Smithsonian Institution postal historian Carl H. Scheele in his book “A Short History of the Mail Service.”

The now-familiar tunnel-shaped metal box with flag and snap latch door was approved for general use in 1915. Household mailboxes became mandatory in 1923.

Today, manufactured mailboxes are still marked “Approved by the Postmaster General,” but it seems as if many homeowners have their own ideas of what mailboxes should look like.