Clang Clang Clang went the trolley!

Stamp, Stamp, Stamp went the mail.

Our current exhibit, Trolley Mail, explores the brief but important urban postal service using electric streetcars.

Only a few cities actually officially used streetcar R.P.O. systems. St. Louis, the first city to adopt streetcar mail in 1891, was followed by Brooklyn (1894), Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Cincinnati (all 1895), Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Rochester, San Francisco (all 1896), Pittsburgh (1898), Seattle (1905), and Cleveland (1908).

But in the 1910s as mass-production of motor vehicles increased, cities favored mail trucks over streetcars to deliver the mail. And so, by 1915 most cities had discontinued trolley mail service, and all cities had stopped it by 1929.

Our exhibit runs through Summer 2014. Stop on by!

Busy Baltimore street.

Boston mail wagon & streetcar.

Inaugural run of Long Beach trolley.