Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 1: I never told your production of I Heart Radio. So
Speaker 1: for today's question, Samantha, I have one that I am
Speaker 1: almost certain I know the answer to, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask it anyway. Were you a member of any fan clubs?
Speaker 1: I have to think about it because I feel like
Speaker 1: I may have been. But it was way back when.
Speaker 1: Oh I saw it for sure it was gonna be no.
Speaker 1: But okay, no, I think it goes because I can't
Speaker 1: had just come into the US. My brother was a
Speaker 1: big Tiffany fan nineteen eight Tiffany. I love that I
Speaker 1: said this. I think he and I both joined her
Speaker 1: fan club. I do not know who Tiffany is, but
Speaker 1: I think we're alone now. That's I think it's like
Speaker 1: she and the new kids on the block was the
Speaker 1: big mall singers, like they would do mall tours. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: mall tours. I forgot about that. Yeah, look, I'm that old.
Speaker 1: That's I'm that old. I was really young when this
Speaker 1: was coming about. But yeah, I think she and he
Speaker 1: and I were both bands like he because I wanted
Speaker 1: to do what he did. It was very American and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, cool, I'll do this with you.
Speaker 1: But I think that was the only real time I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you have been. Oh yes, I have multiple fan
Speaker 1: cups in my under my belt. Um. I was big
Speaker 1: in the Green Day fan club. Yeah, it seems so
Speaker 1: weird because don't get me wrong, no, Green Day was
Speaker 1: big band everything. But that seems like against what they
Speaker 1: would have wanted for them as a band themselves as
Speaker 1: a band. Well, their fan club was very different than
Speaker 1: the other fan clubs I was a member of because
Speaker 1: it was more like random video clips of them on
Speaker 1: tour and trade cool yelling at you for watching the video.
Speaker 1: So it fits I think. Um. But I was also
Speaker 1: John Williams fan club. Um. And but what I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring up today the Mary Kate and Ashley fan
Speaker 1: club because they would send you a box like every
Speaker 1: couple of months with a mystery for you to solve,
Speaker 1: and it was I loved it. I loved it. It's
Speaker 1: the most exciting package. And I would just like get
Speaker 1: my flower and dust the mirror of for fingerprints that
Speaker 1: were my fingerprints, of course, and I love that day.
Speaker 1: That's what they did because they weren't genius when it
Speaker 1: comes to entrepreneurship. That's a whole other level. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a huge Mary Kay Nashley fan. UM. I
Speaker 1: think I was in that fan club for probably an
Speaker 1: embarrassing amount of time. I might have aged out, but
Speaker 1: I just like mysteries. I like puzzles. It was fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was amusing. Why not it kept me
Speaker 1: like I had to go outside for some of them
Speaker 1: and all I m m M. I will say there's
Speaker 1: something to getting a package in the mill and just
Speaker 1: having something like when people send you things, it is
Speaker 1: quite delightful. Yeah, and I feel like a good surprise
Speaker 1: package to from someone you know where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting this, and it's just sort of this
Speaker 1: mismatch of things. I love that. Uh. And that's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring it up because today we are
Speaker 1: talking about women in the United States Postal Service the
Speaker 1: USPS UM. Yes, and if you are curious after this
Speaker 1: you want to do some further listening stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in history class are sister podcast although I have been
Speaker 1: called out for calling them sister podcasts and brother podcasts,
Speaker 1: so I don't really know the terminology. Another podcast on
Speaker 1: our network um our fan podcast, Our podcast FAM. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: they did an episode on women in the USPS. That
Speaker 1: was the title back in back, so go check that out.
Speaker 1: And for those that don't know UM. Here in the
Speaker 1: United States, there has been a lot of conversation about
Speaker 1: the United States Postal Service, as in fact, we had
Speaker 1: the whole uh hearing. We have a whole hearing happening
Speaker 1: right now. Yes, yes, as we record this UM, which
Speaker 1: is August. Just to put a stamp on there because
Speaker 1: accidental pun thanks are moving very quickly. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And Trump has pretty much been attacking it UM, talking
Speaker 1: about with holding of funds to prevent universal mail in voting.
Speaker 1: He literally said that out loud. UM. He's appointee to
Speaker 1: Postmaster General, Lewis to Joy, is very vocal a proponent
Speaker 1: of privatizing the USPS, essentially dismantling it, and as a
Speaker 1: part of that, he has eliminated overtime pay. This has
Speaker 1: resulted in massive delivery delays. I've seen this UM with
Speaker 1: packages I've sent out and have been expecting. Uh. Also
Speaker 1: there is a birthday presents not here yet. I'm very
Speaker 1: upset about this. Oh. I was like, is this Oh, no,
Speaker 1: blame the USPS. No, birthday present. No birthday present for you.
Speaker 1: That's cool, that's cool your president. Um. And then there
Speaker 1: was like a bigger fuffle of them of post boxes
Speaker 1: being removed. Um. And this is all despite the fact
Speaker 1: that the USPS has a ninety one per cent approval rating,
Speaker 1: which is the highest of any government agency. UM. And
Speaker 1: people depend on it for checks and medicine. I think
Speaker 1: that gets forgotten by a lot of people who just
Speaker 1: complain about junk mail, and especially if we're talking about
Speaker 1: an election with a lot of mail and voting very
Speaker 1: important um. Due to people who work at the post office,
Speaker 1: their knowledge of the landscape. Mail carriers have provided assistance
Speaker 1: after disasters. They've helped find lost children, they provided emergency
Speaker 1: first aid, all kinds of things. Really, like, there's fantastic
Speaker 1: stories out there for the reading. UM. Now, some of
Speaker 1: Lewis and Joy's more controversial changes, some of them have
Speaker 1: been put on hold till after the election because a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of bipartisan backlash. But still
Speaker 1: damage has been done. Um. Although we did get some
Speaker 1: fun news that Steve Bannon was arrested in part with
Speaker 1: the help of the US Postal Inspection Service, which I
Speaker 1: don't know. Is that ironic? Is that the word? I just,
Speaker 1: I'm just I thought it was like an onion article
Speaker 1: when I first saw it on a yacht getting arrested
Speaker 1: by essentially the USPS. So like, wait, I did too.
Speaker 1: I had to go back and looks like they can
Speaker 1: do that. What's happening? What's happening? Yep? I learned a
Speaker 1: lot that day. Yeah, there's a lot. As we're talking again,
Speaker 1: I love watching hearings like this, or just at least
Speaker 1: clips of it to see. Mainly, it just seems like
Speaker 1: a majority of the female representatives have been going after
Speaker 1: the joy pretty hard um and trying to just kind
Speaker 1: of see if he understands the basics of the Postal
Speaker 1: Service and he doesn't. He knew the cost of a stamp.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'm surprised that. Yeah, that was about it,
Speaker 1: and the rest of it was kind of like what
Speaker 1: is happening? So it was. It's been an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to watch because I will say I don't know either,
Speaker 1: but as someone who was the lead and ahead of
Speaker 1: an agency that is supposed to be a service you
Speaker 1: would think would be important. But I digress. So the
Speaker 1: US Postal Service sorce over one hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: billion pieces of mail each year and employee over six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people UM. The USPS has also long been
Speaker 1: important for communities of color, both in terms of service
Speaker 1: and stable employment. Twenty one percent other employees are black. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of really amazing statistics out there
Speaker 1: in terms of how much mail they do sort. If
Speaker 1: you want to find them, it's a lot. It's way
Speaker 1: more than their competitors, way more. Right. And then just
Speaker 1: a reminder, one of the controversy is that they have
Speaker 1: unplugged the sorting machines, which is a big important part
Speaker 1: of what's happening. Yeah, And it's odd because it's odd
Speaker 1: at first because things feel so partisan here right now,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways they are. UM. But
Speaker 1: there is a part of me that naively thought the
Speaker 1: posts the post office. But there has been a history
Speaker 1: of this. This is not by any means, um the
Speaker 1: first time, especially Republican UM politicians have come for the USPS.
Speaker 1: It's just like, so we have enough going on right now.
Speaker 1: I really I'm getting at my limit right well, the
Speaker 1: two hurricanes coming, a lot of fire to happening. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and just you know, just mentally USPS. Why
Speaker 1: not no better time than the present, you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: something always comes up, as I like to say, so
Speaker 1: we did want to go. We wanted to go over
Speaker 1: the history of of the USPS and specifically women and
Speaker 1: in the United States Postal Service because it's fascinating. It
Speaker 1: really is. Um. So briefly, the United States Postal Service
Speaker 1: is as old as the United States is itself, and
Speaker 1: in fact older, uh, and in many ways helped build
Speaker 1: this country. It was guaranteed in the Constitution formed by
Speaker 1: George Washington in five that time there was a single
Speaker 1: female postmaster, Mary Katherine Goddard, and even prior Yeah, in
Speaker 1: colonial America there were, uh, there were these post routes
Speaker 1: and there were two female postmasters on record. When Goddard
Speaker 1: was removed by the Postmaster General in two hundred people
Speaker 1: petitioned to have her reinstated. Yeah, that's nice. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I just basically think, you all, she's loved
Speaker 1: I don't know, And there are a lot of examples
Speaker 1: of that throughout this And then I was as I
Speaker 1: was reading stories of people who work um at USPS
Speaker 1: and just the bonds they form in their community and
Speaker 1: people know their names and that's how like if if
Speaker 1: somebody hasn't answered their mail in three days, but they
Speaker 1: usually come out and talk to them and they that's
Speaker 1: how they'll know, like maybe I should check in on
Speaker 1: them or call call an ambulance. And it's really hardwarming
Speaker 1: some of the stories. Yeah, most of these early women
Speaker 1: who held these positions did so because their husband or
Speaker 1: father couldn't fulfill their duties and it was sort of
Speaker 1: like kind of a backdoor entrance into getting the job.
Speaker 1: They just never officially had it perhaps, but they were
Speaker 1: performing the duties right. So the first woman appointed as
Speaker 1: postmaster under the Constitution was Sarah DeCrow in North Carolina
Speaker 1: in seventeen nine two. The Crow kept trying to resign
Speaker 1: to the low pay um. When Rose Right was appointed
Speaker 1: in Harrisburg, Pennsylvanian eight fourteen, she faced the backlash and
Speaker 1: controversy over whether or not a woman could hold the
Speaker 1: position at all, which is weird since they have been whatever.
Speaker 1: The Postmaster General the time wrote, quote, my feelings would
Speaker 1: lead me to appointments write in conformity to the which
Speaker 1: has expressed in her recommendation. But the post office law
Speaker 1: has been revised and altered since the appointment of Mrs Moore,
Speaker 1: and a doubt has been suggested to me from a
Speaker 1: source that I ought to respect as the strict legality
Speaker 1: of appointing a female, and on careful examination of the law,
Speaker 1: I inclined to believe that the doubt may be well founded.
Speaker 1: It Yeah, if I remembering quickly, it was that we've
Speaker 1: talked about it before, But it was how the pronoun
Speaker 1: the default pronoun and the Constitution is he I think
Speaker 1: that's the argument he was making so often. Yep. Sure
Speaker 1: as um. In eighteen o two, the Postmaster General past
Speaker 1: a while prohibiting black people from working for the post Office,
Speaker 1: a law that wasn't repealed until the Civil War. The
Speaker 1: first record we have of a woman being appointed to
Speaker 1: deliver mail goes back to April third, eighteen forty five,
Speaker 1: when Postmaster General Cave Johnson appointed Sarah Black, one of
Speaker 1: her relatives, became the town's first female postmaster after that Um.
Speaker 1: At first, these early female mail carriers transported mail, but
Speaker 1: by eighteen nine they were delivering it to primarily on
Speaker 1: rural routes, but they made it to the cities as
Speaker 1: well to the big city by in the nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: during the shortage of men from World War One, Washington's
Speaker 1: postmasters set about this. This is the first time in
Speaker 1: the record of the Post Office Department of the United
Speaker 1: States that women have been used for carrying mail on
Speaker 1: roots in a city. It must be considered more or
Speaker 1: less in the nature of an experiment, and it was
Speaker 1: viewed this way. It's kind of experiment in a handful
Speaker 1: of cities across the country, like a test, a trial
Speaker 1: right um. And though the women in question were successful
Speaker 1: on their roots, most were replaced into indoor post office positions,
Speaker 1: so they didn't get to keep their roots right. So
Speaker 1: several women were hired as postmaster in the South after
Speaker 1: the Civil War because taking the position requires swearing an
Speaker 1: oath they had not voluntarily provided any aid to Confederate
Speaker 1: soldiers or the Confederacy, and a lot of men couldn't
Speaker 1: make that oath. So in eighteen sixty two, the Postmaster
Speaker 1: General became the first higher up official to appoint women
Speaker 1: to positions at the Washington DC's Post Department headquarters, specifically
Speaker 1: in the Dead Letter Office, and it employed more women
Speaker 1: than any other in the US government. So these women
Speaker 1: earned about thirty five percent less than their milk counter parts. Surprise.
Speaker 1: So in eighteen sixty nine New York Times article arguing
Speaker 1: for women's equal pay came with this quote about how
Speaker 1: the women weren't allowed to do the mechanical work of
Speaker 1: opening letters because quote, as is said, im moral things
Speaker 1: are sometimes found in the mill. Obviously, and to see
Speaker 1: these things would it is supposed corrupt the morals of women.
Speaker 1: And at this time a lot of post offices had
Speaker 1: separate ladies windows, so that blew my mind. They have constitutions.
Speaker 1: Come on, what if a letter magically opens and I
Speaker 1: see a drawing a stick figure with ankles or something,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'll do. Some places even had
Speaker 1: a third window, so there was a lady's window, men's window,
Speaker 1: and then the third one was men accepting letters for women. Perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know that's the only way you can do it.
Speaker 1: It's beviously the easiest way to go about all of this. Uh.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that quote mechanical work. That was an official
Speaker 1: term used to prevent women from working opening letters. Mechanical working,
Speaker 1: that's true in a paper cut. I'm not arguing that point.
Speaker 1: I have a paper cut, I'm not doing anything else.
Speaker 1: I actually believe that the first known black female postmaster,
Speaker 1: Anna Dumas, was appointed in Louisiana in eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: and then in Martial Cummings work The Story of Our
Speaker 1: Post Office, he estimated six thousand women held the position
Speaker 1: of postmaster. He wrote, a whole book could be written
Speaker 1: about the many admirable women who work away with all
Speaker 1: their tact and business prudence, trying to please their patrons
Speaker 1: and the department alike, and pleasing both. Because they try,
Speaker 1: sometimes they are the most important persons in their towns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: women managed about ten percent of the countries seventy thousand
Speaker 1: post offices by the end of the nineteenth century. And
Speaker 1: because of that community and almost reverence people had for
Speaker 1: people who worked with the USPS and postmasters at these
Speaker 1: admirable women. As Marshall Cushing alluded to, there are so
Speaker 1: many legends, so many legends about women in the USPS,
Speaker 1: and we have some amazing ones to share with you.
Speaker 1: What's excited. But first we're gonna pause for a quick
Speaker 1: break for work from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Sponsored so because the job was physically demanding, and mail
Speaker 1: wagons were frequent targets of bandits and women of course
Speaker 1: we're seen as fragile. So fragile female post carriers were
Speaker 1: almost mythical. Oh yes, let's go take Polly Martin. She
Speaker 1: became the first known woman to carry mail on a
Speaker 1: contract route or star route. From eighteen sixty to eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, he drove a mail wagon in Massachusetts, delivering
Speaker 1: mail packages, telegraphs, and sometimes providing transport for up the
Speaker 1: six people. In eighty four Boston Globe interview with Polly
Speaker 1: Martin was subtitled Grave Polly Martin, who used to drive
Speaker 1: the Attleborough Mail. How she horse whipped highway robbers and
Speaker 1: silenced saucy passengers who, according to her, she'd only been
Speaker 1: accosted one time by a robber. She beat him in
Speaker 1: the face with a horse whip and kept going. She
Speaker 1: said in an interview quote he had tackled the wrong
Speaker 1: customer that time. Get him, Polly dang so. In eight
Speaker 1: article from The New York Times wrote of Mini Westman,
Speaker 1: a mail carrier out of Oregon, that she quote carries
Speaker 1: the mail night and day and fears nothing. She rise
Speaker 1: the horseback and carries a trusty revolver. Yes. The Washington
Speaker 1: wrote about Arizona's Burke, who twice a week traveled her
Speaker 1: fifty two mile route that was described as quote wild
Speaker 1: and desolate and God forsaken love this. I love this.
Speaker 1: This would have been right up my alley as a
Speaker 1: kid kind of a post woman in the post office.
Speaker 1: Why why isn't there, Hollywood? Get on, are ready? We
Speaker 1: are waiting. The first known black woman to carry mail
Speaker 1: was Mary Fields and the eighteen nineties formerly enslaved, Fields
Speaker 1: was legendary in her Montanna. In her Montana town, she
Speaker 1: smoked cigars, She drank a lot, she was a crack shot,
Speaker 1: she was very kind. Um. When she died, her obituary
Speaker 1: was on the front page of both the local papers.
Speaker 1: People adored her. Yes, and and always the caveat was first. Um.
Speaker 1: Hard to pin that down for sure. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the USPS official they have a timeline that was really
Speaker 1: helpful and putting all the us together. They even say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're dependent on records that survived or records
Speaker 1: that were even kept. So yeah, yeah, And some of
Speaker 1: the dates confused me in their own timeline because I
Speaker 1: think they were sort of this unofficial thing happening where
Speaker 1: women were carrying male but they weren't officially recognized. So
Speaker 1: sometimes I'd be like, but you said, the first woman
Speaker 1: to do that did that like ten twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: But I think it's kind of this difference in officially
Speaker 1: recognizing they were accredited with it. Yeah, and and even
Speaker 1: if they you know, mentioned somebody was delivering rural mail
Speaker 1: and eighteen whatever. Uh, that was sort of before there
Speaker 1: was this level of here's a contract route in a
Speaker 1: local route and you're officially affiliated with the USPS, so
Speaker 1: they can get kind of muddled. But anyway, um in
Speaker 1: rural free mail delivery service was introduced, and three years
Speaker 1: later the first Assistant Postmaster General said, on at least
Speaker 1: two routes, there are girl carriers and they are as
Speaker 1: unflagging in their devotion to the service as the men
Speaker 1: and as efficient tool. Yeah. In nineteen o two, the
Speaker 1: Postmaster General ordered quote a classified woman employee in the
Speaker 1: Postal Service who shall change her name by marriage will
Speaker 1: not be reappointed. He believed married women should stay at
Speaker 1: home and take care of their wifely duties. They can't
Speaker 1: do that if they have a paper cut any that's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. Uh. Though there were some exceptions to this,
Speaker 1: but the law did remain in place until nineteen one.
Speaker 1: Something similar was enacted during the Great Depression, requiring that
Speaker 1: federally employed women who were married to federally employed men
Speaker 1: would be the first to be dismissed, a law that
Speaker 1: wasn't repealed until ninety seven. So Also in nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: The New York Times ran a piece on discrimination in
Speaker 1: civil services like the post office, reporting that several of
Speaker 1: them requests only the male names for the red to start,
Speaker 1: despite the fact more women took and passed the exam.
Speaker 1: In response, an official said, every time a woman is
Speaker 1: appointed to a clerkship in one of the departments, she
Speaker 1: lessens the chances of marriage for herself and deprives some
Speaker 1: worthy man of a chance to take unto himself and
Speaker 1: raise a family. In addition to that, the men make
Speaker 1: for better clerks. They complain lest do more work and
Speaker 1: work over time if maybe without grumbling. Oh, I would
Speaker 1: never want to deprive some worthy man of a chance
Speaker 1: to raise his family or probably more accurately, be working
Speaker 1: at the post office the line raising while he ignores me. Okay, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's strange to read uh these because again this is
Speaker 1: in like the official USPS timeline are like wow, people
Speaker 1: really just alright, just putting it out there. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were really opposed to to female
Speaker 1: rural carriers. Um. I got really confused at first because
Speaker 1: there was a big hubbub about women can only wear skirts,
Speaker 1: but you can't wear a skirt to be a mail carrier,
Speaker 1: and so there was this whole argument over what was
Speaker 1: better if the female male carriers should like break gender
Speaker 1: norms and wear pants or if she should keep the skirt.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, is this why the beginning
Speaker 1: of the blue shorts happened? I really hope so that
Speaker 1: they were like, let's just get rid of all of
Speaker 1: those things. Yes, let's start a new I know the
Speaker 1: bag is designed for dog attacks. That yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But I love my favorite videos right now? Are that
Speaker 1: the relationship between postal workers, mail carriers and dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are some of my favorites. Well, um, yeah, people
Speaker 1: were really torried about this whole skirt dilemma, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the female male carriers wanted to wear skirt.
Speaker 1: Um some some didn't, but a lot of them did.
Speaker 1: Some saloons banded together to put their mailboxes outside so
Speaker 1: female carriers didn't have to sacrifice their dignity by entering.
Speaker 1: That's kind of them. Sure. Sure. A proposal to allow
Speaker 1: for male and female carriers of to work for the
Speaker 1: post office was described by some as quote worse than reconstruction.
Speaker 1: And I believe someone said it was the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end of our country. I feel like we've heard
Speaker 1: that statement so many times, been doing things I know,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're right. Well. Nevertheless, the number of
Speaker 1: women mail carriers exploded over the course of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: going from only a few hundred to eighty four thousand
Speaker 1: at the turn of the new millennium. Yeah, I get
Speaker 1: them girls. So. In nineteen o five, and Atlanta Journal
Speaker 1: Constitution article described the near death experience of Edda E.
Speaker 1: Bolton out of Mobile, Alabama. She was driving her milk
Speaker 1: wagon across a swollen stream over a rickety bridge, when
Speaker 1: just as she reached the middle, the structure gave way.
Speaker 1: With great presence of mind and exceptional pluck, she managed
Speaker 1: to extra herself on the debris and the struggling horse
Speaker 1: and gained the shore. The wagon, horse, and contents of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. We're doing their best to make an end
Speaker 1: to all, but miss Bolton plunged again into the torch
Speaker 1: and worked like a heroine of old to save the property.
Speaker 1: Nearly exhausted, she finally gave the bank, having saved every
Speaker 1: sack and pouch of mail. I mean this is exciting.
Speaker 1: That is again. Why is it this a movie? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I love it. I love it. I
Speaker 1: also feel like pluck is such a specific term to
Speaker 1: use for women in this particular case to our plug um.
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Sunday Times published an article in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seven called life Not all cake and ale. Woman
Speaker 1: male carrier has her share of trouble about Sarah George,
Speaker 1: whose biggest concern corn to her was the terrain, including
Speaker 1: a swamp. She said quote, if you once get into
Speaker 1: that mudhole, all the King's horses and all the King's
Speaker 1: men can hardly get you out. Also great article title
Speaker 1: up for real mail went airborne in nineteen eleven, and
Speaker 1: the first female pilot to make a mail drop was
Speaker 1: Catherine Stinson in nine, both as a stunt um and
Speaker 1: then she went on to do regular airmail. In en
Speaker 1: she attempted to make the shock Chicago to New York
Speaker 1: route in one day, but she ran out of fuel
Speaker 1: and was forced to land where she was forced to
Speaker 1: land with this muddy field, and it was so muddy
Speaker 1: that she slid and crashed. However, she was uninjured, but
Speaker 1: her plane had to be repaired, so she could not
Speaker 1: accomplish her goal, her one day goal. Still, she wrote
Speaker 1: two American records on this trip, one for skill and
Speaker 1: the other four indurance, So not bad. Helen Ritchie was
Speaker 1: the first known woman to regularly complete air roots in
Speaker 1: ninety four, and she beat out eight other pilots for that.
Speaker 1: I feel like this needs to be a contest somehow,
Speaker 1: reality show contest, Like, so you can deliver the mail
Speaker 1: the fastest, Like it sounds such a competition to have
Speaker 1: all of these records. This is amazing. So ricords indicate
Speaker 1: that children were sometimes affixed with stamps and meld in
Speaker 1: train compartments. So that's interesting. Someone even wrote to the
Speaker 1: Postmaster General about the best way to wrap a baby
Speaker 1: for transportation. Uh, this is right when the USBs just
Speaker 1: received authorization from Congress to deliver packages. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: just want to put that in there because it's an
Speaker 1: interesting fact. But also again, like I'm pretty sure people
Speaker 1: were delivering packages before this, right, but this was just
Speaker 1: kind of the official coming down from Congress. Yes, seems
Speaker 1: such a morbid way to send a baby, but okay,
Speaker 1: it's only his cheap But it was cheap a couple
Speaker 1: of stamps and one forebber stamping you're good. Awesome. So
Speaker 1: twenty five women took the Civil Service Carrier exam in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. In nineteen eighteen, with a clear understanding that
Speaker 1: they would only get jobs if there are no men
Speaker 1: to fill them. Of course, later that year, Armacy Craig
Speaker 1: became the city's first regularly appointed carrier. Many women did
Speaker 1: give up their roots when men returned home from war,
Speaker 1: but some continued um and something similar happened during World
Speaker 1: War Two. During the fifties, women made up less than
Speaker 1: one percent of carriers. To change that, the postmaster hired
Speaker 1: former Congresswoman Cecil M. Harden as his special assistant for
Speaker 1: Women's affairs in nineteen fifty nine. She went on speaking
Speaker 1: tours promoting women as carriers, with middling results. There was increased,
Speaker 1: but not that much um. The number for female postmasters
Speaker 1: went up during World War Two as well, from about
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand, five hundred forty two thousand, six hundred eighty
Speaker 1: by nineteen forty three, more than of the forty one thousand,
Speaker 1: five D seventy five postmaster positions were held by women.
Speaker 1: The Postmaster General released a press release about this in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight, writing quote, with our near sixteen thousand
Speaker 1: women postmasters, representing close to half of our entire management staff,
Speaker 1: we believe it is fair to say the American Post
Speaker 1: Office Department recognizes the management abilities of women preps more
Speaker 1: than any other private or governmental organization anywhere. Yeah of
Speaker 1: all black people who earned above the national media and
Speaker 1: income were postal workers by nine. So during World War Two,
Speaker 1: a group of eight hundred fifty five black women in
Speaker 1: the six thousand eight Central Postal Directory Battalion of the
Speaker 1: Women's Army Auxiliary of Corps managed the military's mail. It
Speaker 1: was headed up by Major Charity Adams early by the wars,
Speaker 1: and she was the highest ranking black woman in the military.
Speaker 1: So this battalion was the only one that was all
Speaker 1: black and all women. They're deployed in England and France,
Speaker 1: and when they arrived in England in nineteen three, there
Speaker 1: were letters stacked to the ceiling. They're able to deliver
Speaker 1: morale boosting letters to the seven million American soldiers stations
Speaker 1: in Europe. Despite this important work, the army was still segregated, surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: and the woman ate and slept and segregated barracks. So many,
Speaker 1: so many stories here. Um again, I want this to
Speaker 1: be a whole series. Oh, it could be like an
Speaker 1: HBO limited run Blakely Circle, bla Blakely Bleakly circle. What
Speaker 1: are your talking the women who did the coding, the
Speaker 1: Morris coding, clear as day, Clear as a day. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, we're not done with these stories. But
Speaker 1: first we have one more quick break for a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So.
Speaker 1: President John F. Kennedy formed the President's Commission on the
Speaker 1: Status of Women in nineteen sixty one, specifically to examine
Speaker 1: the employment practices of federal offices, and in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: two he ordered that federal appointments be made without regards
Speaker 1: to sex. More and more women became carriers. By in
Speaker 1: nine three, they made up about ten percent of carriers UH.
Speaker 1: The ninety three Equal Pay Act also made room for
Speaker 1: more black women, and the number employed shut up. At
Speaker 1: the USPS, women were fighting for the rights for standard
Speaker 1: uniforms and separate met equal bathrooms in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Skirts were made in official uniform option in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until nineteen sixty nine that women were
Speaker 1: allowed into the US Postal Inspection Service, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, the Postal Service claimed it was one of
Speaker 1: the world's largest employers of women, the product of a
Speaker 1: longstanding postal tradition of providing career opportunities to women. Really,
Speaker 1: it took a long while to get there, though, so
Speaker 1: women in the service looked at the lack of leadership
Speaker 1: in the agency and disagreed. As I said. In response,
Speaker 1: the Postal Service founded the Women's Program to seek out
Speaker 1: women for placement in high level jobs, and it was
Speaker 1: semi successful. At the time, women made up only sixteen
Speaker 1: point five percent of those positions, less than any other
Speaker 1: federal agencies, and the leader of this program, Mary Valentino,
Speaker 1: called it only on paper. She filed a class action
Speaker 1: lawsuit for a hundred and fifty five thousand female Postal
Speaker 1: Service workers in nineteen seventies. Seven letter carriers began to
Speaker 1: unionize in the eighteen sixties, So yeah, it's going back up.
Speaker 1: Bit um, including mostly black National Alliance of Postal Employees,
Speaker 1: and in the nineteen seventies, jumping to our prison spot
Speaker 1: on the tire line carriers ran on an eight days
Speaker 1: strike dubbed the Revolt of the Good Guys. This led
Speaker 1: to an Act of Congress establishing the USPS. Prior had
Speaker 1: been called the Post Office Department and funded by taxpayers.
Speaker 1: So this is our more modern iteration we're seeing right here.
Speaker 1: Um now. It was expected to fund itself, and by
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, not only was it doing that, it
Speaker 1: was profiting. That changed with a new law in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six that required that the Post Office pay
Speaker 1: up front the benefits of future employe is spanning seventy
Speaker 1: five years into the future, and since then, perhaps obviously,
Speaker 1: it is not reported a profit. In nive Jackie Strange
Speaker 1: was appointed as Deputy Postmaster General, the highest rank ever
Speaker 1: held by a woman in the Postal Office at the time.
Speaker 1: Her work when it came to advancing women in the
Speaker 1: USPS was regarded so well that Australia's Postbuster General asked
Speaker 1: her for advice. In two thousand eight. Women made up
Speaker 1: six of the twenty thousand eighty nine postmaster positions and
Speaker 1: Megan J. Brennan became the first female Postmaster General in
Speaker 1: So what is storied history? Um, we definitely have ways
Speaker 1: to go still, but just much Sometimes I choose a
Speaker 1: topic and I really have no idea how interesting it's
Speaker 1: going to be. I mean, this thus feels like wild
Speaker 1: Wild West kind of level of history with them, um
Speaker 1: civil rights history in it too, and I think it
Speaker 1: would be a great series. Someone needs to do this asap. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we shall eagerly await that. But in the meantime we
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. We would eagerly await
Speaker 1: that as well. You can email us our emails, Stuff
Speaker 1: Media mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You also
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always
Speaker 1: to your super producer Andrew Howard, Thank you, and thanks
Speaker 1: to you for listening. Stephane Never Told You the production
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