Mail Art Monday - happy birthday Mr. Zip

Fifty years ago today, the US postal service introduced the Zip Code.

For reasons I'm too young to fathom, people were resistant to it.

Bring in some marketing geniuses and Mr. Zip was born!

Here's a short piece on the history of the zip code.

And here's a wonderful in-depth history of Mr. Zip, courtesy of the Smithsonian

(and many thanks to my fabulous mail artist friends Dori and Pamela for sharing these links and giving me something to write about today!)

This week I got an envelope in the mail from my cousin.  It contained a letter I wrote to her mom in 1992.  My Aunt was 60 at the time, and had obviously just written me a letter in which she confessed that email made her feel old.  I (age 25) had embraced email, but was honoring my love for Auntie Jean by sending a handwritten letter.  In response to her feelings about email, I spent several pages marveling about the rapid technological advances we'd seen just in the last year.

This bit cracked me up, and seemed fitting for today:

"And now I can buy postage stamps from it [the ATM] - and what's more, the stamps are self adhesive.  I think this is one of the neatest things ever.  They come out in sheets of 18 stamps and the cost is deducted from your checking account.  I may never see the inside of the post office again!"

Odd, that I no longer see stamps at ATMs, but thank heavens for mail art or that last sentence probably would have come true.

Finally, I leave you with a piece of my recent outgoing mail.

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