47504 THE MAILMAN UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE 1946 INSTRUCTIONAL FILM POST OFFICE

The Mailman is a 1946 instructional/career film produced by Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, Inc. in collaboration with Paul R. Hanna, Ph.D. Stanford University, providing an overview of the work your average mailman does on any given day. The film opens with a young boy recovering from being sick (00:30), waiting by the window for the mailman to arrive. His mother greets the mailman (00:42), who gives her a letter for the boy. A mailman at the post office (01:06) grabs his mail and takes it to his work table where he sorts the mail (01:38). After sorting letters and magazines, he straps the mail into bundles based on the order of his route (02:14). He then puts some of it in a relay bag, locking the bag for safety (02:31). The bag will go into a truck, which will drop it off part way for the mailman. The mailman goes to the mail clerk (02:53) to pick up a registered letter. He then packs the mail bundles and registered letter in his bag and leaves the post office (03:43). He walks down a street, dropping off mail at stores—such as a gift shop and a hairdresser shop. He hand-delivers the registered letter to a Shell filling station man (04:05), who signs for it. The mailman continues his route, delivering mail to homes (05:05), almost at the same time every day. After emptying his pouch, he arrives at the mail storage box to retrieve his relay bag (05:22), which he empties into his pouch. He then continues on his route, delivering mail and retrieving outgoing mail from a large public mailbox (06:15). Outside of cities and towns, mailmen are known as rural mailmen and operate from a village post office. A rural mailman loads mail into his car (07:00) and then drives down a paved highway, delivering mail. He then turns onto a dirt road (07:52), where he receives a package from a farmer’s wife, which he weighs then collects the appropriate money for the postage. A young girl waits for the mail with her mother (08:21), and she is delighted to get a box full of baby chicks. The rural mailman arrives at a farm (08:58), where a farmer wants to order more seeds by mail. The mailman has him fill out a money order, which the mailman will take back to the village post office. Dozens of mailmen leave a large city post office (09:35). The film concludes with shots of mailmen delivering mail in various conditions including snow and desert, as well as delivering mail to a set of apartment mailboxes (10:20).

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com

Link Copied

About Us

Thanks for your interest in the Periscope Film stock footage library.  We maintain one of the largest collections of historic military, aviation and transportation in the USA. We provide free research and can provide viewing copies if you can let us know some of the specific types of material you are looking for. Almost all of our materials are available in high quality 24p HD ProRes and 2k/4k resolution.

Our material has been licensed for use by:

Scroll to Top

For Downloading, you must Login or Register

Free to Download High Quality Footage

Note: Please Reload page and click again on My Favorites button to see newly added Favorite Posts.