The Red envelope

Front matter

PRESS OF PLIMPTON MANUFACTURING CO.

division Hartford, Conn.

GIFT AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1. In the preface to Andrew Carnegie's life of James Watt, he says

"When the publishers asked me to write the life of James Watt, I declined, stating that my thoughts were upon other matters. This settled the question, as I supposed, but in this I was mistaken. Why shouldn't I write the life of the discoverer of the steam engine, out of which I had made a fortune? Besides, I knew little of the history of the steam engine and of Watt himself, and the surest way to obtain knowledge was to comply with the publisher's highly complimentary request. In short, the subject would not down, and finally I was compelled to write again, telling them that the idea haunted me, but if they still desired me to undertake it, I should do so with my heart in the task. I now know about the steam engine and have also had revealed to me one of the finest characters that ever graced the earth."

For many years I have had it in mind to write for our industrial family a brief story of the beginnings of the envelope industry in the United States. In 1903-4-5 I collected considerable data bearing on the subject, but other matters, more pressing, demanded my time and thought, and so the matter for the time being had to be laid one side.

In 1908-9-10-11 I served my. city as Mayor and had no time during those four years to devote to other subjects, and at the end of my term of service I was in no condition, physically, to undertake the work. But the subject would not down. It kept coming back to me; and, like Mr. Carnegie, I have felt that I had to do the job and, like him, also, "my heart would be in the task."

I know the record will be far from perfect, historically, for the data is fragmentary, as most of the early actors have long since passed from the stage and they left few records behind them, for they were not conscious that they were making history, and so both memory and legend must be drawn upon for the story.

It will be my aim to make the story personal, dealing with the lives and the work of the men who laid the foundations upon which we of a later generation have been permitted to rear the superstructure of our industry — to make the story a human document rather than a statistical or literary production.

It has been a pleasure to look back into the past and become even slightly acquainted with some of these early pioneers who lived and wrought, and some of whom failed to reach their goal, but who, by their work, made possible the success of others, and to that extent they did not fail; and so we ought to hold their memory in honorable remembrance.

The development of industry, as well as many other problems of life, is much like a game of baseball — the first important thing is to get to first base, and then second, and then third, but it is getting round to the home plate that counts in the final score. In baseball a player sometimes reaches first base on a scratch hit, or on another player's error, then he gets to second on another player's sacrifice, i. e., a player who was willing to take the chances of being put out in order that the player on first base could get to second, and then he reaches the home plate, not because of exceptional work on his part, for he reached first base on a scratch hit, but because the man at the bat who "died at third" did a good piece of stickwork which permitted the base runner to bring in the run. The point I want to make is this : The work of the world is done not by the star players, playing for an individual record, but by teamwork; and so we should all be helpful to one another, working for the common good, because we are all so dependent on one another and are all debtors to the men of the past.

Recently in conversation with a gentleman possessed with a high grade of inventive talent, mechanical skill and business ability, a rare combination to find in one man, and who claimed for himself all the credit for what he had been able to accomplish, I tried to impress upon him the great truth which he and all of us are sometimes inclined to forget, i. e., that we are all debtors to the past, that the men away back in the dim and shadowy — yes, forgotten — past, who made the first wheel, gear, cam, spring and lever, helped to make possible the wonderful industrial development of the present, and they are today silent partners with us in all our enterprises, and even though they did not reach the goal of success, there is consolation in this thought :

"For when the one great scorer comes To write against our name He writes not that you lost or won, But how you played the game."

Grantland Rice.

In these brief historical sketches of the beginnings of our industry I shall try to reset the stage with the atmosphere of the time it recalls and shall try to picture as best I may those early conditions and also try to reproduce "verbal pictures" of the personality of the characters who played their parts, so that the present generation of those in our industry may count them among their friends.

When was the Envelope Invented?

The question is often asked, "when were envelopes invented?" and it was an epoch-making invention. No one can definitely say, but the honor is claimed by a number of persons. In the year 1653, M. de Valayer, a Frenchman, under royal patronage, established in Paris a postal system for letters in post-paid envelopes. It is claimed that there is preserved in the office of the British Secre- . tary of State an envelope in which was enclosed a letter dated May 16, 1696, written by Sir William Turnbull, Secretary of State, to Sir James Ogilvie, of London, England. In England, in 1714, Bishop Burnett makes use of the word "Envelope" as a wrapper or covering for a communication.

In 1726 Dean Swift, in his "Advice to Grub Street," says:

"Send these to 'paper sparing Pope,' * And when he sits to write, No letter with an envelope

Could give him more delight."

There are preserved in the British Museum, attached to the letters, the envelopes which were used in 1755 and 1760 for the transmission of two important government documents. But it is very evident that envelopes were not in common use, for there seems to be little or no reference to them for almost a hundred years. In 1825 Lamb mentions the envelope and in "Harry Lorrequer," published by Chas. Lever in 1837, we find this quotation: "The waiter entered with a small note in an envelope."

It is claimed that envelopes were used in France before they were used in England, and there seems to be good ground for the claim.

* This reference to "paper sparing Pope" is because Pope's celebrated translation of Homer (preserved in the British Museum) is written almost entirely on the covers or wrappers of letters, as envelopes were first called.

When they first came into the French market they were very dainty novelties and made from the most expensive and delicate papers. They were used only by the wealthy and were considered a fad. They were first used in England between 1830 and 1839, but only in a very limited way.

It has been claimed that about the year 1830 a bookseller in Brighton, England, by the name of Brewer, made envelopes by hand, and that he was the first manufacturer of envelopes in Great Britain; but it is more than probable that there were quite a number who claimed to be the "first manufacturers" the same as we have had in our own country, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Louisville, Ky., each claiming that honor; but, as there is no one now living who can testify on the subject, and no authentic records are available for proof, we simply state the several claims and leave the question open.

The use of an envelope in England called for double postage, the law then being that postage should be charged for the number of pieces of paper. The custom then prevailing was to fold the letter sheet to make it answer the purpose of an envelope, and on all folded note and letter papers the fourth page was left unruled, the object being to use the unruled page for the outside of the letter on which to write the address and, while the unruled fourth page no longer serves its original purpose, the old custom on ruled folded note and letter paper of leaving the fourth page unruled still prevails, though probably very few of the younger generation could tell why the fourth page was left unruled.

On this page is pasted a sample showing one of the methods of folding and sealing the letter sheet before the day of envelopes.

Envelopes were first made by hand and the usual method of manufacture was this: A tin form was made the shape of the flat unfolded blank, the paper having been previously cut into lozenge- shaped pieces. This tin form was laid on perhaps twenty-five pieces of paper and a sharp shoemaker's knife followed round the edges of the tin form, thus cutting the blank. The blanks were then creased with a bone folder or thimble, pretty much the same as handfolded envelopes are still creased. The blanks were gummed by overlapping and applying the gum with a brush to that portion which was to be stuck down to form the envelope, just as it would be done today. This work was done in small "bookshops" (as they were then called) on rainy days and when they had nothing else to do.

Many years ago I was told by a member of the firm of J. L. Fairbanks & Co., of Boston, successors to the firm of Josiah Loring & Co., which firm was established in 1798, that in those days, i. e., about the year 1840, they made in their store, in the manner described, all the envelopes that were sold in the city of Boston, Mass.

Mr. Edward N. Maxwell of Maxwell & Co., Stationers, Louisville, Ky., whose father moved from Philadelphia to Louisville, Ky., in 1831 and engaged in the printing and publishing business, in connection with which he operated a small book and stationery store, told me over thirty years ago that when a boy, working in the store about the years 1835- 40, he cut out with his penknife in the manner described above and then folded in the J back room of their little "book shop" all the envelopes that were then sold in the city of Louisville, which at that time had a population of a little over 10,000.

I cite these two authentic cases to show the primitive conditions then existing. In New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities, envelopes were made in this way as a side line for the local demand before anyone entered into the business of envelope making as a separate industry.

One of Mr. Maxwell's duties every morning in those days was to go to the Post Office for the mail, taking with him money with which to pay the postage on letters which came collect, the postage ranging from six to twenty-five cents on a letter, the rate depending on the distance carried and the number of sheets in the letter.

In "those good old days of the past" there were no letter carriers and the man who would have suggested our present rural free delivery system would have been looked upon as a visionary.

When envelopes were first made, the sealing flaps were ungummed and were closed by applying at the point of the sealing flap a wafer or sealing wax.

I very much desired to find, if possible, some of the wafers formerly used for sealing the old form of folded letter-sheet for use on the sample shown on page 9, and after corresponding with a number of firms whose business life dates from the first half of the last century, my search was finally successful, as will be noted by the following letter :

58 Liberty St., New York, Sept. 16, 1915.

My Dear Mr. Logan:

I fully appreciate the subtle innuendo in your letter of the 14th.

You evidently think, because wafers have not been used in the past fifty years, that I may know something about them; it is very true I remember that once upon a time such instruments of torture were used before the use of envelopes became general.

By the same mail I am sending, with my very best wishes for your happiness, -eight ounces of wafers (all that New York City affords), and hope there will be at least a thousand, but the weather being so warm, the effort to count them exceeds my vitality.

Very truly yours,

John Brewer.

In the life of Sir Rowland Hill, published by De La Rue & Co., London, England, 1880, appears a letter written to Rowland Hill by Captain Basil Hall, Portsmouth, England, Dec. 31, 1840, from which letter I quote:

"Portsmouth, England, Dec. 31, 1840.

My dear Sir: —

Many thanks for your agreeable information. Indeed, I have no doubt — nor ever had — that your admirable invention (for it well deserves that name) will ere long make up the Post Office revenue to what it was, to say nothing of the enormous advantages which it brings along with it to all classes of the community. It strikes me, too, that a great convenience might be added to the envelopes if there were put a small lick of the gum which is used for the stamps at the angle where the wafer or wax is put, so that an envelope might be closed without the trouble of a wafer or the double 'toil and trouble' of a seal — implying lucifer matches, tapers and wax. I can easily see how one hundred, or any number, of envelopes might have this small touch of gum applied to them at a dash of a brush.

"Everyone now uses envelopes, which save a world of time, and if you were to furnish the means of closing the letter by an adhesive corner, a still further saving of time would take place.

"I dare say you are sadly bothered with crude suggestions; but my heart is completely in your noble scheme — the greatest of the day — that I venture to intrude occasionally.

Ever most truly yours,

Basil Hall."

To Rowland Hill, London.

And in his memoirs Sir Rowland Hill says: "This is, so far as I am aware, the first mention of that now almost universal practice, which has nearly made wafers and sealing wax things of the past."

The suggestion made by Capt. Hall, and perhaps by others, seems to have been recognized as an improvement, and acted upon at once, for about this time there appeared in the market envelopes with a small "lick of gum" about the size of the wafer, say about half an inch square, at the point of the sealing flap, and this very soon supplanted the wafer and wax.

When, however, as a still further improvement some manufacturers began to gum the whole of the sealing flap, many protested against it; and while willing to moisten the small spot of gum, for sanitary reasons they were not willing to "lick" the entire flap, so that the full gummed sealing flap had to fight for its place in the commercial field.

Some years ago Edmund M. Barton, Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Mass., in looking over a mass of old correspondence belonging to the estate of his father, Judge Ira M. Barton, found several hundred envelopes which had enclosed letters received by his father during the years 1849- 1855, and these he presented to me.

These will be pasted on this page so far as they will go as specimens of the envelope maker's art of that date.

I regret that there is not a sufficient number to enclose one in each copy of this issue.

By many it was still not considered good form to use anything but the wafer or the sealing wax and the old custom died hard, but then, as now, utility conquered prejudice and conservatism, and the gummed flap envelope came into its own.

Envelopes rapidly came into favor, and in England, in 1841, only two years after the passage of the Penny Post Act (Aug. 27, 1839), which became operative Jan. 10, 1840, almost half the correspondence passing through the Post Office of the United Kingdom was enclosed in envelopes; and in 1850, only ten years after the Act became operative, over 90% of the correspondence was enclosed in envelopes.

SIR ROWLAND HILL, The Father of the Penny Post.

Sir Rowland Hill, an English Administrator, who was born in 1795, and who died in 1879, was the father of the Penny Post which came into existence in England in 1840. On this point there is general agreement. On account of an affection of the spine sir Rowland hill he was obliged to maintain a recumbent position and his principal method of relieving the irksomeness of his situation was to repeat figures aloud consecutively until he had reached very high totals. He had the statistical mind, and, following his natural bent, in 1835, when he was forty years of age, he directed his investigation toward the postal system of Great Britain.

The discovery which resulted from these investigations is, when stated, so easy of comprehension that there is great danger of losing sight of its originality and thoroughness. A fact which enhances its merit was that he was not a Post Office Official, and possessed no practical experience of the details of the old system. After a laborious collection of statistics, he succeeded in demonstrating that the principal expense of letter carriage was in receiving and distributing, and that the cost of conveyance differed so little with the distance that a uniform rate of postage was in reality the fairest to all parties that could be adopted. Trusting, also, that the deficiency in the postal rate would be made up by the immense increase of correspondence, and by the saving which would be obtained from prepayment, from improved methods of keeping accounts and from lessening the expense of distribution, he, in his famous pamphlet published in 1837, recommended that within the United Kingdom the rate for letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight should be only one penny. The employment of postage stamps is mentioned only as a suggestion, and in the following words :

"Perhaps the difficulties might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash, which, by applying a little moisture, might be attached to the back of the letter."

Proposals so striking and novel in regard to a subject in which everyone had a personal interest commanded immediate and general attention. So great became the pressure of public opinion against the opposition offered to the measure of official prepossessions and prejudices that, in 1838, the House of Commons appointed a committee to examine the subject. The committee having reported favorably, a bill to carry out Hill's recommendations was brought in by the Government. The Act received the royal assent in 1839 and, after an intermediate rate of fourpence had been in operation from the fifth of December of that year, the penny rate commenced on the tenth of January, 18407^

Hill received an appointment in the Treasury in order to superintend the introduction of his reforms, but he was compelled to retire when the Liberal Government resigned office in 1841.

In consideration of the loss he thus sustained, and to mark the public appreciation of his services, he was, in 1846, presented with the sum of £13,360.

On the Liberals returning to office in the same year, he was appointed secretary to the Postmaster-General; and in 1854 he was made Chief Secretary. His ability as a practical administrator enabled him to supplement his original discovery by measures realizing its benefits in a degree commensurate with continually improving facilities of communication, and in a manner best combining cheapness with efficiency.

In 1860 his services were rewarded with the honor of Knighthood, and when failing health compelled him to resign his office in 1864, he received from Parliament a grant of 20,000 pounds sterling, and was also allowed to retain his full salary of 2,000 pounds a year, as retiring pension. In 1864 the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. C. L., and on the 6th day of June, 1879, he was presented with the freedom of the City of London.

The presentation, on account of his infirm health, took place at his residence at Hampstead, and he died on the 27th of August following (1879) and was buried in Westminster Abbey. (Encyclopedia Britannica — Vol. XIII p. 466.)

Up to the time of the passage of the Penny Post Act (1 839) , letters could be sent either postage prepaid or collect on delivery, at the then prevailing rates which were very high, thereby greatly restricting the correspondence of the public.

I have heard my father tell of a man whom he knew when a young man, in Scotland, in the early 40's, who had a grudge against another man, and how he got even with him. This man was a sailor, and, wherever he chanced to be, he would write to the man against whom he held the grudge, sending the letter postage collect, and this was his message :

"If you are well, I am well, Pay the post and go to h — 1."

Eventually the man was compelled to decline to receive any letters unless the postage was prepaid.

Postage stamps were introduced in England in May, 1840, and Sir Rowland Hill is given the credit for having made this suggestion, also. One of the large questions which he had set out to solve was how to handle the business on a penny basis so that the cost of handling it could be kept within reason.

Up to this time one of the enormous burdens on the Post Office Department had been the collection of postage and accounting for the proceeds of the service. Now it was proposed to have letters carried at a uniform rate in the Kingdom without regard to the distance carried, and postage was to be paid at the office of mailing so to control the revenue received for the service rendered with the smallest amount of accounting, and if postage was not prepaid double rates were to be charged, Hill's theory being that this would practically compel prepayment and thus, in large measure, control the revenue at its source.

In his memorable and epoch-making report which he published in 1837, in discussing some of the problems, in connection with the collection of the Revenue, he said in regard to the postage stamp which has been one of the greatest servants of mankind:

"Perhaps the difficulties might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, covered on the back with a glutinous wash, which, by applying a little moisture, might be attached to the back of the letter."

Then the suggestion was made that this "■bit of paper" could perform a double function (gummed flap envelopes not yet having come into use) — it would secure the prepayment of postage and at the same time it could be made to seal the envelope, thus taking the place of the wafer or sealing wax. The increasing demand for envelopes created the necessity for machinery for their manufacture, and it is generally conceded that the first efficient automatic envelope-folding machine in the world was invented by Edwin Hill, brother of Sir Rowland Hill, his invention being supplemented by those of Mr. Warren De La Rue, the original patents being issued in 1845. This machine was improved and protected by other patents in 1849 and was exhibited at the Exposition in Hyde Park, London, England, in 1851. \

The development of Envelope- Folding Machinery will be taken up in the next issue of the "Red Envelope."

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HELLO, FRISCO !"

"Less than forty years ago Professor Alexander Graham Bell, standing in a little attic at No. 5 Exeter Place, Boston, sent through a crude telephone, his own invention, the first spoken words ever carried over a wire, and the words were heard and understood by his associate.

"On that day, March 10th, 1876, the telephone was born, and the first message went over the only telephone line in the world — a line less than one hundred feet long.

"The world moves a long way ahead in the span of one man's life. On Monday afternoon, January 25, 1915, this same Alexander Graham Bell, sitting in the office of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. at New York, talked to this same Thomas A. Watson in San Francisco."

From an address by Nathan C. Kingsbury, Vice- President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.

When an audience of 5,000 people in a hall in Boston can enjoy hearing the "Star

Spangled Banner" played by a band at the Exposition in far-away San Francisco, and when a similar audience in San Francisco can hear the strains of "America" sung by the chorus in Boston, and when the human voice can be heard and recognized across the continent, traveling over 3,545 miles of wire, it seems trite and commonplace to say we are living in a wonderful age and we are compelled to admit that —

" Truth is stranger than fiction,"

for by no flight of the imagination could such a thing have been thought possible forty years ago.

This wonderful development has all been made during the lives of the men not yet old (as men count age) who took the first steps toward this marvelous achievement, and best of all the two pioneers who first "made the wire talk." Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson have lived to see that which was beyond their wildest dreams come true, and yet we and hundreds of millions of men and women use the telephone daily without even a passing thought of the debt we owe to the men who made the initial invention and to the thousands of men and women who have perfected, developed and operate this mighty servant of mankind.

At the meeting of the Division Managers of the United States Envelope Company, held at the Logan, Swift & Brigham Envelope Co. Division, Worcester, Mass., Sept. 3d, 1915, through the courtesy of Mr. Clarence

J. Abbott, District Manager of the New England Telephone & Telegraph Co., arrangements ,were made by which (Mr. George R.

Davis , Manager of the Pacific Coast Envelope^ Co. Division of the Company, who, on account ©.{ time and distance, was, not able to meet with\ the other members of our "industrial family," could exchange greetings over the wire, the telephone having annihilated both time and distance and made San Francisco and Worcester foi\the time being near neighbors. \

JAMES LOGAN, General Managei TALKING WITH SAN FRANCISCC

This was the first time that Worcester talked with San\ Francisco.

Often have,we heard the expression ' ' Talk is cheap], " but sometimes it is not. The rate for three minutes was |21.20 plus $6.75 for each additional minute and for our talk we contributed about $75.00 toward the dividend of the Telephone Co. Just fancy what Cyrus White of Rockville, Conn., or David Whitcomb of Worcester, those two sturdy, hard-headed pioneers in the envelope

GEO. R. DAVIS, Manager

pacific coast env. co. div. ,

Talking with Worcester, Mass business, would have thought to spend $75.00 for a ten-minute talk! But,

"It was well worth the price."

How was our talk made possible? The following interesting telephone data was furnished by Mr. Clarence J. Abbott, Dist. Manager at Worcester, Mass. :

"By the use of two circuits in each of which is 7,010 miles of hard-drawn copper wire .165 inch in diameter — there are 870 pounds of copper wire in each circuit mile, and over 3,000 tons in the entire line, which is carried by over 140,000 poles.

"If the human voice were loud enough to be heard from Worcester to San Francisco, it would take four hours to travel that distance. The voice by telephone travels at the rate of 56,000 miles per second and is heard in San Francisco in one fifteenth of a second.