Baby Mail: Back When Children Were Sent in the Mail

Ever thought of sending children in the mail? Well, these people didn’t think of it - they DID it!

Back in 1913, Vernon O. Lytle used to receive and deliver mails, including children. He was the first man to accept and deliver some live babies, a practice that was eventually done by other mailmen.

The most famous case of a child getting posted (thanks to a 1997 children's book named Mailing May) was when 4-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was sent to her grandmother in Lewiston, Idaho, 73 miles away from her cheap-ass parents in Grangeville, who didn't want to fork out for an actual train ticket. Charlotte cost 53 cents to post, and traveled the entire journey in a train's mail compartment, which doesn't sound at all traumatizing!
Think that's bad? In 1914, a two-year-old boy (TWO!) was mailed over 200 miles by his grandmother in Stratford, Oklahoma, to his aunt in Wellington, Kansas. (Where, oh where, were this kid's parents?) He wore the 18 cent postage around his neck and was transported by a number of insanely patient mail carriers.

Do you think this was ethical?

Photo by: Smithsonian Institution

Photo under Public Domain


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