53: From Mailing Babies to Mailing Bombs: The Postal Service Did What???

2022/9/7

Dark History

Chapters

The postal service evolved from ancient Egyptian times, used for spying and maintaining power, to being utilized by the British monarchy for surveillance, and finally to the development of the modern postal system in the 1800s.

Shownotes Transcript

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Hi friends! How are you? It's me again. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to my study. Oh, and to my podcast, Dark History, of course. Hi. This is a chance to tell the story like it is and to share the history of stuff we would never think about. So sit back, relax, and let's talk about that hot, juicy history. Let me have some tea. Thank you.

So earlier this week, I thought I'd have a cute little moment and send my grandma a letter. Wouldn't that be so cute? Grandma loves cards. And I had a card and I wrote it. I was like, "Grandma, what is up? Nothing much here. Gotta go." You know? Normally I have a stamp and it's in the kitchen in my junk drawer. Do you have a kitchen junk drawer? Okay, well imagine that. So I opened that up, I'm tearing it apart and I couldn't find a stamp.

But I swear I saw one in there, so I just like did not believe it. I just needed one stamp. One stamp! I filled out the address and everything, and I just needed one stamp. But anyways, moral of the story is I realized I needed to go to the post office to get one, and I was like, "Wow, when was the last time I went to the freaking post office?" I don't know, it's just been, it's been a while, okay? I didn't end up going.

But what I did end up doing was staying up until 3am reading about the post office. After some googling, I was left with even more questions. This US postal system is wild. Guys, the post office, this story, it has everything. Spies, treason, dynamite, a ninja. Oh, and chemical attacks. You ready? Okay, great. Let's go.

Joan, hey girl, how are you? Where you been? You've been a little quiet. Joan and Paul, the skeleton, they've been bickering a little bit. There's a little tension in the room. It seems that Joan's a little jealous because Paul over here is getting a little bit more attention.

We'll see how this plays out. Anyways, so for this one we're going way back all the way to when writing was invented which was in 9,500 BC. Now at this point writing was kind of just dots squiggles and like little pictures similar to emojis right?

Kinda, in a way. And it was mainly used to keep track of what people were trading and buying. It sounds like people were writing like receipts for trading and selling and buying and all that stuff, you know? Sounds like receipts, right? So that's mainly what writing was used for back then. And then over time, it's like these receipts started to evolve and people were sending cute little notes to one another. Like it wasn't just about receipts. It was like little cute stuff.

But it isn't until the Egyptian empire that we really start to see writing and sending letters an important part of keeping power. Around the year 2400 BC, the Egyptians created the first organized version of the postal service.

But it definitely didn't look like the postal service we know today. Like the band. So the Egyptians used to write and send letters on papyrus. You know, it's like a cool looking thick paper. Some bougie people put like their wedding invites on. That paper.

And they'd send these letters to different pharaohs and military leaders in the surrounding areas. But they would have to like send their notes in a box on a boat with guards down the Nile River. So it was like a process, okay? Now you might be thinking, why do these letters need their own guards? Well, the Egyptians were sending these letters for sneaky reasons. They wanted to spy on people. Hmm.

At the time, Egypt was a super powerful empire and they wanted to keep that power. So they had spies all over the freaking place. Now these spies would send messages back down the Nile River to the pharaohs. They'd send reports about shady governments, military plans. And they also wanted to know if there were any nearby tribes whose land and people they could take over. Hmm.

Now this may have been the first time the mail was used by governments to spy on people, but it definitely wasn't the last. In fact, using a postal system of some kind to maintain or steal power is actually a huge theme throughout history. That's weird because the only mail I get is like the 99 cent, the dollar, what is that? The penny saver. That's what I get. So is the penny saver trying to take over?

I love the penny saver though because they got the ads in there for like different stuff. It's just... Anyways, the Egyptians may have started it, but the British, they perfected it. Yeah, I finally got to use it. So let's jump forward a few centuries and talk about the British. I'm just kidding.

I love that song. It's popping. It's a jam. It's good, you guys. It gets me real jazzed up. Okay, so we're in England. It's the 1500s. And King Henry VIII is in charge. Yeah, you know him? Now, good old King Henry, he was a little paranoid, a little cuckoo.

So he pulled aside one of his most trusted advisors and asked him to create England's first postal system, which is a great advancement for the British. Honestly, yay. Thanks, King Henry. But Henry, Henry darling.

He didn't make the postal service for his people. Oh, nay, nay. He doesn't trust anyone. And he wants to make sure no one is sending letters talking trash about him. So Henry puts a guy in charge of the postal system, which is like Henry's advisor. And this guy was essentially like the royal snitch. His title was literally "spy master." That's so sick. I want that title. "Spy master?"

Yeah. So Henry and his spymaster have their postal system set up and they are only really using it to sniff out any traces of treason or adultery. They probably had like a little gossip magazine on the side where they would gossip and know everyone's business. That'd be fun.

actually. Anyways, Henry trusted no one, especially not his wives. So you better believe he was reading their mail. He was like some crazy jealous boyfriend. Not even, he was a crazy jealous husband who was hacking into her phone, was reading her text messages, said, girl, you know, red flag.

King Henry thought that his wives were cheating on him and he never would find any real proof, but he would use this as an excuse to go through their mail and then also like just get rid of them because he just believed that they were cheating and then he would blame like whatever's in their mail. Anyways, what I'm getting at is, you know, sometimes he would get divorced. Sometimes, you know, you would lose a head. Just whatever mood Henry was in.

But the best part, the best part of all, because at the end of the day, he's still a man. And this isn't meant to be shady. It's just the truth. Because Henry over here, well, he was the one sending letters in the mail to his mistress. Not to his wives. It was him.

Such a dude move, isn't it? My God. Come on! Back in 1529, someone made off with 17 love letters between Anne Bolin, who at the time was still Henry's side piece. Now these letters would have been considered very valuable, very salacious, you know? And you can bet Henry was pissed when he found out that these letters had gone MIA. He actually had his guards search the bags of MIA

everyone leaving England who might have had access to his castle. But no dice. Fun fact, those 17 little love letters, well, they mysteriously resurfaced hundreds of years later. And now they're actually on display at the Vatican. Road trip! Meet you there, girl. It's on you though, right? Okay, cool. Cool.

So to this day, nobody knows who stole them. Nobody will know.

but you can bet they definitely made a good chunk of change off of them. Good for them. That's so cool. What an icon. Anyways, the drama with the Henry's family and the postal service didn't end after Henry died because his daughter Elizabeth, she also had her eye on it. When Elizabeth becomes queen, like many powerful single women, she has some haters, okay?

And one of them, the biggest Liz hater of all, was actually her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. So Mary, Queen of Scots, is super jealous of Elizabeth because she wants to be queen and she's ready to do anything to make it happen. But she's no dummy. She's Mary, Queen of Scots. Ha ha ha!

By this time, it's pretty obvious that their mail is definitely not private, not a secure line. But Mary, Queen of Scots, needs to communicate her plan, okay? So Mary makes up a code and uses it to write letters to her supporters who want to help overthrow Elizabeth.

But unfortunately for Mary, Queen of Scots, the royal postal system is one step ahead. Elizabeth's right-hand man spent a lot of money hiring experts on codes and ciphers. Basically the art of decoding a message. And you know those globs of wax that people use to seal their letters in the olden days? Super fancy. Again, people use it for like their wedding invites.

Those. Well, Elizabeth's postal workers were so good that they perfected the art of lifting up that wax seal on letters so they could be opened without anyone noticing. Once again, the Postal Service, it was really just a network of spies. Oh my God. Yeah. Jeez. Nothing is safe. That's actually genius. Just hire your people to go through all the mail. Smart.

Listen, it must have all paid off for Miss Elizabeth over here because she would actually go on to rule for 45 years. So all that spying must have paid off is what I'm saying. This period was Elizabethan era, aka the golden age for England, where a ton of progress and art was made. Like, we wouldn't have Shakespeare if England hadn't had money to fund the theaters.

And it's crazy to think that it's all because some postal workers got sneaky. So it's clear that throughout its early history, the postal system was created by, used by, and abused by the rich, powerful, and royal. But what about everybody else? Well, for that, we gotta hop, skip, and jump about 250 years to England in the 1800s. But first...

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Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. Thanks, SeatGeek. The 1800s seemed wild, huh? It's like when a lot of our stories take place. The 1800s? There was something going on. There was something in the water.

It's probably shit. Everyone was drinking shit. Okay, commoners. Commoners, you know, people who are not royal. Well, they also, they want to start sending letters to friends and family. But to make that possible, a few important things are invented that we still use today. Number one, the postage stamp.

that I can never find. You see, before stamps were a thing, people were paying to send things based on the size of their package. Not the weight. Same Z. You can only get into this party based off the size. Not the weight. Just call me a postal worker, baby.

And there were even more costs depending on how far the package was going. And sometimes you just couldn't even send the package because the place you wanted to go to, too far, can't do that.

So the whole system was expensive, complex, and honestly very inconvenient. But then in 1840 along comes the postage stamp. Now this little stamp, this little cutie, would change everything. For starters, it let people send a letter up to a certain weight as far as they wanted. Oh, it didn't matter if your note was going one town over or across the country.

Same price, babe. Okay. So not only did the stamp affect how much was paid for postage, but it also flipped the script on who paid. Before the stamp, it was the person receiving the delivery who would have to pay for the postage. But after the stamp, it was the sender to pay postage up front, which honestly makes sense. Because if you sent me a letter and then you told me to pay, it better be a good letter.

where are you sending me something good? You could really mess with somebody by sending them a ton of shit and then like forcing them to pay for all of it. It could also just be a really fun joke. Not really. No, I would do it to the neighbor that I hate. We'll save that for another day. On top of all this, everyone loved this new stamp because it was sticky or could be sticky if you gave it a little

Licky. This made sending mail even more user-friendly, cheap, and as you can imagine, demand goes up and up. And this huge shift in demand leads to the next major development. Let's welcome to the scene the mailbox. The crowd goes wild. The mailbox.

So yeah, at this point, mailboxes were not a thing. So imagine sending mail without a mailbox. Where does it go? I don't know, but it would just end up there to you, hopefully. But back to how we got to mailboxes. So at first, mailboxes are only on street corners because people were still going to the post office. But now that sending mail was easier to do with the postage stamp,

Girl, there were a lot of letters, okay? That one mailbox in the neighborhood, it wasn't cutting it anymore. It was just always overflowing. There was too many letters and trips to the post office, they sucked.

Okay, it took forever. There weren't enough postal workers to handle the workload. So England's version of the postal service, aka the Royal Mail, they were begging people to put mailboxes on their property so it would be faster for mail couriers to pick up and send their letters. You get a mailbox, you get a mailbox, everybody gets a mailbox, you know.

and by the mid-1800s. The Postal Service, as we know and love today, was birthed. But this is like still across the pond in England. So what's going on with the Postal Service over in the good old U.S. of A.?

How did it start here? Well, it all had to do with the revolution that the Americans were plotting and cooking up. So before the American Revolution, the 13 colonies were under British rule. So naturally, they were using the British mail system

which, as we've heard, not the most confidential of services. I mean, that wasn't their goal. And the colonists, well, they freaking hated it. Now, there were a few reasons the colonists were not fans, but there were like two main ones. One, every time they wanted to send something, they had to pay for a stamp, which was just more money going to the government that had...

Nothing to do with them. You're not my dad. And two, the founding fathers were trying to plan a freaking revolution. They know that they definitely can't like send their ideas to each other through the mail or the Brits will read it and they'll be arrested and killed for treason. So what do they do?

Well, they need to be able to communicate. And to get this done, they decide to set up their own secret postal system. This way, they could plot their overthrow of the British forces in the colonies and, you know, be able to talk shit freely. But how exactly did they do it? Well, shut up. I'll tell you. At this time, mail was delivered one of two ways. One way was by stagecoach. Not the music thing. Like an actual...

Stagecoach. A big covered wagon with four huge wooden wheels that was pulled by the horses. Oregon Trail? Yes. Stagecoaches were kind of heavy, so they moved a lot slower.

For more express delivery, people turned to their second option: riders on horseback. Like the Pony Express. Remember? Those hot jockeys? No? Yeah? Okay. Well, they were just galloping from town to town, bringing people love notes, hate mail, and secrets. But with independence on their noggin, these riders started to create their own routes to avoid being stopped and having their mail confiscated by British officers.

Because if that happened, those secrets they were delivering would become not so secret. Now straying from the assigned routes was against British law at the time, but you know, those pony riding postal workers, they didn't give an F. How would they know if they went off route? And soon the system grew as towns throughout the colonies set up their own independent post offices. Eventually all the individual town post offices joined forces, but they need a leader.

And boy do they find one. It's 1775 and good old Ben Franklin becomes the Queen Bee, or as the post office calls it, the Postmaster General. I know, Ben Franklin! Yeah! Oh my god, Ben Franklin made electricity and Postmaster General. Icon. But it's for the British-run post system in the colonies.

However, we know Benny is full Team America and he uses his position of power to further advance the secret underground system. This allowed the founding fathers to communicate with Congress, the American militia forces. But in all seriousness, this secret line of communication was super important to the success of the revolution. It's like they were passing notes to each other in class. Like the notes were like, "Do you wanna take over America together?"

Circle yes or no, and then they'd send it back. But in all seriousness, the secret line of communication was super important to the success of the revolution. If they were never allowed to communicate their plans with each other, the colonies would have never been able to defeat the British. Communication is key. Oh yeah, that's so true.

So the war ends and America is free. And Ben Franklin's VIP postal system didn't just go away. In fact, it only continues to get stronger and stronger. Benny sees how beneficial the post office was during the revolution. And he realizes that the post office could be key to making the 13 colonies feel more like one community.

unified country. So more post offices pop up as America continues to expand. And before you know it, there's one in every city. Now how convenient, you know?

But back then you actually had to go into the post office to pick up your mail, kind of like a P.O. box I guess? Which I guess makes sense because a P.O. box stands for post office box. Oh yeah, it all makes sense now. But this all changes in 1863 when a postal clerk in Cleveland, Ohio sees a long line of women standing out in the snow.

probably getting frostbite, freezing their titties off, waiting to pick up mail from their husbands who were fighting on the front lines during the Civil War. You know, 1860s stuff. The US Post Office decides, you know what, these ladies have been through enough, okay? The last thing they need to do is lose a toe to frostbite. And this is when home delivery starts to happen in the major cities.

And guess what? It's free! Oh yeah, they advertise it as a free city delivery. But of course, you still have to pay postage. This didn't seem to matter though because within a few years it would be available all over. Ah, luxury. Mail right to my door. This is when the postal service gets a little wardrobe change because you see, up until that point, postal workers kind of wore whatever they wanted because they would just be in the post office.

But now postal workers would be taking to the streets, delivering to people's homes. And it was like a little bit more official. So the postmaster makes an announcement. "Get in losers, we're going shopping." And everyone gets a new uniform. And these were some nice uniforms, okay? I'm not talking about some polyester blend shirts, okay? This was closer to a suit.

They wanted to make sure that there was no confusion that the postal worker delivering stuff to your house was legit. It wasn't just some like random dude coming up to your mailbox, stealing your birthday cards. The uniforms helped people identify postal workers and also just helped legitimize the postal service.

These uniforms actually ended a lot of mail theft because people knew who their official mail carriers were. And it wasn't just city folk getting this VIP delivery service. Farmers in rural parts of America would put their letters in old cigar boxes or lard pails and toss them down the road where the postman could pick them up. The nation was expanding fast as hell. So, you know, they're just kind of like trying to figure things out right now.

It makes sense. And the post office, they had a lot on their plate. Like more than just the mail, okay? Before the FBI was a thing, the post office inspectors were the ones stopping big organized crime from happening. There's a lot of pressure on these people. I mean originally the post office was developed as a tool for spying, so it kind of makes sense. They were

kind of playing as FBI. And they were so good at what they did that they actually took down a huge organized crime ring in 1908. Talk about multitasking. And the post office didn't stop there. They just keep doing great things for the country. The post office was all about equal opportunity. Even when good job opportunities weren't so easy to find, many Black Americans found work as the nation's mail carriers.

The post office is one of the rare places that hired black Americans after the Civil War. They became postmasters, city letter carriers, and even clerks. Now, this was really important to the development of a black middle class in America because, I mean, hello, it was a government job. It gave people financial security, benefits, and respect in their community.

To this day, working for the post office is still considered a great job. So it seems like the post office is just really having a moment in time. But we all know we can't have nice things, right? The post office is no exception and it experienced some rocky times. Naturally, humans will be humans and some will try to push the limits, okay? They already know they can ship letters and packages with the postal service and it's great.

But people just started looking at shit around them and were like, "Hey, you think I could ship this?" They start with eggs, which, okay, sure, seems like a risk. Then they send bricks. Kinda rude.

because that must have been like really heavy to carry. And then one crazy person out there is like, oh, you know what? I'm going to scare the shit out of Aunt Martha. And like someone literally mails snakes. Oh, I would hate that person so much. But one couple in Ohio sees all this going on and they decide to escalate things to a whole new level. And in 1913, they mailed a baby. Yeah, a human baby in the mail.

delivered like a pizza. Just picture it, a few postage stamps on his big ass baby forehead. He's riding in like the postman's mailbag, just taken in the sights, you know? Now to deliver this baby in the mail, it cost 15 cents. Not bad, that's a little bargain, which is about $4 today.

That's steal. But bargain aside, you think the mail person would have maybe stopped and thought for a second that, I don't know, maybe delivering a human baby was not the best idea. But then again, how else are you gonna deliver a human baby? Someone's gotta do it. But it doesn't seem like it because they brought that baby to the delivery address, which was the kid's grandma. She was like just across town.

I guess she needed to babysit or something. Okay, so the post office didn't stop people from mailing children right away. You know, at least eight children were shipped via post office. But here's the truly wild part. Mailing babies was completely legal at the time. But then 1914 rolls around and the post office decides to get out of the human trafficking game and they make mailing babies illegal. Boo.

That's so boring. Can't we have anything fun, you guys? Jeez, gotta ruin it for everyone. I wanna mail babies. Just pick up babies and mail them to random addresses. That'd be so fun. That's a great joke. Send your neighbor a baby. Come on. Anyways, and even though all that seems crazy, something even scarier is being sent in the mail.

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BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere. And the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory. Two days of sign up.

So people are mailing babies, they're mailing snakes. You're not allowed to send dildos though, remember? Nay nay. I'm sure they try, I'm sure they still did, but that's just the start of it. Shit really hits the fan when people realize that they can use the postal service as a weapon. Oh shit. Oh dear. Oh, oh yes.

Oh, yes. And we see a terrifying trend start in the early 1900s of people sending explosives. Yeah, in the mail.

Now, sometimes, probably most of the times, this was racially motivated. At this time, the Civil War hadn't ended that long ago, and not everyone was thrilled about Black Americans thriving, especially in their new government postal worker jobs. In some parts of the South, many Black postal workers were threatened into resigning. And in 1904, a post office in Humphrey, Arkansas, a freaking course, Arkansas,

was bombed in the middle of the night and completely destroyed. All because some people were mad that a Black worker had been promoted to the position of postmaster. But that didn't stop Black Americans from working at the post office. Eventually, there are Black postmasters in America's three biggest post offices: New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. That's just a big middle finger to those people.

"Yeah, thank you guys," you know. But sending explosives in the mail did not stop there. Some people would use this as a way to try to take out high profile targets, important figures like politicians, maybe even businessmen,

Why not? People like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, the mayor of New York, and even a Supreme Court justice were all almost killed because of explosives that were sent to them in the mail.

So this is becoming a pretty big threat and everyone wants to figure out like who's sending this shit in the mail. But on April 27th, 1919, one mail clerk became a hero. Charles Kaplan was riding the train home from his job at the New York City Post Office. And I guess like during the ride, he was reading his newspaper and

when he came across something that caught his eye, you know? He noticed a story in the paper about a bomb that had been sent in the mail to a Georgia senator. So he's like, okay, yes, go on. Bombs in the mail had become kind of like a common thing, but this article had a description of the bomb and the package it arrived in. And Charles is like connected some dots. He's like, hey, wait a minute. Hey, wait a minute. I just seen some shit like that at my work.

So he hopped off the train and he rushed back to the post office. I mean, he gets there just in time. He intercepted the suspicious packages and it turned out that they were indeed bombs. And these bombs had been intended for a bunch of senators. Oh, shit. So the postmaster spreads the word across the country to be on the lookout for similar packages. And thank God he did because, boy,

40, four, zero, more mail bombs were intercepted and never got to their targets. Hooray, the world is saved, you know, yay. But you know, good things never last forever, you know? And bombs in the mail, well, they never truly go away. In fact, they make a pretty infamous comeback almost 50 years later.

with the one and only Ted Kaczynski aka the Unabomber. Yeah remember? Maybe you don't know but I did a whole murder mystery and makeup on this guy Ted. Teddy! But basically Ted lived like a hermit in a cabin in the woods where he wrote that wild or a wild manifesto saying technology was going to destroy humanity and honestly he was kind of onto something and I was like is he that bad?

I think the way he went about it, his approach was wrong, but his, you know, I think about him a lot. Anyways, starting in the 1970s, he, Teddy, he used the Postal Service to mail bombs all over the United States. He targeted academics and professionals, leaving three dead and 23 injured. Again, I'm not agreeing with how he went about it.

but his his theories and stuff were kind of spot on sometimes. That's not the point. I don't know why I'm trying to cover for him. Okay Bailey, we need to move on because this is about the postal service.

So at this point, we're in the 1970s, and it's surprising but pretty clear that the postal workers really put their lives on the line for us. But was it worth it? I mean, I guess plenty of people thought so, because the United States Postal Service grows in a very big way. By the end of the 70s, there were around 25,000 post offices in America, and the workers are busy. Oh, yes, they are.

Postal workers are working their butts off but still struggling to pay their bills. Now you might be saying, "Wait a minute, Bailey. I thought you literally just said that working for the Postal Service was a solid government job with benefits. Are you a liar?" Well, like I said earlier, yes I am. But a little thing called inflation happens.

Sound familiar? Well, life was getting more and more expensive, but the postal workers hadn't seen a pay raise in a very long time.

So what was once a cushy job was now barely paying enough to keep food on the table. Postal workers were still in demand and working nonstop, and it was pretty common for them to just, like, you know, have a second job just to make ends meet. Some postal workers were even depending on food stamps to survive. I mean, has anything changed? My God. While all this was happening, the people in Congress, well...

They're doing just fine, you know? In fact, they thought that they were doing such a good job, they decided to give themselves a 40% raise. That same year in 1970, the postal workers got only a 5% raise. So same shit, different era, you know, literally.

This, though, was like the last straw for many of the postal workers. So what'd they do? Well, they're like, F you, we're out. We're striking until we get a pay raise. And they did. The post office organizes a nationwide walkout, and this becomes known as the Revolt of the Good Guys. I mean, that's a great movie title or like album record or like, come on, copyright dibs. I call it

All across America, 200,000 postal employees join in on this strike and just refuse to deliver mail for eight whole days. And it really fucks you up. Two billion pieces of mail just went undelivered. To this day, undelivered. Just vanished. Poof. We don't know what happened to your mail. I'm so sorry. I don't know. It's gone.

And this was during the Vietnam War. So people were like standing by the mailbox waiting for news from their loved ones overseas. Some even waiting to see if they were being drafted into the war. I couldn't imagine the stress. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Think about it. They didn't have the Internet or cell phones back then, of course. So everything was done on paper and through the mail. Banking, insurance, everything.

other stuff, everything. So people were like waiting on important documents, which were at the post office. Just, we don't know. We don't know what happened to your mail. Maybe if you paid us more, we'd find out. The problem got so bad that President Nixon stepped in and said, screw the post office. We can handle the mail ourselves.

So President Nixon sends about 20,000 military personnel to New York to process all those backlogged packages and letters and blah, blah, bloops, you know? But when they get there, they realize that they have no idea how to do this.

How do you deliver mail? What's step one? You know, how do you know where these addresses are at? They don't know. They don't know how to sort the mail. Where is it supposed to go? So Nixon looks like an idiot and he is forced back to the table to negotiate with the post office. And this, my friends, is when the postal workers, now with a ton of leverage, are like, hell yeah, you can't do our job without us. So you better pay up.

Bitches. You know? Man, we gotta do that now. Let's just all stop working and see what happens for shits and giggles. Who's down? We can like end the whole country. That'd be so fun. So the president ended up giving them a bigger raise.

Still way less than what Congress was making. More importantly, America was reminded just how lost they were without the post office. So yeah, postal workers are making a few extra bucks and it seems like the post office is finally getting a break. I mean, damn, they have been through some shit. But little do they know, there's more coming for them.

Have you ever heard of the term going postal? Hmm? Have you? Now have you ever wondered where it came from? Because I know I have. Well let me tell you, it's not from a postal worker delivering sunshine and rainbows, but it definitely has to do with the post office. So the year is 1986. Welcome to sleepy town Edmond, Oklahoma. It's like any other small town. Cute, quiet, peaceful.

But just a couple streets over, a group of kids ran away from a 44-year-old man calling him Crazy Pat. So this Patrick guy, he was a postal worker, but he was also well known for being like the local Peeping Tom. Yeah, Peeping Patrick. Okay, you nasty. Now, Patrick wasn't very well-liked.

Honestly, fair. Being the local peeping Tom doesn't get you many brownie points. But more than his creepy hobby, Pat also wasn't the best coworker. Now he worked at the Edmond post office and really didn't get along or even like his coworkers. He disliked them so much that one morning on August 20th, 1986, he walked into work with a bag full of guns.

and shot and killed 14 coworkers and then injured six others before shooting himself.

making it the deadliest workplace shooting in American history up until 2019. The shooting was so horrific and was so widely publicized that it actually created the phrase going postal. Even today that phrase is used to describe someone when they're going like just totally crazy. They're like oh my god he's going postal. Which kind of sucks because like

a lot of people died. That's kind of like when someone says like um you want to drink the kool-aid. Like dude that's a lot of people that died and drank that kool-aid. So not the greatest you know. Maybe if you say like drink that kool-aid RIP. Thoughts and prayers. Okay look I'm gonna have to do a story about Pat on my murder mystery and makeup because I want to know what's up with his backstory don't you? Samesy. So let me get that going.

Thank you so much. But Crazy Pat was unfortunately not the only one to go postal. No. So we're gonna talk about this guy, Joseph Harris. Ugh. Harris was a post office worker in Ridgewood, New Jersey. And he also wasn't a very popular guy.

His coworkers noticed that he had a temper and didn't like authority or taking direction, which if you're trying to have a job, that's not a good combination to have. So it makes sense that

Perhaps he had a problem with his supervisor, whose name was Carol. Things continue to escalate and Carol eventually files a report with the local police department accusing Harris of harassment. Not only that, she also orders him to submit a fitness of duty test at work. Sorry, I got hung up on the word duty. Eh.

So essentially they're trying to find out if his brain is in the right place to do this type of work. And you know, how do you think Harris is going to take this? Spoiler alert, not great. Okay. Harris refused to take the test. And since the test was required for him to keep working, he ends up getting fired. So because of that,

Because he's an angry man, he decides to get revenge on Carol. Just after midnight on October 10th, 1991, Harris goes to Carol's apartment dressed like a ninja, armed with a bunch of guns, three hand grenades, and a literal samurai sword. Yeah, he just randomly had that, he had that waiting in the closet for its day, and it was here.

Anyway, Harris goes on to kill Carol with the sword and then kills her boyfriend. But sadly, like it isn't done yet. Harris then pays a visit to his old workplace, the post office, and he kills two mail handlers. Then the police finally arrive, but Harris isn't done going postal, as you would say. He chucks a homemade bomb at them, kaboomy! And then eventually he gets arrested.

It's really, really unfortunate. I'm laughing because I'm uncomfortable, but it's unfortunate because there are so many examples of postal workers being targeted. And it's like, what's going on? These poor postal workers, just leave them alone. They keep getting tangled up in violence and they're just trying to deliver mail.

Leave 'em alone, will ya? Probably one of the scariest stories involving postal workers is the Anthrax scare in the early 2000s. Do you remember? I remember. It was kind of similar to the mail bombings, but this time people had upped their game a bit and got even more creative.

or dangerous, I should say. You see, someone was mailing threatening letters to politicians and newspapers, and in the letter, or in the letters, was this powder called anthrax. Now, anthrax was scary because just touching it could make you sick. And if you inhaled it, oh shit tits.

game over, it could kill ya. Everyone was so scared to open their mail. And what's even more horrifying is that all of this started just one week after 9/11. So like everybody's just freaking out. It was just, it was a lot. It was a lot. And it's not like the media was helping calm everyone down.

The media was just chaos. But imagine how the postal workers must have felt. I mean, they're the ones who were like, you know, they had to deliver it. I mean, haven't these poor postal workers been thrown off? During this time, two postal workers, Joseph Kersine and Thomas Morris, died when they accidentally handled anthrax. But imagine how many others were unknowingly exposed. Some were probably carrying letters and boxes with no idea how much danger they were in.

and at this point you're probably like okay enough i get it bailey the post office is just supposed to bring me my birthday card from grandma you know and be safe and be happy no more bad stuff please but hi this is dark history babe and you know you know there's more this time the threat would be coming from the inside the

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Oh my god. Oh dear. So, between the bombs being mailed, the snakes, bricks, chemical attacks, babies, postal workers had a lot on their plate, you could say.

So, is being a mailman high key one of the most dangerous jobs in America? It's like up there. So it's like, shit, pay them more. My God. But it's not just outside threats they're dealing with. Like a lot of old establishments, the post office has its fair share of corruption. Lou.

We can't be too surprised, can we? I mean, just on this show, we've covered a lot of things that have been around for way less time than the post office that were also super corrupt. And the post office is no different, especially in the last couple of years.

From 2010 to 2019, at least 250 managers in 60 post offices were caught screwing with the time cards of mail carriers, which is like so random, super illegal. Second of all, why? Because they wanted to pay them less than they were owed.

These managers were straight up stealing from these people. And this is just one example. For decades, the whole post office system has been a shit show as jobs were getting cut left to right. It was not looking good at all for the post office. But then March 2020 rolls around and here comes our friend COVID. Everyone was trapped inside and no one even wanted to leave because we were all terrified. But...

We still needed stuff. We still wanted stuff. So what did we do? We ordered everything online. Oh my God, did we? So mail carriers saw their workload totally skyrocket.

Yeah. While we were locked inside our houses, sanitizing our packages. Were you doing that? Because I wasn't. I was just taking the risk. The mail carriers had to keep going. But crucial things had to be delivered like medication, those stimulus payments and laundry detergent.

just like things that people literally needed to survive. In the early part of the pandemic, the number of packages going through the postal service was more than what they typically see at freaking Christmas. More than Christmas time. That's a lot of mail. And not only this, but some postal workers got sick too. And the ones still able to keep working felt their workloads double or sometimes even more than that.

So it's safe to say mail carriers and the post office have been through a lot. Yeah. Snaps to the post service. I kind of like that it started as like a shady spy company. That's fun. That's fun. Can we bring that back? Start spying on mail again.

But in general, the post office, I mean, they deserve all of the praise. But now suddenly I'm seeing all this stuff online that people are saying we don't need the post office after everything they've done for us. I wonder who was saying that. Or maybe it's just that the government found faster, better ways to spy on us. I mean, they have better methods of keeping tabs on people now. They spy on us through our phones and stuff.

It's kind of crazy how the postal service went from being used by Egyptian pharaohs and their spies to being used as evidence for royal beheadings to being front and center in some of America's darkest times.

It doesn't matter what time period or what country you live in, the Postal Service has been a huge part of our lives. It kept us connected. So something I read that made me kind of sad is that the United States Postal Service hasn't turned a profit since 2007. Oh shit.

Yeah. People are tired of digging in their junk drawers for that one stamp or trying to figure out where to get an envelope. It's way easier to just send an e-card or a birthday text instead of like, you know, going to the post office. Even though it's like nicer though, I don't like birthday texts. I want cards. Pretty cards on papyrus paper. Mm-hmm.

I mean, nowadays we can like get two day delivery on almost anything. Convenience is king. So I guess I can see why lots of people say that the post office is kind of out of date because no one really gets mail anymore. Everything's online and everything that comes in the mail is just junk mail. But I do love the penny saver. I'm telling you. But honestly, it's kind of nice. It's kind of cute that the post office still exists. It's like a tradition as post

Old as his country. And look, the Postal Service might not be perfect, but show me something in America that is. Besides me. My point is, how can we hate on something that brings us occasional surprises? Close. And weird shit we ordered drunk at 2am. And if your package is a day or two late, cut your mail carrier some goddamn slack, will you?

Okay? And say please and thank you. Plus, think about it. If the postal service didn't exist, who would be delivering our mail? Mail wouldn't exist. Well, everyone, thank you for learning with me today. Did you learn anything new? Oh, wow. Really? That's what your takeaway is? Great. I love that for you. Interesting. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions to get the whole story because you deserve that.

I'd love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story, so make sure to use the hashtag DarkHistory over on social media so I can follow along. Also, join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, why don't you stop on over and check out my murder mystery and makeup. Anywho, I hope you have a great day today. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you next week. I'm sorry I keep singing everything. Goodbye!

Dark History, if you don't know, is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Dunya McNeely from Three Arts, Kimberly Jacobs, Kevin Grush, and Claire Turner. Our writers are Joey Scaluzzo, Katie Burris, Allison Filobos, and me, Bailey Sarian.

Shot and edited by Tafadzwa Nemarundwe. Research provided by Ashley Spurgeon. A special thank you to our expert, Allison Buzalinski, from the National Post Museum. And I'm your host, uh, uh, uh, Bailey Sarian. Why are you still here? Turn off the video. My God, you're obsessed with me, you psycho. ♪

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53: From Mailing Babies to Mailing Bombs: The Postal Service Did What???