Description
This collection consists primarily of correspondence between William R. Stephens, the Roseville postmaster of the United States
Post Office and John J. Burke, Chief Clerk of Railway Mail Service District No. 8, from 1922 to 1934.
Background
The Railway Mail Service (RMS), a Department of the United States Post Office, and its successor the Postal Transportation
Service (PTS), carried most of the mail in the United States from the 1890s until the 1960s.
Established in 1869, the Railway Mail Service provided for the movement of U.S. mail by train. Highly trained RMS postal
clerks staffed the Railway Post Office (RPO), a special car on a passenger train. Mail sorted en route, received a cancellation
just as if it had been mailed at a local post office. On October 1, 1948, the Railway Mail Service was renamed the Postal
Transportation Service. The last railway post office car operated between New York and Washington, D.C. on June 30, 1977.
In 1869 the RMS was organized into six divisions, under a single general superintendent. By the 1920s, there were fifteen
divisions. Each division was headed by a Chief Clerk, who was responsible for ensuring that all mail originating from or
traveling on a RPO car was delivered in a timely manner. RMS postal clerks were under the Chief Clerk's jurisdiction. The
Chief Clerk also worked with the postmasters, employees of the U.S. Post Office, at the post offices in his division.
Restrictions
Copyright has not been assigned to the California State Railroad Museum. All requests for permission to publish or quote from
manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the CSRM
as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must
also be obtained by the reader.