The History of the Mailbox & Why We Should Go Back to the Front Door Mail Slot

It's truly frightening the level of theft in not only those old cast iron mailboxes you still see in a lot of urban neighborhoods of America, but even the supposedly secure locked ones with multiple mail compartments that are starting to become easier to pry open. Call this the scary prospect of mail thieves managing to get several steps ahead of even the post office, which we suspected all along anyway. Those multiple compartment mailboxes always looked flimsy to me, despite my thought that because many are out in the open, nobody would attempt to pry open the side door in broad daylight where someone desperate for some cash would have the pick of about thirty mail slots likely containing checks or other personal information.

Well, how wrong I was. Outside of the convenience of those boxes for mail carriers, there should be a demand for some changes soon.

Americans can't blame a foreign country for inventing the multiple compartment mailbox. That's mainly an American invention thanks to the advent of housing developments, apartments and duplexes. Thankfully, a lot of Western Europe only has apartments (or flats depending if you're in the U.K.) and not so much of the other two mentioned. We can overall thank Britain, however, for inventing the process of inventing a personal box where our mail can be delivered to our homes. Before the idea of having mailboxes attached to our homes arrived, Britain was using the mail drop-off box at local post offices already by the early 1800's.

The British people called them the aptly-titled wall boxes back then. Perhaps because the people of Britain found it hard to get out sometimes in mailing letters at their local post office wall boxes due to frequent U.K. rain and other inclement weather during the winter, the postal services had to acquiesce to the demands to making things easier. Such a thing could have started the long-standing stigma of mail carriers becoming disgruntled--because now they had to go pick up the mail at people's homes once the post offices there let people install wall boxes on their homes. It took about forty years for it to get to this stage, but it made a big difference in how mail proliferated throughout Britain.

What made Britain smarter than the average country was that many people also built mail slots in their front doors so all in-coming mail could be dumped right at the foot of your door--enabling people to not invent an excuse that they were unable to get out to retrieve all their fantastic due bills.

Thankfully, America copied quite a lot from the British. But we also, in the case of mailboxes, also stole from the Russians...

Russia forwards the use of the outside mailbox with no lock...

It could be because Russia is a lot more ostentatious in their sense of artistry that they're noted for inventing the first mailbox that you see outside the home. Some say that these types of boxes were already being used by the French as early as the 1700's (and perhaps not surprising considering France was more artistically ostentatious than even Russia), though Russia put some art into their boxes as you still see in some countries today. Many were made out of iron or wood or unique designs--yet already experienced the horrible act of thievery already then. Before it had a chance to proliferate, many of those styles of mailboxes started to disappear in the areas of Europe that bothered with them. Leave it up to America (and a few other countries) to acquire the idea.

Of course, anybody who grew up in America during the 20^th century have likely grown up with those cast iron mailboxes containing the little red flags that had to be propped up if you had outgoing mail. The red flag was apparently an American invention and one that was significantly ignored (if not removed) by the time I was alive in the 1970's and 80's. Nevertheless, these types of mailboxes were enjoyable as a kid--just as a chance to have a sense of excitement when you were expecting something in the mail and had to walk a little way to get it. Then it sometimes turned into concern when your parents were livid that some unknown individual opened your unlocked box and stole a box of blank checks, some other person I.D., or even a bill.

The chances of above scenario happening in the 70's and 80's were a little less depending on the crime rates of your neighborhood. My area didn't have it tremendously, though it did happen a few times...thankfully not for something that could pose a danger to our well-being. Today, I find it astonishing if I see mailboxes like that alongside the curb of a home. You'll still find them around in suburban neighborhoods and especially out in rural areas.

People experiencing mail theft from those boxes today probably wish we'd follow the British as much as American TV has...

Bring back the mail slot in the front foor!

Yep, America was smart enough to acquire this mail system, too. It was mostly seen during the middle part of the 20^th century before more modern housing developments started to be built in many big to medium-size cities. In my grandparents' 1930's-built home, there was a mail slot in the door that I didn't quite understand it as a little kid growing up with the cast iron boxes alongside the curb. It seemed scary, especially when hearing the mail go ker-plunk at the foot of the front door when in another room.

You'll still see these mail delivery door slots in homes dotting the older neighborhoods of Oregon and the rest of America. Instead of relying on those multi-compartment mailboxes that try to assure us that we're safe just because it locks and has a warning by the U.S. Government that mail theft will put you away in prison (somehow without a secret camera there to get your picture on the FBI wanted list), why doesn't the U.S. Postal Service snowball the idea of every home having a mail delivery slot in their front door? Sure, some might argue that someone can even reach in there to take your mail. It's arguably safer than having your mail delivered to a supposedly securely-locked box that you can't readily see from the comforts of your living room. I wouldn't doubt it if those with cast iron boxes use locks on them now.

___

We probably won't see the door mail slot advocated to go wide based on the idea that it would make mail carriers have to do delivery by foot when that's impossible for bigger populations. If you live an apartment, though, you should have the right to have a mail slot put in your door if you so choose and have special accommodation by the Post Office. At least private homes are still allowed to do such a thing.

If they do start to increase, I'll expect to start hearing all-new door mail slot alarms go off in nearby neighborhoods as much as we hear car alarms...