Children in the mail

Everyone likes receiving mail. Many even enjoy sending out mail, even more so when theres a nice kid inside. The post office flourished in the 20th century, because now you could send whatever you wanted anywhere. You can see how sending children out for 15 cents was a nice deal. Just a few weeks after Parcel Post began, a couple mailed their 8-month-old son to his grandmother. Baby James was just shy of the 11-pound weight limit for packages sent via Parcel Post, and his “delivery” cost his parents only 15 cents in postage. As time went on, more parents saw the potential to mail their children

James Beagle was the first-known account of a child being sent through the mail. (Public Domain)

on February 19, 1914, a four-year-old girl named Charlotte May Pierstorff was “mailed” via train from her home in Grangeville, Idaho to her grandparents’ house about 73 miles away. Unfortunately, she wasn’t unceremoniously shoved into a canvas sack along with the other packages. As it turns out, she was accompanied on her trip by her mother’s cousin. Over the years, these stories continued to pop up from time to time as parents occasionally managed to slip their children through the mail thanks to rural workers willing to let it slide. Finally, on June 14, 1913,  the postmaster  said he had officially decided that children could no longer be sent through the mail. But this didn’t stop a few parents from sending their children by post. A year later, a woman mailed her six-year-old daughter from her home to Virginia.