Episode notes
The Nixie is back! In Episode 2 of this Parcels of Knowledge series, I take a look at one of those postal objects that makes almost no sense until you rebuild the job around it: the letter carrier’s handheld door knocker.
In “The Postman Always Knocked Twice: Door Knockers, Whistles, and the Long Wait at the Door,” we go back to the early days of free city delivery, when bringing the mail to someone’s house did not necessarily mean there was a mailbox waiting for it. Carriers knocked, rang bells, shouted, and eventually used whistles to announce their arrival, then stood there waiting for somebody to come to the door. We look at the little wooden knockers carriers used to save their knuckles, the double knock that became a recognizable postal signal, the whistles carriers used to save time, and just how much of the workday could disappear while waiting for customers to answer.
From there, the story gets bigger. We follow the gradual rise of household mailboxes and mail slots, the Post Office Department’s attempts to standardize them, the eventual requirement that customers provide somewhere for the mail to go, and how that simple change transformed the delivery point from a person standing behind a door into a piece of permanent infrastructure. We even take a short trip to London and Montreal, where postal workers were wrestling with many of the same problems.
Have an idea for a future Nixie, something weird sitting around your office that you have always wondered about, or an old postal term nobody seems to use anymore? Reach out to me at jamiegregorynalc2819@gmail.com.
Here is also the companion research report for anyone interested in the sources, history, and additional information behind this episode: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ExZFN-ItVzBgSbzz6xUcMO8HMgj6XNHkc8Mlw7tBTag/edit?usp=sharing