Across America with the Air Mail
During the era of planes, the U.S. government established the "Air Mail" division of the Post Office Department in 1918. This 1924 New York Times Magazine article tagged along on one such cross-country route.
Oscar Cesare – whose modern-day Wikipedia bio calls him a "caricaturist, painter, draftsman, and editorial cartoonist" rather than a writer or journalist – outlined Air Mail:
There is no transport service anywhere on earth today conducted with more dependability than the Air Mail Service. Yet its reliability depends finally on the courage and resourcefulness of Uncle Sam's air pilots. The uncounted obstacles and unimagined situations which must be met without hesitation are ever-present forces arrayed against the pilot and his cargo. Once in the air nobody can help him.
Cesare tagged along en route with Plane 24 captained by a Pilot Smith. (No first name was given?) Ending the description of his journey with this beautiful paragraph, Cesare reflected on the nation that had passed miles beneath him:
You have crossed the United States. What appalling contrasts! Rich, poor, starving, majestic, awe-inspiring – all in less than forty hours. Visions, nightmares, dreamed with wide open eyes.
The Air Mail service was privatized only two years after this article's publication, in 1926, ending the use of what Cesare termed "Uncle Sam's air pilots." Air mail as a distinct service and separate division ended in 1975, when all mail traveling longer than a certain distance began to be shipped by air whenever feasible.
Across America with the Air Mail: The Story of a Flight Over the Route of the Pilots Who Span the Continent – A Tale of Battles with Storms and Soaring Climbs Over the Mountain Ridges
Published: Sunday, December 14, 1924