NJFSC Chapter #44S..........PHS Affiliate #1A..........APS Affiliate #95 |
FEBRUARY 2013 Featured Cover
February 2013 Issue of the NJPH Journal INTENDED FOR THE GRAF ZEPPELIN BUT CARRIED BY STEAMER? A 1929 Jersey City Transatlantic Airmail to Basel Switzerland by John Trosky
The first decades of the 20th century saw the dawn of a new age in mail transport, airmail. By
the late 1920s the US Post Office Department had established many routes across the continental US
to speed the transportation of mail. Transatlantic mail on the other hand remained the purview of the
fast ocean steamer. It was only in 1927 that Lindbergh had finally conquered the Atlantic by aircraft. Read more in our Galleries..
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The Webmasters Spin, or a Glimpse of our Garden State.
The history of "The Jerseys" is a fascinating chronology of the people that inhabit a diverse landscape, whose geology runs from the Appalachian Valley and Kittatinny Ridge in the mountainous north-west corner of the state to the sandy peninsular Cape May in the south-east; from the Palisades in the north and Sandy Hook and Raritan Bay in the north-east through the Great Pine Barrens to the river forests and lowlands along the Delaware River and Bay in the south.
Since colonial times, the state was key to communications and commerce between two of the largest cities in British North America, Philadelphia and New York City.
During the Revolutionary War and after independence was won, Americans set about to galvanize a new nation. East and West Jersey joined to form the third state ratifying the new constitution. New Jersey remained the crossroads of communications and commerce between the nation's first capital, Philadelphia and it's second capital, New York City. People poured into the state. Towns became cities. Indian trails became highways. Mail delivered by post riders became mail delivered by rail - and dirigibles!
Now mail has become e-mail, and collectors like myself long for bits and pieces of the old days. The days when your mailman stopped for an ice tea and a chat. Alas, long gone. Another chapter in the book of our collective lives. BUT, towns long turned to dust, roads long vanished from the maps, and the people that lived where we live now all beckon the philatelist and contemporary postal history collector. Learning from these items of yesteryear, as well as from fellow enthusiasts - that's the New Jersey Postal History Society. Join us and share your stories and research, your oral histories, your collecting interests. This is the website we want to create - with your help!
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