Other spin-offs, depending on class interest and level might include:
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—The history of stamps and postmarks.
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—Various carrier and communication alternatives to written messages, from smoke signals, drums,and fires, to shouting relays and knot “letters.”
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—A history of writing implements and materials; from stylus and quill to typewriter and dictaphone, from wax and clay imprints, papyrus, parchment,and vellum, to cablegrams, airletters,and computer cards.
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—A history of the alphabet, from pictographs and ideographs to our own phonetic writing and the implications for thought, communication over distances, and the role of writing in different cultures (the aesthetics of Chinese and Japanese characters vs. the Roman alphabet). Also the development from oral communication to written forms, and the return, via modern technological media, to primarily auditory modes, turning the world into what McCluhan has called “a global village.”
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—Letter instruction books: These collections for all social occasions served to educate the sons and daughters of the middle classes as to proper literary behavior, from the l7th to the early 20th century. They provided models for how to respond to an invitation, how to propose marriage by letter (to the girl’s father, then to her), how to correspond with one’s parents, etc. Usually, an introduction spelled out the correct format: address, salutation, sign-off, etc. Historically fascinating and, by our standards, hifalutin and humorous, these epistolary templates might generate discussions (the difference in attitudes and values between past ages and our own), and suggest some entertaining writing assignments (imitating and satirizing the models).
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—For more advanced students:
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1) Longer letters, famous correspondences, fictional letters.
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2) Epistolary novels.
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3) A history of the art of letter writing in l7th and l8th century
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England.
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—Calligraphy, manuscripts, and printing
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—Handwriting analysis
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—An analysis of Junk Mail
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—Mail-order Catalogues
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—An examination of postal terms might provide an interesting opportunity for venturing into etymology, the ironies of linguistic change, and the, metamorphoses of meaning: POST (posta, from Latin:
ponere
, to place) originally referred to the relay stations, where horses and traveling provisions were “placed” along the Roman highways for the benefit of official messengers. It is amusing that the stationary (also an interesting word:) places gave their name to the system that transports the mail. MAIL originally referred to the protective leather pouches (in the sense of chainmail) that covered dispatches against rain and robbers. Clearly the messages were considered so important that the simple object in which they were carried now covers all that the postman brings. STAMPS referred to the post markings stamped on the letter to indicate that tariff had been paid. When “little bits of paper” were invented (by Roland Hill in 1840) to facilitate the pre-payment of letters, the original “stamps” lent them their name—permanently.
The areas of interest relating to letters and the mail service are virtually limitless. Students could rummage through attics for old letters and stamps; or visit local post offices; or research the history of one of America’s oldest mail routes, the Boston Post Road. Pen pals could be contacted in other countries.