This is the time of year for Christmas cards and annual family update letters. It seemed like a good time for a few words on an item many don’t think much about, but which is important in ensuring all those cards and letters get where they need to go — the envelope.
While envelopes have been around for centuries, I wanted to start by mentioning letterlocking — a technique in which a letter is folded, secured, and sent without the use of an envelope. This technique was used alongside handmade envelopes, but 19th century inventors saw an opportunity and went to work improving the manufacture of envelopes. With the advent of mass production, letterlocking eventually gave way to the convenience of the cheap premade envelope.
As for the modern envelope, there were several men of, well, note. Two of the earliest names to mention were from the UK. In 1845, Edwin Hill, brother to a key figure in British postal reform, Sir Rowland Hill, invented and patented a steam-powered machine that folded and fixed paper into the shape of an envelope. The invention was important enough that few years later, in 1851, he and co-inventor Warren De La Rue exhibited an improved version of that machine at the London Exposition.
Inventors in the United States were also busy. The decades that followed would see a series of patents and innovations, a few of which are listed below:
- In 1849, patent no. 6,055 was issued to Jesse Park and Cornelius Watson for a machine to make envelopes.
- Patent no. 9,812, for another automatic envelope maker, was issued to Russell Hawes in 1853.
- In 1858 patent no. 22,405 was issued to James Green Arnold for the Arnold Side-Seam Envelope.
- Henry Swift and D. Wheeler Swift can claim several patents for envelope machines or improvements to them, including: patent no. 115,382 and no. 9,800 issued in 1871; patent no. 173,870, issued in 1876; patent no. 212,634 in 1879; and patent no. 893,110A in 1904.
- In 1901, John Ames Sherman was granted patent no. US 672,919A for an envelope folding & gumming machine.
- In 1902, patent no. 701,839 was granted to Americus Callahan, who developed the first envelope with a window.
In the late 19th century, there were a number companies that made envelopes, but eventually many combined into the U.S. Envelope Company (USEC), which dominated envelope manufacturing for decades. These companies included: Logan, Swift, & Brigham; Whitcomb Envelope Co.; W.H. Hill Envelope Co.; Morgan Envelope Co.; P. P. Kellogg & Co.; Springfield Envelope Co.; White, Corbin, & Co; Holyoke Envelope Co.; Plimpton Manufacturing Co.; National Envelope Co.; and Independent Envelope Co. Eventually, even the U.S. Envelope Company was taken over — by Westvaco Corp. in 1960.
If you are interested in learning more about the envelope, you may want to start by researching the companies above and look for the 2002 title, The History of Envelopes, by Maynard H. Benjamin, of the EMA Foundation for Paper-Based Communications. You may also be interested in The Red Envelope, which includes U.S. Envelope Co. General Manager, James Logan’s piece, “The Story of the Envelope.”
The Library’s collection includes other items of interest, such as examples of various 19th century envelopes and envelope manufacturers’ trademark registrations. There are also books on letterlocking and our History of the Office and Office Equipment: A Resource Guide, which lists some great trade literature for stationers.
Beyond the Library, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum has some interesting envelope-related material. There is an online exhibit, The Art of Cards and Letters, with one part titled “Under Cover: The Evolution of the American Envelope.” There is an overview of the history of envelope manufacture and a few images of envelope making machines, including one from 1853, another from Jesse K. Park and Cornelius S. Watson, and a third from Swift. Online, there are also articles from the Smithsonian magazine and “Envelopes in the Machine Age” a piece from the former National Postal Museums newsletter EnRoute, each dating from 1997.
This post joins several other mail oriented posts on Inside Adams, including posts on the ZIP code, house numbers/addresses, and the system used before the ZIP code. You can go back and read them if you haven’t already.
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