1
The Parcel Post KidBackground Knowledge
Vocabulary
Story Introduction

• parcel post postmaster flabbergasted
  trestle
• forbidden classified nonfiction

2
Parcel Post

• A parcel is a package wrapped
• for mailing. Post means to mail.
• Today, wrapping packages in paper is discouraged.
• In fact, cord, string, twine, masking or
  cellophane tape is forbidden. Why?

3
Mailing Options

• Parcel Post is a mailing service. Packages can
  be classified as.
• Parcel Post most affordable option, 2-9 days
  (lt70 lbs)
• First Class 1-3 days (letters or light packages
  only)
• Priority Mail 2-3 days
• Express Mail 1-2 days (includes tracking money
  back guarantee)

4
Question

• Can a Child be Sent Parcel Post?

5
Answer

• After parcel post service was introduced in 1913,
  at least two children were sent by the service.
  With stamps attached to their clothing, the
  children rode with railway and city carriers to
  their destination. The Postmaster General quickly
  issued a regulation forbidding the classification
  of children as packages after hearing of those
  examples.

6
Henry Box Brown

• Henry Box Brown was born a slave in Virginia, He
  married a local slave but in 1849 his wife and
  children were sold to a plantation owner in North
  Carolina.
• Soon afterwards Brown decided to escape and with
  the help of a sympathetic businessman, he
  arranged to be sent in a box 3 ft long 2 ft
  wide to James McKim, a member of the Underground
  Railroad, in Pennsylvania.
• Brown survived the journey, flabbergasted his
  recipients and became a well-known speaker for
  the Anti-Slavery Society, he wrote his
  autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box
  Brown (1851).

7
Question?

• Can a live animal be sent through the mail?

8
Answer

• Yes. The Postal Service accepts live animals that
  do not require delivery within a 72-hour period,
  such as earthworms, lizards, snails, crickets,
  grasshoppers, and bees.
• Live animals that require air transportation,
  such as day-old poultry, adult poultry and queen
  honeybees are allowed with restrictions (based on
  space available and only at certain airports)

9
The Parcel Post Kidby Michael O. Tunnell
Nonfiction - A true story Trestle - wooden bridge
supports
Mays grandmothers house as it looked several
years after May was mailed to her.
May when she was five years old, about the age
when she was mailed.
The trestle of the Camas Prairie Railroad at
about the time May would have ridden in the mail
car as a package.