Zip as an insulting caricature of a letter carrier. Other postal employees saw ZIP Code processing as a challenge to their jobs, and some even viewed Mr. No Letter Carrier that I have ever seen looks as absurd as Mr. Zip and the expected results.”( 4) A Fort Worth, Texas employee declared in the August, 1967 Postal Record, “I am tired of the image of the American Letter Carrier being held up to public ridicule. Zip amid jeers and laughter from those who do not understand the reason for this…The public should be better informed. An employee from Medford, Oregon wrote in to the publication in September, 1963 stating, “I believe our Postal Department has goofed, and this may well bury Mr. They voiced their opinions in Postal Record, a monthly publication of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Some postal workers had issues with the new ZIP code system and its cheery representative. Thus, at the time of their implementation, ZIP Codes were seen by some as distinctly un-American and even possibly part of a Communist plot to undermine American culture! Response of Americans With fear of Communism still strong in Cold War America, some people feared that the creation of ZIP Code was a conspiracy to depersonalize or dehumanize them.( 3) Personality and individuality were at the heart of American identity being assigned an identification number was not. Many Americans also did not understand how the ZIP Code system operated, and doubted that the system would speed up their mail. Americans were told to contact their local post offices in order to obtain the codes they needed, but again, this seemed to be extra work, and many Americans chose not to put forth the effort. Though ZIP Code directories were made available by the Post Office Department early in the campaign, many people seemed not know how to obtain them. This made for more hassle than most were willing to accept. On top of having to remember their own ZIP Code, Americans would also have to know the codes for everyone they wished to send mail to. A column from humorist Art Buchwald of the Washington Post, Times Herald on July 30, 1963, entitled, “The Numbers Racket,” offers insight into this fact.( 2) Appearing only about one month after ZIP Code’s implementation, “The Numbers Racket” conveys the attitude held by many Americans early on in the ZIP Code campaign – that numbers only make life more complicated. Persuading the American public to accept and use ZIP Codes was noted by former postal employees as the Department’s most significant challenge over the course of the ZIP Code campaign.( 1) The launch of ZIP Code in 1963 came at a time when Americans were already struggling to accept the use of new area code digits being added to the front of telephone numbers therefore, they were especially annoyed that they had yet another set of numbers to memorize. After realizing that members of the American public were having difficulty obtaining the ZIP Codes they needed for correspondence, the Post Office Department distributed ZIP-A-List Kits to every mailbox in the country.
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