Little America Post Office safe

Object Details

Associated Organization

Little America (Antarctica) Post Office (USPS)

Description

To commemorate Admiral Robert Byrd's Antarctic Expedition II, the Post Office Department issued a postage stamp designed by President Franklin Roosevelt and sent postal clerk Charles F. Anderson to cancel mail for philatelic collectors at Little America, Antarctica. Arriving in November 1934, Anderson found numerous letters sent the previous year had not been processed. He prepared a total of 153,217 mail pieces in just 16 days in the station 20 feet below the ice with just enough heat to keep the ink from freezing. This safe stored stamps, cancellation dies, and other valuables at the small temporary postal station.

Combination lock safe used by the Post Office at Little America, South Pole.

The safe was brought to Antarctica with Byrd's second expedition.

Metal safe; green w/gold lettering outlined in red & black; 'U.S.POST OFFICE/LITTLE AMERICA/SOUTH POLE'; combination loc

1934

Object number

1984.0015.1

Type

Mail Processing Equipment

Medium

metal (iron); wood; paint (black and green with gold lettering)

Dimensions

Height x Width x Depth: 21 × 16 × 18 in. (53.34 × 40.64 × 45.72 cm) Height x Width x Depth (Crate Dimensions): 30 1/2 × 27 × 29 in. (77.47 × 68.58 × 73.66 cm) Weight (total weight of current crate and object): 303 lb.

Place

United States of America

See more items in

National Postal Museum Collection

National Postal Museum

Topic

Post Office Structures

Record ID

npm_1984.0015.1

Usage of Metadata (Object Detail Text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/hm873c77fa9-9fae-4db6-a20c-7ee6f4f2ed73