U.S. Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock Poses with Earle Ovington and the Bag Used to Carry the First U.S. Air Mail, September 1911
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When the Post Office Department sponsored the first official air mail flight on September 23, 1911, it wasn't much more than a publicity stunt. Pilot Earle Ovington carried a sack of mail from Garden City, New York, to nearby Mineola, where he dropped it into a field behind the local post office. Serious air mail operations started in 1918.
When the Post Office Department sponsored the first official air mail flight on September 23, 1911, it wasn't much more than a publicity stunt. Pilot Earle Ovington carried a sack of mail from Garden City, New York, to nearby Mineola, where he dropped it into a field behind the local post office. Serious air mail operations started in 1918.
Artifact
Photographic print
Subject Date
23 September 1911
Collection Title
On Exhibit
By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center
Object ID
84.1.1629.191
Credit
From the Collections of The Henry Ford.
Material
Paper (Fiber product)
Technique
Gelatin silver process
Color
Black-and-white (Colors)
Dimensions
Height: 4 in
Width: 5.688 in
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