Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia. Select Papers, 2006-2009

摘要

Postal history is the study of postal systems, how they operate and/or the collecting of covers and associated material illustrating historical episodes of postal systems. The term is attributed to Robson Lowe who made the first organized study of the subject in the 1930s and described philatelists as students of science, but postal historians as students of humanity. Postal history includes the study of postal rates, postal policy, postal administration, political effects on postal systems, postal surveillance and the consequences of politics, business, and culture on postal systems; basically anything to do with the function of the collection, transportation, and delivery of mail. The first symposium 'What is Postal History' took place in November 2006. In the opening plenary panel, Michael Laurence representing the philatelic perspective said, In the philatelic vocabulary, postal history describes envelopes or folded letter sheets that have passed through the mails.