Rural Free Delivery

The people in this collection didn’t have phones or telegraphs to keep in touch. Living on rural farms and homesteads, they could be isolated from other members of their communities.

Shortly before the Golden Age of Postcards, the United States Postal Service started the Rural Free Delivery Program (RFD), which gave people living in rural areas better access to mail delivery services.

Preston, Minnesota, where many postcards in the collection were sent, had their first rural route established in 1900. More followed.

Many people who received postcards in the collection lived on RFD routes. On the address, look out for labels like “R.F.D. #1” or “RR 1” (for Rural Route 1).

Postcards were a popular type of mail on RFD routes. In 1910, people living in small communities received postcards almost twice as much as their big-city counterparts. The increase in postcard mail delivered on RFD routes even led to the Post Office’s budget surplus that year!