JF Ptak Science Books  Post 288
 

Really–how is it that such ubiquitous American objects are so ugly? Evidently the first public mailbox in the U.S. was a “street letter box” designed and patented by P.B. Downing, and African American inventor, 27 October 1891, 48 years after the first box appeared in Britain; and the design of these things has gone downhill ever since.

I remember reading about this issue being addressed somewhere—I thought it might’ve been Walter Benjamin, buried somewhere in his weirdly beautiful Arcades Project; but, no, it was in Kurt Tucholsky’s Deutschland Deutschalnd Ueber Alles. The Tucholsky book originally appeared in 1929 (the same year the author dumped Germany for Sweden) and was illustrated by photo montage by the great John Heartfield.

Tucholsky stated “for some unknown reason mailboxes have to be ugly. Why?” Addressing the German postal boxes he wrote “these mailboxes were designed in complete ignorance of the principle that simple things an be beautiful if their proportions are related. Because the post office mentality is limited. Because the post office has a monopoly. Because bureaucracies, in their limitless self-importance, will take a single step forward only when the technologies are miles ahead…because there is no reason in the world why the state should employ people for life. Because it is insane to breed apathy, and because the company needs interested workers, not an army of officials…any well run business moves faster. A multitude of bureaucrats is death to the taxpayer.”

“And that’s why mailboxes are so ugly.”

This was one of the least of Tucholsky’s biting, driven observations about his failing state. And still correct.