We're kind of suckers for vintage typefaces and old-style letterheads, so were psyched to discover the David A. Botranger collection of Vintage Letterheads. This collection is a treasure-box of trucking letterheads amassed during the 1950s and 1960s which were received from trucking companies, private carriers, manufacturers, and suppliers.

Also great? The collections of truck-stop ads and truck pictures.

As many of us have just traveled and returned from our various Thanksgiving adventures, it might be a good time to give thanks for something seemingly obvious: the roads on which we traveled to get to our families and friends. If you were driving on certain federal highways last week, you may need to direct some thanks to the U.S. Postal Service.

The development of many early American forms of transportation was heavily subsidized by the postal service as they expanded their delivery routes to meet the growing needs of an ever expanding population. From 1790 to 1860 America’s population grew from 3.9 million to 31.4 million people. The Post Office department grew and expanded westward right alongside America's population. Post Offices multiplied at an amazing rate-- from 75 offices in 1790 to 24,498 offices in 1860, and states and territories began to petition Congress to expand the mileage of postal routes to accommodate all of the new mail. The federal government’s Post Office Department began deciding which routes deserved to be subsidized and which routes would not benefit the nation. A mail route could easily determine which areas would be settled and which areas would remain difficult to access. The Department made a conscious effort to intelligently support national development and to institute services that would benefit all residents of the country.

Furthermore, in a New York Times' article, "History on Every Mile, and Sometimes a Stone," author Arthur Bovino takes you on a drive down America’s first official mail route. The Old Boston Post Road has many historical artifacts along her length—most notably the small stone mile markers that were installed on the orders of Benjamin Franklin, America’s first Postmaster General. Bovino notes that, “the leisurely drive between New York City and Boston can turn the typical leaf peeper into a historian-cum-archaeologist” for a day.”

Now that you know the roads you travel on weren't put in place just to deliver you home for the holidays, the next time you voyage along our nation's roads for a trip, enjoy the ride and remember that it might be a good time to show some appreciation for the United States Postal Service. Perhaps--send them a letter.

(image from Mail Call!: The History of the U.S. Postal Service by Nancy O'Keefe Bolick)

We have to admit: writing in pencil usually makes us cringe. There are the horrid flashbacks to forgetting a No. 2 pencil on the day of a big standardized test, the eraser smudges, the broken tips, the memories of standing at the pencil sharpener and having the device seemingly EAT your pencil. If we do decide to use a pencil--and there are times when it's necessary--it's usually one of those fancy mechanical ones with a clickable tip (Youngna's favorite is the burnt orange Pentel 120 EX with extra fine 0.3mm lead). But then, of course, there is the fear of running out of lead.

That said, when we discovered Bob Truby's pencil collection site, Brand Name Pencils, we had to admit that we never knew there were so many varieties, such history, such a great variance in color, eraser shape, hardness, and manufacturing location. Brand Name Pencils features Truby's intricately detailed collection labeled by brand (134 of them) and type. He includes a wishlist -- either pencils he covets or wants to update with an unsharpened version--and a duplicates list for those of you who are pencil collectors and might be looking for one Truby is willing to let go of.

For pencil collectors, letter-writers, and those generally interested in the nature of collection, Brand Name Pencils is well worth a look-through.

[Related: We highly recommend one of our favorite collecting books, In Flagrante Collecto, available at Amazon.com for $37.80]

As Sofia wrote, a person’s handwriting can reveal certain personality traits, but what does a font choice say about you? When you see a letter written in Times New Roman, do you think that person is old school? What is your favorite typeface? I confess that I liked the cutesi-ness of Comic Sans when I was young, but now I favor the simplicity of Arial.

One font that may be most ubiquitous of all is Helvetica, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Companies that use the typeface in its logos include Apple, American Apparel, and Panasonic. According to devotees and graphic designers quoted in the BBC News Magazine, Helvetica conveys a range of feelings, ranging from efficiency and reliability to blandness.

There’s even a documentary on the typeface, titled Helvetica. Director Gary Hustwit speaks about his interest in the font:

Why make a film about a typeface, let alone a feature documentary film about Helvetica? Because it's all around us. You've probably already seen Helvetica several times today. It might have told you which subway platform you needed, or tried to sell you investment services or vacation getaways in the ads in your morning paper. Maybe it gave you the latest headlines on television, or let you know whether to 'push' or 'pull' to open your office door.

Since millions of people see and use Helvetica every day, I guess I just wondered, "Why?" How did a typeface drawn by a little-known Swiss designer in 1957 become one of the most popular ways for us to communicate our words fifty years later? And what are the repercussions of that popularity, has it resulted in the globalization of our visual culture?

Screenings of Helvetica will be held in England, Georgia, and Denmark in November and is showing at the IFC Center in New York City until tomorrow, October 30th. Click here for listings.

At the risk of sounding like a complete geek, I will admit that ever since the third grade, when I envied my best friend's neat, slightly rounded script, I have had a thing for good penmanship. While bored in class, I would practice what in my mind were my ugliest capital letters: A, D, and H; I prided myself on the different ways I could write a M. I used to wince--okay maybe I still do, a little--when the letters on the page don't have the common decency to stay between the lines. I would ridicule--oops, I mean, tease--my brother for his tiny, indecipherable handwriting. But, after taking a look at some writing of the famous authors above, legibility is clearly not indicative of genius.

Handwriting experts (graphologists) will inform you that handwriting can tell you a lot about a person, although I'm not sure that large, looped handwriting equals a boldness of personality, or whatever they may claim. It is fun, however, to see how other people write. To me, that's part of the fun of getting letters from new people every month. As it's been said before, there's something personal about getting a handwritten letter. It's almost like a window, tiny as it may be, into a stranger's personality. Thus the fascination with the actual letters of famous people.

Handwriting clockwise from left: Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway

There’s a tree outside of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois that smells. It really, really smells.

I hadn’t thought much about that tree until I got a response to a letter that I wrote to Modern Letter participant Kathy, in Wichita. In addition to sharing tales of tomato-hungry rabbits ravaging her yard and plans for her upcoming trip to Paris, Kathy also happened to mention that she’s a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and has traveled to Oak Park to visit his famed home and studio.

Oak Park--once home to the aforementioned architect, Betty White, Ernest Hemingway and me-- is inoffensive as far hometowns go… though in high school we called it "Kao Krap," and it might be worth noting that Hemingway called it a town of, “wide lawns and narrow minds.” All in all, it wasn’t bad: growing up there we had easy access to Chicago and could pretend to be cool at Smashing Pumpkins shows.

But back to the tree.

In grade school, we took annual field trips to Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio. As our two-by-two buddy system line approached the ginkgo tree growing outside of the studio, there was an impending sense of doom among the female half of the class. We knew we were about to be slimed with the repulsive-smelling innards of the ginkgo fruit strewn about the sidewalk. The boys, usually uninterested in us, developed a keen sense of boy gross-out duty on Home and Studio day and year after year we left with sticky, smelly hair.

To verify and identify the origins of the odor, I consulted About.com’s forestry expert Steve Nix’s aptly titled entry:

Stink-bomb Tree
The female plant, when fertilized, produces the oval, slimy, tan-orange ginkgo fruit. The fruit stinks! The smell's description ranges from "rancid butter" to "vomit.”

Vomit. Rancid butter. Sounds about right. What’s also worth noting is that the ginkgo goo I’m talking about is the very same goo that you find in those ginkgo biloba memory-enhancing supplements, leading me to believe that even if I wanted to forget this, I probably couldn’t.

Kathy’s letter got me thinking about this tree and those annual field trips--a memory that connects me to all of the other kids who grew up in Oak Park. I feel like we share a small secret about a famous place. Are there destinations like this in your hometown? What do you remember when you hear other people talk about them? Have any of your letters provoked these memories?

Last week we were hunting around an old warehouse in Queens and stumbled upon a gem: an etiquette book titled 100 Points in Etiquette and 101 Don'ts, published in 1929 by Grosset & Dunlap. Lucky for us there is an entire section on letter-writing (in addition to instruction on dinner, wedding, luncheon, golf, and bridge etiquette).

The authors write, "For letter writing to friends, simple good paper is in the best of taste. It may have a monogram or not, as you wish, or it may have the address either across the top or in the right hand corner. It should be white or cream in color, or very delicately tinted. Correspondence is divided into three classes: social, business, and personal.

...Remember that everything put on paper may live for years, so be careful what you write, and do not do so impulsively. Never put anything on paper which would cause discredit or mortification even if read in public."

This made us laugh, but on second thought, perhaps that criticism was too harsh. Is this letter-writing etiquette really obsolete? Do letters still fall into these three distinct categories? What is the difference between letter-writing and email etiquette? We'd love to hear what you think! [more thoughts from us on this topic later]

p.s. See some more modern notes on letter-writing etiquette here.

We came across the piece on NPR last week about famous authors' rejection letters. Are you an aspiring writer, miffed about all those publishing houses turning your best seller down? Listen to this piece:

"Jack Kerouac, George Orwell and Sylvia Plath are just a few of the authors whose books were turned down by the Alfred A. Knopf publishing house. Researchers going through the Knopf archives have come across their rejection letters, as well as a few others.

Liane Hansen speaks to Richard Oram at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, where the archives are held."

Hear it HERE on NPR.

We here at the Modern Letter Project are always wondering--with participants all over the world--where people are writing their letters. At a special desk? In the park? Sitting on their beds? In libraries? We were thrilled to find this collection of writers' rooms and descriptions of what about these places inspire them and make them special for writing. Take a look.

The writing room of Michael Longley:

"As untidy as a raven's, my nest is lined with volumes that reflect obsessions: botany, ornithology, topography; the first world war and the Holocaust; the Classics, mainly Homer and Ovid. I keep dictionaries close to hand ranging from Ulster Scots to Latin and Greek. I'm fond of the rather unwieldy Webster's Dictionary and have become addicted to the Collins Wordfinder: The Ultimate Thesaurus. I can hardly think without it. "

The writing room of Carmen Callil:

"I can only write surrounded by the silent presence of other people. Everything in my study does this for me. The desk was my father's and then my mother's, and when she died my brothers shipped it over from Australia for me. It is a splendid piece of 30s Australiana (at its worst) and, as I love colour and anything decorated, it's been covered with painted squiggles."

The writing room of Colm Toibin:

"I write in longhand in notebooks using disposable fountain pens, covering only the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then rewriting some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side, and then, after a while, putting the stuff on a word processor which is in the other room...The room is like a cave, and has books I love in it. The main door was closed up and a smaller opening was made under the stairs. (I went away while all this was happening.) The furniture is locked in, and part of me is locked in too, or I hope it is, although I often made a bid to escape. I have left instructions that I would like to be buried here when I die or a bit before, the cave bricked up."

... And we'd love to know: where do you write?

Oh, typewriters. How we love their sound, the rhythmic click-clack of a writer burning the midnight oil on an old Smith-Corona. We don't know about you, but we are always keeping our eye out on those vintage typewriters on ebay, hoping to win that bid on that sexy red machine that caught our eye.

One of our favorite new discoveries is The Virtual Typewriter Museum, a compendium of information about the history of this machine by looking at its timeline, typewriter brands, collections, and historical photographs.

The typewriter is one of the great inventions of 19th Century communications technology. Between the 1860s and 1920s engineers, inventors and even carpenters invested all their creativity in the development of the ultimate writing machine. This virtual museum, that is based on private collections of antique typewriters from around the world, is a tribute to their ingenuity.

Take a look inside.