Rural Free Delivery Mail Carrier

In 1896, the U.S. Post Office Department began experimenting with a free service delivering mail directly to rural families called Rural Free Delivery. Over thirty years later, the success of the program was celebrated during the New Deal for representing the best qualities of democracy, namely that every farmer in the nation had the same privileges of citizenship, including the delivery of mail, as every city dweller. In his portrayal of this important development in mail delivery, Gaetano Cecere decided upon an angular and lean mail carrier, wearing rugged clothing and leaning against a rough-and-ready mailbox nailed to a gnarled post. The mail carrier shades his eyes and gazes forward, ready to make his next delivery.

At sixteen years old, Gaetano Cecere began his artistic training in the stone-carving workshop of the Piccirilli Brothers as an apprentice to Attilio Piccirilli, another of the sculptors chosen for a commission within the U.S. Postmaster General’s suite. Cecere went on to study at the National Academy of Design and the Beaux-Arts Institute in New York City before winning the Prix de Rome in 1920. Cecere later served as the instructor of modeling at Cooper Union and as Director of the Department of Sculpture at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design. Today, Cecere’s works can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian Institution.