Railway Mail Carrier - 1862

For more than a century, the Railway Mail Service was essential to the transportation of mail across the United States. The Service began in 1832 and grew slowly into an established system of trains that crisscrossed the country each day to serve large cities and rural towns. In 1862, the Post Office Department began sorting mail on moving train cars in order to speed up delivery. Concetta Scaravaglione’s Railway Mail Carrier (1862) commemorates this technological advancement by showcasing one of the men responsible for carrying it out. The figure carries large bags of mail, which were collected, sorted, and exchanged with stations along the route without stopping the train. The difficulty of this task is understated in Scaravaglione’s model, who is dressed comfortably and stands at ease with his heavy parcels.

Scaravaglione enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York City when she was 16 years old. She worked at a perfume factory during the day to support herself and went on to become the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome scholarship to study at the American Academy in Rome. She was a versatile sculptor, who worked with a wide variety of materials, including wood, metal, terracotta, and bronze.  Scaravaglione was also one of only six women commissioned to adorn federal buildings in Washington, D.C., during the New Deal era. Another of her New Deal commissions, a 12-foot long limestone relief carving titled Agriculture (1938), stands above the Constitution Avenue entrance to the Federal Trade Commission.