City Delivery Carrier, 1863

Prior to 1863, postage stamps only covered mail delivery from post office to post office. On March 3, 1863, Congress authorized free delivery of mail directly to homes and businesses in cities where local income from postage stamps was enough to pay for letter carriers. Carl Ludwig Schmitz sculpted one of these early letter carriers to commemorate this important development in postal history. His City Delivery Carrier (1863) is posed examining a letter, perhaps reading a street address, which had never before been required on mail. He is outfitted in an adapted military coat and flap cap, which were commonly worn by mail carriers during the Civil War. Despite the conflict, free delivery of the mail was extended to 65 cities in the North by June 30, 1864, and expanded to the rest of the country in the following decades.

Born in Metz, France (then part of Germany), Carl Ludwig Schmitz became a sculptor’s apprentice at age 14 and afterwards studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Munich for six years. Schmitz moved to the United States in 1923 and worked as a modeler in terra cotta factories in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, while studying at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City. He served as an assistant to sculptors Carl Milles, Paul Manship, and Carl Paul Jennewein, and in 1930, he opened his own studio. In 1933, Schmitz became a member of the National Sculpture Society.