Ww-I Censor Information Needed

I need as source for censorship numbers, particularly number 1646, used for censoring U.S. mail during 1916. I'd like to know the who, what, where, etc. for that number or a resource to find it.
Thanks! Dave

That's going to be a hard find, I'm guessing.

I'll see what I can find, but my cable Internet is being taken over by a television set soon. I'll have all day tomorrow, though.

Hmmmmm.. US wasn't in the war in 1916.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...9C946796D6CF

http://todayinclh.com/?event=army-a...-case-of-war

http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-onlin...e/censorship

http://spiderbites.nytimes.com/free...5_00000.html <-- Just plain interesting

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.ed...20States&c=x

You're right, of course, oldguy, but some neutrals did censor the post and I want to rule out the U.S. having done the same before the declaration of war.

In any event, there must have been a censor '1646' in 1917? Dave?

Here's an example of American censorship before America's entrance into WWII. Wrong war, of course, but the same may have occurred before 1917.

http://www.archives.gov/publication...r-two-1.html

I may not have been as clear as I should be on this. Attached is the link for a cover I picked up on ebay (won't receive it for a while). Its peaked my interest as to how/why a letter used within New York, not going to an overseas destination, would be censored. The censor's number, 1646 may have no relevance, but knowing who that censor was might lead to other information. I can Google info. on both companies, which doesn't seem to point in any particular direction, but haven't yet been able to find anything on Irwin Hinds. I've not seen any other mail used within the U.S. censored like this one. I'd like to see if I can figure this one out.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/38158605285...RK:MEBIDX:IT

I couldn't find anything specific, but now I'm curious too. Unless the U.S. Post Office maintained some sort of blacklist, I'm not sure why it was censored. Canada censored some of it's mail to the U.S. in 1916, but there's no other marking on this cover to give a clue.

Here's a basic link about some censored mail - U.S. and Canada towards the end - http://www.vicstamps.com/displays/2...2010oct.html

The ID of censors was a deeply held secret so you won't be able to discover the identity of censor #1646. As Battlestamps mentioned, more than likely one of the names on the cover was on a blacklist of some sort.

Al E. Gator:

The censor label on the cover you illustrated in the link is a Great Britain censor label used when censoring civilian mail, not a US censor label.

The censorship of US civilian mails did not begin until Nov 1, 1917, and then only at New York. Censorship at other US stations began around Jan 1, 1918, and continued until July 1919. Even when the US began censorship of civilian mail, it did NOT censor most mails to Europe. By agreement, the US censorship operations censored only mail to Spain and Portugal in Europe, Cental and South America, and the Far East. Great Britain and France continued to censor those mails from the US that it felt necessary, and the US censorship passed them directly to Europe .

I have seen a few records on US censorship which identify by name the Examiners number assigned to those names. Those records were recovered by diligent researchers in the US National Archives. I would assume that similar records exist for British censorship, but you would need to locate researchers who specialize in that material, and I am not familiar with anyone.

Mike

Mike, I thought the same at first, but it doesn't make sense for the British to even have access to this cover, does it?

I must confess I only looked at the label and stopped thinking once I recognized it as a British label.

It's not obvious how the British would get their hands on a cover from Silver Creek NY to New York City unless it was diverted.

My first thought is that since Silver Creek is on the shore of Lake Erie, perhaps some mail was routed via boat to Buffalo or other large post office on the lake, and accidentally got into the Canadian system long enough to be censored there. But the problem with that is that most mail I have seen censored in Canada during this WW1 period has a "C." in front of the examiner number, e.g., "C.231".

The standard reference for censorship of civilian mails by the US during WW One is edited by Theo. van Dam, The Postal History of the AEF, 1917-1923 published by the War Cover Club in 1990 (A revised edition is in the works). A small part of Chapter 10 deals with the civilian censorship.

The Censorship Board allocated censorship (examiner) numbers to the various stations. Here is the list published there.



Not all of these numbers were actually assigned, especially at the smaller censorship stations.

As can be seen, examiner numbers in the 1601-1700 range were assigned to Honolulu, HI, which makes even less sense than Canada or Great Britain.

The only labels used by the US censorship office with the examiner number actually printed on the label were those used at Cristobal, CZ. At all other offices, a distinctive hand-stamp with the examiner number was issued to each examiner, and these were tightly controlled (The censorship supervisor took them all up each evening and returned them to the examiners the following morning.)

For the most part, each office had a hand stamp design which was unique and distinctive from all other offices. The exception was that a few offices used simply 3 or 4 digit numeral stamps for a while.

As Jenny2U pointed out, names of examiners was a closely held secret, and censors were also admonished not to reveal their job or procedures followed or anything that they did. The lists of names associated with examiner numbers which I have seen were in reports of examiner testing and the results, and lists of which examinesr were skilled in which languages.

Several of the instructional circulars and orders I've seen discuss the dismissal of examiners who "talked too much".

The Censorship board compiled lists of businesses, individuals, and publications that were to be singled out for censorship. Many publications, particularly from Mexico were on these lists. These were maintained in card files, I gather of the 3x5 card type. From what I have read, there were clerks who pre-processed the mail looking for these names, and those letters then passed to the examiners. If an examiner had questions, the letters were passed up to a supervisor.

My primary interest are those items censored at the station at San Antonio, Texas, and the other sub-stations along the US[Texas, Arizona,California] border with Mexico, all under the control of the San Antonio office.

I also have a small collection of letters examined at most of the other US censorship offices. If these is some interest in these markings, I can start a new thread and post some examples of them.

Mike

Hi Mike - thanks for the great info. I would be very interested in seeing your censor covers.

I have a WWII civil censor cover which I believe is quite rare (self-censored by the APS - Associated Press Service). I'll dig it out and post for your comments.

Thanks to all for the information provided. Mike, most informative and helpful. I suppose, "the plot thickens" so to speak, and an answer may not clearly reveal itself. The Canadian connection could be plausible? I'm going to continue researching the businesses and the addressee and see where that may lead.