The Writing of Letters

On this date in 1922, Captain Cyril Turner, British Royal Air Force ace pilot, flies into position over New York City, spelling out "HELLO USA CALL VANDERBILT 7200" in plumes of white smoke. Over 47,000 people call. The telephone number is that of the Vanderbilt Hotel, where George Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company, is sitting with skywriting pioneer and RAF pilot John Savage. So convinced is Mr. Hill by this exhibition that he lets Savage use such skywriting advertisements to promote Lucky Strike Cigarettes and the first widespread commercial use of skywriting is born.

If you prefer your letters on paper instead of floating and fading into the blue, today you are encouraged to indulge in the epistolary art form — it's Letter Writing Day!

This Air Mail tank top — from CafePress.com's shop The Post Office — is imprinted with the sticker one places on envelopes destined for faraway places, a plane icon nicely incorporated into the label, pointed aloft — at once an homage to sky- and letter-writing.

It is also Red Planet Day, should your letters be sent a bit further — morphing into something akin to The Martian Chronicles.

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