Efforts to bring complete mechanization to Mail Processing continue through Indepth Research into latest scientific techniques and development of operational hardware. Reduction of human effort, removal of lifting and movement of heavy burdens from human muscle to the sinews of machines. Improvements in methods for processing and everincreasing volume of mail. These are some of the fields in which r d engineers are delving into and finding new answers. This film will show you a few areas of research underway. Some of developing hardware. The use of controlled compressed air called fluidics is getting attention for possible use in processing mail. Control devices could eliminate many moving parts and reduce maintenance costs. As seen in slow motion, this test device in the postal laboratory roles letters over by controlled jets of air. This fluidic device separates machine of the letters from those which will not pass through Mail Processing machines. Another air jet controlled transit. Ts it in while this one diverts mail automatically. Notice the first position location, where the stream of letters is diverted to left or right. And then, farther down the where other controlled jets divert letters in two directions. Laboratory,l test this edging device uses directed air jets to edge mail on its alongside as it comes over a Conveyor Belt. Device in aed postal contractors laboratory presents an unusual idea for calling mail. This prototype has been developed to separate letter mail from other collection mail. Small parcels, papers, large flat envelopes, roles, and the like. Assorted collection mail is emptied into the hopper of a device. Belt carries the mail to an open mesh screen like conveyor at the bottom of a filling chamber. Air forced through the screen at 1350 feet per minute floats mail light in relation to its surface area to the top of the chamber. Here, a second type belt carries them against it to a separate conveyor. Mail that is heavy in relation to its surface area remains on the lower belt and is carried to a different separation. 40,000 pieces of mail per hour can be handled in this mixed mail air culler. And another contractors laboratory, r d postal engineers are working with industry engineers to develop a fluidic phasing machine which will operate at very high speeds. This fretboard model does not , butcanceling equipment performs the mechanical functions used in post offices today. One of these functions is letter feed. Letters are pulled over a hall speak highspeed drum by vacuum one by one from the bottom of a stack. Wheels speed up the letters and they are propelled through the system, riding on a cushion of air. Transport,highspeed slow motion been used to film some of the process. Noticed that the letters pass into the breadboard model on the flat side. Letters face of and with stamps, move directly through the machine into a stacker tray. Letters face down, but stamps leading a rolled over and are sped directly to the stack. Of letters face down, but with stamps trailing bypass the role section and are pitched in for and before reaching the stack. Letters face up but with stamps trailing our first rolled over. Pitched and for end into the secretary. All are oriented with stamps in the same location, ready for the canceling and post marking operation. As soon as the tree is filled, it drops away for transporting to the sorting area. And empty tray automatically takes its place. Controlent of fluidic techniques for processing letter mail is continuing for reduction in costs and improvement in performance. Maintenance and reliability may be achieved. In an other postal contractors laboratory, research into increasing the speed of president day has evolved into this breadboard model of a highspeed transport system. It is being developed by r d engineers to process double the current rate, up to 50,000 letters in our an hour. Operation will differ from different equipment to achieve this highspeed. Near the feeding date, one of two stamp protectors will be installed. All envelopes having stamps in a down position will be bypassed and sent to a second detector at the cancellation end of the machine. The remainder of the mail will be turned over so that the stamps will also be in the down position. A new type of turnover belt is seen here in slowmotion. It is designed for gentle handling of mail as well as for long life. With recognizable stamps are turned over to the awn position to flow past second stamp collector. At this point, the cancellation unit will be installed. All recognizable stamps will be through the use of a device now under development. Devices will be installed at the end of the system in place of the five now in use. A prototype model will be tested soon under actual working conditions. Present methods of shipping empty sacks from one area to another for reuse is either to stuff 19 into another one to create an unyielding weight of about 70 pounds. Roll five empty sacks into a bundle. This is an R D Development to facilitate the handling and shipping of empty mail sacks. Sacs atd, flattened fixed positions along the horizontal Conveyor Belt. Slowly at sixves feet per minute, loaders pile up sacks so the stack arriving contains 120. Total control stops the conveyor when a stock arrives directly below the baylor. As the baylor compresses the height, about half its mental strap is inserted. The strap and around the stack. This operation is being automated. The strapped bale advances to the exit conveyor while another stack reaches the baler. The accumulator system now shunts the bale to the takeaway station. Thehis point, power handles bale for storage or shipment. Advantage of this system include gaining a Warehouse Space and ease of inventory. And mechanical handling, more sacks per cue, with flattened sacs ready for immediate reuse. Designed to relieve mail handlers of the laborious tax of mail, task of emptying this for level hamper dump or mechanize is the operation. Hamper dumper mechanize s the operation. The loaded hamper is positioned on the dumping mechanism. Raising the lever latch is the hamper securely and automatic sequencing turns it upside down to unload the contents. Pushing the control lever tonwards, returns the hamper floor level where it is automatically a much. The controls are simple. Start button, stop button. A warning light turns red when power is on. Registered. On is switch the collector in low position. Will dump a lower hamper to floor level. When turned to the high position, a hamper with extensions will be dumped to. Loor level for a standard hamper may be dumped into the hopper of a portable conveyor. The mechanism operates to the cycle of about six seconds per dumping and four seconds for returning the empty hamper to floor level. Operation foral mechanization is manual emptying of sacks. This prototype shakeout system developed by r d and contract engineers is in daily use on a work floor. A horizontal conveyor moves sacked mail to the shakeout table. Here, two mail handlers prepare the sacks for all omatic shakeup. Automatic shakeup. One spreads the sack opening wide. The other claims the bottom two corners of each sack into specially designed clamps. The clamps append each sack at the edge of the table and the parcels dropout. To ensure each sac will be empty, and eccentric shaker shakes the sack. The parcels fall to a Conveyor Belt which transports them to the sorting section. As the emptied sack passes through the system, the sack clamps are opened automatically and the sack released. A prototype model of a high rate else belt sacks order is in a large truck terminal. The sorter is 225 feet long. Sorting is by keyboard control to 40 separations. 20 at each side of the Conveyor Belt. As many as six trucks may be unloaded at the same time. Extendable conveyors moving into the trailer bodies as they are emptied assists during unloading. The sacks move upward into the system. And arrive singly at one of the six keyboard positions. As the label on each sac is read, a code is typed in. Placed on the belt moving at 420 feet permit a minute one to six keyboards. When a sac reaches its coded separation, a diverter is activated by the memory system. It opens and closes within one second, sweeping the sack to secondary sorting. This new type of diverter handles the mail as gently as possible. As only a twodigit code is required, it is easy to learn and keypunch. A number of separations which can be made on this type of high rate sack sorter is limited only by the space available. To mechanize loading and unloading of trailers and to reduce manual effort and timeconsuming movement of portable conveyors am a lowerlevel conveyors have been installed on one side of vehicles. Power is brought from supply. Forision has been made valves on the brake system to prevent Truck Movement unless power is disconnected. Covers tose of hinged prevent loss of qubes dilip loading directly on top of the conveyor. Use of this builtin conveyor r his saving manual labor. Test and evaluation is this vertical twin belt for transporting collection mail vertically to an upper floor. Election mail is unloaded on a conduction inveigh conveyor. Sacks and miscellaneous mail move to the bottom of the belts for automatic induction. Seized betweenis the 42 inch twin belts which carry vertically upwards, 33. 5 feet to the second floor. Moving 220 feet per minute, the it can handle 4000 sacks in our. An hour. At the top of the belts, the mail is discharged to a take away conveyor and carried to the secondfloor mezzanine for processing. The transport belt of between belts. The cover belt is loose. The pressure exerted on it by several rubber wheels to hold the items being transported securely against the transport belt. Notice the action of the pressure rollers against the cover belt as a sack moves upward. Of all sizes,els small pieces as well as trays filled with letter mail may be transported vertically without damage. A prototype model with a longer vertical lift is being installed for test in another facility. This compact unit simulates actual operating conditions of the keyboard of a letter sorting machine. It may be used to test personnel for dexterity. Or to help them develop rhythm at the keyboard. The machine project is a number code or letter facsimile on the display screen. The student responds by pressing keys corresponding to the number shown. Virtualerror is made, lamps illuminate the correct key. The studentkeys, learns correct fingering. S Control Panel provides means for method of projection of tests or training code numbers. And of speed of projection, a method of recording errors. The printer provides a permanent record of student responses. Introduces the student to the principle of key, trains him in code numbers and helps them acquire the speed to become a qualified sorting machine operator. Have seen a few of the research and Development Projects now active in the field of research and engineering. Many others are in the contracting stage in design or under prototype construction. Each will undergo a period of evaluation and testing. Those passing the requirements will take their place in the system from recognizing all operations of Mail Processing. You can watch archival films on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series reel america. Saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 4 00 in eastern, here on American History tv. We look at the National Museum of the American IndiansPhotography Collection with the museums michelle and delaney. She talks about the history of photography and explains how to navigate and explore their online collections. Is a preview. Image from the frank collection of photographs from Buffalo Bills wild west show. I have done a lot of research on william cody, and Buffalo Bills wild west. Dissertation is on the advertising of Buffalo Bills wild west and my interest in this area started from one collection at the American History museum, which is a portrait collection of performers from the wild west. Richard photographed those images that i started out with. The American Indian images represented in the collection have a behind the scenes photos, which i like to see. I like to see what performers were doing when they werent in the arena. A different element of what was happening. Instead of the performers in the thea reenacting things like battle of the little bighorn or horse races and other types of program acts that would happen during a visit to the wild west. Sitting with a couple of the performers. I think it is possibly chief iron tail at codys left who performed for more than 20 years on the show circuit with cody, traveling nationally and internationally with the show. Many of the performers were sioux indians from pine ridge reservation. I had the opportunity with another colleague to visit pine two years ago and learn more about families and individuals who chose to leave the reservation and perform, whether it was one season or many seasons. There were lots of Different Reasons why an individual would choose to contract with the wild west show. I wanted to be able to show one of these images that highlighted the relationship between cody and the indians. He was hoping this opportunity was not just a stereotypical look at indian life, but was an education for the public and some indians chose to join him. Yet they were sometimes reenacting scenes they had lived. They were also being paid. They were seeing the country and seeing the world, europe, at times when the show was there. There were many personal reasons for an American Indian man or woman to join the show. The families would also travel with the show, so women would be behind the scenes taking care in the camp, teepees, were able to travel and live and also Wear Clothing as they would and they werent always allowed to do that when they were on the reservations in the u. S. Highlight that one collection and also show that intimate moment behind the scenes and the friendship that did transpire between a lot of the indian performers and cody. Learn more about the National Museum of the American Indians thisgraphy collection sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, 3 00 p. M. Pacific on american artifacts on American History tv. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3, go inside a Different College classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights, and u. S. President s to 9 11. Thanks for your patience and for logging into class. With most campuses closed due to the impact of the coronavirus, watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage students. Orbit shot did most of the work to change the soviet union, but reagan met him halfway. Reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. Freedom of the press, i should mention, madison called it freedom of the use of the press and it is freedom to print things and publish things. It is not a freedom of what we refer to institutionally as the press. Lectures on American History tv on cspan3, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lectures and history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Music]nd drum you are watching American History tv, covering history cspan style with event coverage, eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures and college classrooms, and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend every weekend on cspan3. The chair of is medicine and science at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and let me begin with this pandemic and how it has impacted the museum and your division, in particular. Working remotely and our Museum Closed in march and we went to work remotely. We actually began thinking about the pandemic in january, we are a division of medical historians so we tend to follow than is pretty carefully, especially