ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the representation of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in the media—in words and image. The UPU was critical for communication; the post, not the telegraph, was the nineteenth-century Internet. But I argue that the UPU paradoxically succeeded in regulating communication because the organization itself did not seek publicity. The chapter examines the Universal Postal Union’s formative era from its establishment in Berne in 1874 to the celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary in 1949, one year following its absorption into the United Nations, and on its media representation in the Anglo-American world. I make three arguments. First: the Universal Postal Union devoted relatively little effort to explaining its operations to the general public. Second: the Universal Postal Union entered the British and American press primarily during the years when it held an international congress. Third: the most compelling media representations of the UPU were not textual but iconographic—and could be found in ephemeral items such as postcards and souvenir envelopes and, most enduringly, on postage stamps issued to commemorate UPU-related events. For UPU administrators, the avoidance of publicity may have been key to the organization’s remarkable success at establishing and enforcing international communications protocols.
