https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-strangely-successful-history-of-people-mailing-themselves-in-boxes * Want to see fewer ads? Become a Member. [ao-app-toa] It's finally here! Download our iOS app and discover the world's hidden wonders on the go! It's finally here! Download our iOS app and discover the world's hidden wonders on the go! [ao-app-lan] LAUNCH PARTNER * Trips + Upcoming Trips + All Trips Trips Blog [bmc] Get the Atlas Obscura book Shop Now >> Upcoming Trips View All Trips >> [blank-11b9] Chiloe & the Fjords of Northern Patagonia [blank-11b9] In the Footsteps of Pharaohs: Exploring Ancient Egypt [blank-11b9] Layer by Layer: A Mexico City Culinary Adventure [blank-11b9] Barcelona Behind the Scenes: Music, Mystery and Modernist Treasures * Experiences Upcoming Experiences View All Experiences >> [blank-11b9] Members only Making and Moving Chinese Shadow Puppets [blank-11b9] Members only Atlas Obscura Members Only Trivia Night [blank-11b9] Members only Monster of the Month w/ Colin Dickey: Succubi & Incubi [blank-11b9] Members only Nina Nightingale's Charm School: Victorian Valentines & DIY Sachets [blank-11b9] Members only The Secret Arts: Toy Photography * Courses Upcoming Courses View All Courses >> [blank-11b9] Stories in the Stones: How to Read a Gravestone With Dr. Elise M. Ciregna [blank-11b9] How to Read a Landscape: Botany & Ecology With Annie Novak [blank-11b9] Storytelling Through Social Media With Dr. Earyn McGee [blank-11b9] Making Scents: Experimental Perfumery With Saskia Wilson-Brown [blank-11b9] The Living Art of Dead Things: Fox Taxidermy With Allis Markham * Places + Top Destinations + Newly Added Places + Most Popular Places + Random Place + Lists + Itineraries + ------------------------------------------------------------- Add a Place + ------------------------------------------------------------- DOWNLOAD THE iOS APP Download on the Apple App Store Newly Added Places View All Places >> Aerial view of the fort Dublin, Ireland Magazine Fort 53.3488, -6.3164 [blank-11b9] Edinburgh, Scotland Roxburgh Court Tree Plaques 55.9502, -3.1910 Whorlton Old Church Northallerton, England Whorlton Old Church 54.4152, -1.2567 East Port, Cowgate Dundee Dundee, Scotland Wishart Arch 56.4649, -2.9641 Top Destinations View All Destinations >> Countries + Australia + Canada + China + France + Germany + India + Italy + Japan Cities + Amsterdam + Barcelona + Beijing + Berlin + Boston + Budapest + Chicago + London + Los Angeles + Mexico City + Montreal + Moscow + New Orleans + New York City + Paris + Philadelphia + Rome + San Francisco + Seattle + Stockholm + Tokyo + Toronto + Vienna + Washington, D.C. * Foods Newly Added Places to Eat & Drink View All Places to Eat >> [blank-11b9] Melanin Cafe Pose with a giant pretzel outside the landmark bakery. Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery Frere Jean in the monastery kitchen. Skite Sainte Foy [blank-11b9] Sea Palace [blank-11b9] Depot 62 * Stories Most Recent Stories View All Stories >> How much snow has fallen in your neighborhood? It always seems like more when you're shoveling it. The Surprising Science of Measuring Snowfall [blank-11b9] Podcast: City Museum Part of the breeding herds from the Auerrind Project. The Once-Extinct Auroch May Soon Roam Europe Again Carpenters, painters, and other experts work during the annual maintenance week at Dresden's Frauenkirche. How to Keep Europe's Most Magnificent 'Praying Room' Looking Lovely Taking a nego chin out on the cold, shallow waters of the Sorgues River offers respite from the Provencal summer's heat--nearly forgotten, the traditional wooden boats are enjoying a revival. In Southern France, Unique Boats Revive a Lost Way of Life * Sign In Join * Sign In ----------------------------------------------------------------- Join * What's near me? The Strangely Successful History of People Mailing Themselves in Boxes by Dan Nosowitz July 24, 2015 The Strangely Successful History of People Mailing Themselves in Boxes Copy Link Facebook Twitter Reddit Flipboard Pocket [blank-11b9](Photo: Everett Collection/shutterstock.com) The communication from FedEx's media relations team was brief. "Dan," a FedEx employee identified over email only as "Media Relations" wrote, "The shipment of humans is prohibited in our network as a matter of policy." But behind that banal corporate phrasing lies a rich history, a subset of the stowaway phenomenon--the story of people attempting to mail themselves in boxes. Like stowaways on ships, trains, and planes, people have attempted (and sometimes succeeded!) in mailing themselves as recently as just a few years ago. It's not easy, nor legal, nor permitted by any major shipping company, but that hasn't stopped a very special group of people from trying. Whether to escape slavery or merely the cost of a plane ticket, people have been trying for over a century and a half to package themselves like so many rolls of toilet paper from Amazon. [blank-11b9] Searching a ship for stowaways, c.1850. (Photo: Library of Congress) The specific concept of a stowaway probably dates back to the early 1800s. Freighthopping, or leaping onto a train, became especially common after the Civil War, and stowaways on ships reached their peak in the early decades of the 1900s. It's a dangerous thing to do; secreting oneself in the bowels and containers of a ship carries with it the risk of suffocation, starvation, and thirst. A stowaway's legal position is rarely secure, and if the stowaway is discovered, he or she is unlikely to find much sympathy from a ship's crew. As travel technology changed, the romantic notion of a stowaway took a hit. Stowaways on planes are more rare due to the near-suicidal level of danger in the strategy. Wikipedia maintains a lengthy, though sometimes uncorroborated, list of attempts to stow away in the wheel well of an airplane, an empty space just large enough for a human. This is a bonkers thing to try, as temperatures can reach -81 degrees F, the pressure from the elevation collapses lungs, and there's not nearly enough oxygen to survive at even relatively low cruising levels. The only modern surviving airplane stowaways, like 21-year-old Indonesian man Mario Steven Ambarita, who survived a flight from Sumatra to Jakarta earlier this year, have tended to try for short flights at low altitudes. But mailing oneself in a box, that's something different. Shipping companies like FedEx and the United States Postal Service (USPS) ship packages in temperature-controlled, pressurized cargo holds. A box itself provides some level of privacy and security, though it also minimizes one's ability to move. And staying inside a box allows one to remain, sort of, in plain sight: once you're past the initial line of security, you can stay put and await delivery. [blank-11b9]Illustration of Henry Box Brown's 'resurrection' in Philadelphia, from the 1872 book "The Underground Railroad" by Willliam Still. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) Perhaps the most famous self-mailer is Henry "Box" Brown, an escaped Virginia slave who mailed himself to Pennsylvania, a free state, in 1849. Brown severely burned his hand to get out of work one day, then, in collusion with abolitionists in Philadelphia, had himself packaged into a box equipped with a bottle of water, a few biscuits, and a rough blanket, and shipped via the Adams Express Company, now an investment firm that in the 19th century was a shipping and freighting company known for its privacy. The shipping cost Brown $86, just over $2,500 in today's dollars, and took an extremely uncomfortable 27 hours. But he was delivered successfully, and became a well-known abolitionist speaker and entertainer later in life. (Apparently Frederick Douglass was annoyed with Brown for revealing his method of escape, thus preventing other slaves from doing the same.) [blank-11b9] Reg Spiers, who posted himself in a box from England to Australia. (Photo: Courtesy Marcus McSorley/ Roaring Forties Press) Much later, in 1964, Reg Spiers, a near-Olympic-level Australian javelin thrower, found himself stranded in England after failing to qualify for the English Olympic team. Spiers told the BBC earlier this year that his wallet was stolen, leaving him penniless, and that his best option for getting home was to mail himself in a large crate, cash on delivery, and figure out payment when he got home to Australia. A friend, John McSorley, built Spiers a box, 5 feet by 3 feet by 2.5 feet, equipped with some straps so Spiers could hold himself steady as he was moved. The box was loaded with Spiers himself, a pillow, a blanket, some cans of food, a bottle of water, and an empty bottle as a makeshift bathroom, and sent to Australia. Amazingly, after delays in London and an especially brutal layover in steamy Mumbai, Spiers survived the three-day trip home. Back in the Perth airport, Spiers says he let himself out of the box and cut a hole in the airport's wall. After stealing a beer from the cargo area and dressing in his own suit, he simply walked out of the hole he'd cut and hitchhiked home. [blank-11b9]The box being inspected at Perth International Airport. (Photo: Courtesy Marcus McSorley/ Roaring Forties Press) Little did he know that McSorley, having not heard from Spiers for days, was getting worried, and alerted the press. So within a week he found himself hounded by reporters wanting to know about his amazing journey. The attention did have one nice effect, though: the airline forgave his debt. (Another outcome was that McSorely co-authored a book called, appropriately, Out of the Box, about the whole affair.) [blank-11b9] A replica of the box Reg Spiers travelled in. (Photo: Courtesy Marcus McSorley/ Roaring Forties Press) I contacted both FedEx and the USPS to find out about shipping myself. Both prohibit it, though it's worth noting that the USPS employees I talked to have a sense of humor about this kind of thing and gleefully chatted with me about the weird stuff you're allowed to ship. Legally, you are allowed to ship only very specific types of live animals. Those include day-old birds, certain adult birds (chickens, for example), bees, a selection of cold-blooded animals including baby alligators and chameleons, and, bizarrely enough, some scorpions. "Yeah, bees, crickets ... I used to work in the processing plants when those things would come through. They must be packaged very specifically to protect the insects and the postal workers," says Sue Brennan, senior public relations specialist at the USPS. The rules for mailing baby alligators are as follows: The alligator must be under 20 inches in length, it must not require any food or water during its journey, and it must not create "sanitary problems" or "obnoxious odors." Otherwise it's pretty much no problem to mail a baby alligator. Scorpions are mailable only if they're to be used for medical or anti-venom research, must be packed in a special sort of double-walled container, and must be clearly labeled "live scorpions." Warm-blooded animals, aside from those few birds, are not permitted at all. The official USPS document specifically mentions that you are not allowed to mail somebody a flying squirrel. I'm not sure if the USPS has had a problem with boxes of live flying squirrels or what. The larger problem with attempting to mail yourself is weight. FedEx and UPS both have a 150 pound weight limit, and the USPS has a mere 70 pound weight limit. Along with the box material and survival supplies, that could make it tricky to mail oneself, if one was to ignore the very strict rules on the subject. The size of a package won't likely be a problem; none of the three major shipping companies in the US restrict boxes to a size that would be difficult for a human to fit in. UPS, for example, allows packages up to 108 inches long, with a maximum of 168 inches in combined length and width. Of course, it's also unlikely you'd get away with it; security technology, especially scanners, has improved a great deal since the times of Henry "Box" Brown and even Reg Spiers. On the plus side, there's no extra fee--you just pay by weight and how quick you want yourself to get there, and you're on your way. Hopefully. Read next The Complete Guide to Escaping Earth's Gravitational Pull [blank-11b9] escape week Want to see fewer ads? Become a Member. Want to see fewer ads? Become a Member. Using an ad blocker? We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the world's hidden wonders. Consider supporting our work by becoming a member for as little as $5 a month. Continue Using Ad-Block Support Us Keep Exploring [blank-11b9] churches What It Was Like to Seek Asylum in Medieval England Eric Grundhauser July 24, 2015 [blank-11b9] escape week How To Escape A Building By Dropping Through a Fabric Esophagus Sarah Laskow July 24, 2015 [blank-11b9] escape week The Lunar Colonies Of Our Wildest Dreams Anika Burgess July 24, 2015 [blank-11b9] places you can no longer go Places You Can No Longer Go: Libby Prison Lucas Adams July 23, 2015 Want to see fewer ads? Become a Member. From Around the Web THE GASTRO OBSCURA BOOK Taste the World! An eye-opening journey through the history, culture, and places of the culinary world. Order Now Gastro Obscura Book [] See Fewer Ads Become an Atlas Obscura member and experience far fewer ads and no pop-ups. Learn More Get Our Email Newsletter [ ] [Subscribe] Thanks for subscribing! View all newsletters >> Follow Us * * * * * Get the app Download on the Apple App Store Places * Recently Added * Most Popular * Random * Nearby * Add a Place Foods * Latest * Food & Drink * Stories * Places * Add a Food Trips * All Trips * Trips Blog * Art & Culture Trips * Food Trips * Hidden City Trips * History Trips * Photography Trips * Wildlife & Nature Trips * FAQ Experiences * All Experiences * Online Experiences * Online Courses * Online Experience FAQ * Online Course FAQ Community * Membership * Travel Forum * Latest Posts * Top Posts Company * About * Contact Us * FAQ * Work With Us * Advertising * Press * Unique Gifts * Privacy Policy * Cookie Policy * Terms of Use (c) 2022 Atlas Obscura. All rights reserved. Questions or Feedback? Contact Us Thanks for sharing! Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Want a Free Book? Sign up for our newsletter and enter to win the second edition of our book, Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders. [ ] Subscribe No Thanks Visit AtlasObscura.com Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders Stay in Touch! Follow us on social media to add even more wonder to your day. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Follow Us on Instagram No Thanks Visit AtlasObscura.com No purchase necessary. Winner will be selected at random on 02/01/ 2022. Offer available only in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico). Offer subject to change without notice. See contest rules for full details. Add Some Wonder to Your Inbox Every weekday we compile our most wondrous stories and deliver them straight to you. [ ] Subscribe No Thanks We'd Like You to Like Us Like Atlas Obscura and get our latest and greatest stories in your Facebook feed. No Thanks [p] Quantcast