Omaha daily bee., 1902-02-22
WHERE POSTAL CARDS ARE MADE.
A Busy Place In the Mountains of
west virginia.

In a little West Virginia mountain town
situated high up in the Appalachian range,
not far from the border Of Maryland, is
located the modest plant that turns out
millions, Of postal cards every month for
the United States government The town
is Piedmont, w. Va, and here the busy
factory is at work six days in the week,
making the little oblong sheets Of card
board which are destined to carry mes
sages Of all sorts from all conditions Of
people. Here. also, is made the cardboard
from which the postal cards are made; here
II is cut into the requisite sizes and the
cards printed. and finally packed and
shipped into every state, city, town and
hamlet in the United States. Porto Rico.
Hawaii and the Philippine islands.
The postal card mandatory. relates the
Philadelphia Record, is a two-story, fire.
proof brick building with a cement roof,
The building is further protected by patent
automatic FIRE sprinklers, with an abundant
supply of water. so that danger from ERE
is reduced to a minimum. The building
is not large-about 100x60 feet. The power
to run the machinery Is furnished by the
plant OF the paper company whose large
establishment adjoins that OF the postal
works.
The first floor of the building is used for
a press room, casing room and a dry room
for the printed postal cards. There are
two printing presses in the press room,
each having a capacity Of 1900 impressions
an hour. The size OF the sheets Of paper
used on these presses is 50x5O inches, and
each sheet contains ninety postal cards
ready to be cut and packed when it comes
from the press. The dies used In the print
ing Of the cards are, of course, furnished
l ~ a. m. -, 80
ated by four men. each Of whom works
eight hours every day. In the casing room
one man is kept busy putting together the
knocked-down pine boxes in which the
cards are packed for shipment. These
boxes are made Of pine grown in West
Virginia, and are shipped knocked down"
to the contractor. The boxes vary In size,
holding 5000, 10, 900, 2 8 5000 or 100, 900 cards,
respectively. The largest shipment ever
made from the Piedmont works was a con-
signment Of "a, 200, 900, which went out on
June 16, 1900.
The paper must contain SO per cent OF
sulphite spruce fibre, % per cent OF soda
chemical poplar fibre bleached, and 9 per
cent Of English clay. All Of these COM
ponents must be clean and free from i'm
Projections; calendered to a uniform weight
and thickness, and finished on both sides
suitable for writing with ink or pencil,
the tint in all cases being, of course, a
uniform bun. Even the tensile strength
is tested. and, In fact, in every possible
detail the cards must conform to a rigid
government standard. Even the quality Of
the ink used In printing the cards and it's
color, black, must be exactly as the gov
eminent has stipulated In the specihca-
tions under which the contract is let, and
what is known as a water finish to the
material used in the manufacture of the
cards is not permitted.
The regular force at the postal card
mandatory numbers only forty employees,
half of whom are women and the re-
mainder men.