Object Details
- Description
- Used envelope, greeting card, and face mask were sent with a handwritten message from mother to daughter about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday in November 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The envelope with return address label and handwritten address (both digitally redacted in image) has a US flag definitive postage stamp cancelled with circular postmark: "NORTH TEXAS P[illegilbe] / COPPELL, TX / NOV 16 2020." The flower design on bottom left corner matches the greeting card (see 2021.2011.2 for message inside the card).
- Social distancing guidelines issued by the government entities during the COVID-19 pandemic affected many aspects of Americans’ lives, including how people communicated, socialized, traveled, and marked holidays. The mail was used for moving material, communicating information and emotions, and maintaining relationships during the crisis. This letter sent by Thu Hoai Truong of Dallas, Texas, to her daughter Michelle Landry, of Washington, DC, demonstrates that the Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 2020, would be not celebrated with a typical family gathering because long-distance travel was discouraged at the time. The reference to the face mask (object number 2021.2011.3), which Truong obtained from her employer, Raytheon, and enclosed in this mail, evidences one of the health precautions recommended by the government during this period of the pandemic.
- Data Source
- National Postal Museum
- Date
- November 16, 2020
- Credit line
- Gift of the Landry and Truong family
- Medium
- paper; ink;
- Type
- Covers & Associated Letters
