Images of trucks and trains from a bygone era flash in black and white on the screen. Shaky video reels show workers climbing mountains and crossing terrain in snowmobiles—all of this in service to one mission that began more than 150 years ago: deliver communications across borders to the farthest reaches of the globe.
These images were among archival material brought together in a three-minute historical video to commemorate the Universal Postal Union’s 150th anniversary. This journey through postal history was designed by Vincent Schicker, a Master’s Candidate in History at the University of Fribourg, who completed a 6-week internship for the UPU in 2024. Schicker was tasked with drafting a script and selecting archival media for the UPU video. It was an internship that connected with his interests and ideals.“I always found quite fascinating how postal services were one of the big elements in bringing people together, through new communications and new inventions,” said Schicker, who, as a child amassed his own 12-volume stamp collection.
As a historian and researcher, the internship allowed him to highlight this role of postal service for others.
“The idea of transmitting historical knowledge and making it accessible to the greater audience, that's something that's interesting to me,” he said.
Schicker searched archival materials at the UPU headquarters in Berne, including documents, photographs, and movie reels, where he unearthed a wealth of historical artefacts. Among those were nearly 1,000 movie reels. He viewed approximately 50 of them, including promotional movies, training videos, and historical films documenting congresses dating back to the Stockholm Congress in 1924, the oldest reel he found.
Also among the archives were innumerable photographs. Schicker was able to trace the luxury of film’s presence at UPU congresses. Earlier UPU congresses produced only a few dozen photos. The volume of photographs increased through the 1990s with each congress documented in hundreds upon hundreds of images. Then, in the 2000s, when digital photography reigned, Schicker struggled to access archives because digital files were stored in various places, not all of them known.
The archival materials told rich and varied stories. In some, the dangers faced by postal workers were highlighted. For example, he saw training videos for delivery personnel in the United States of America that instructed mail carriers on how to remain safe when meeting dogs on their routes. In a Belgian Postal Service movie, drivers of armoured trucks were instructed on how to respond when being chased during an attempted robbery.
Movie reels also narrated the advancements in technologies that helped the postal sector deliver mail and packages farther and faster. One of the biggest transportation changes evident in the archives was the introduction of airmail, Schicker said. These films not only showed airmail routes or promoted services but provided safety instructions for landing in bad weather.
“A civilian plane couldn't land if they didn't see a few hundred metres in front of them,” Schicker explained, “but airmail routes had special procedures to land by instruments if visibility was much more reduced. That's how vital it was that they could deliver the mail.”
Historical and technological progress in postal services could be seen in archival images of new telephone services, then into the digital age with computers and the first booths for interpreters at Congresses.
“You could see pictures of the secretaries and the officers who are in charge of gathering all the documents in all the languages,” Schicker said. “Then the digital age came in and now it's mostly emails and PDFs.”
The archival search was not without its challenges. Schicker’s main struggle involved an old projector required to view the movie reels. The UPU’s projector was missing its power bank. He eventually stumbled upon it by chance in another part of the UPU’s underground levels. Then the projector’s lightbulb, an old halogen model, needed replacing. A new one was located in yet another part of the basement, he said, sitting between two pieces of camera equipment. Next, the driver belt of the motor gave out, requiring a new one to be ordered from the Netherlands. While each of the fixes and finds seemed to work for a while, by the end of the internship Schicker could only use the project if he cranked it by hand “like an old car,” he said, which was not without its own risks. “I kept a fire extinguisher next to me in case something went wrong.”
Despite these hurdles, which are common in archival work, Schicker said, he managed to view and digitize some of the reels, preserving their historical value for future generations. This digitization process is urgent, he stressed, as some reels are showing signs of degradation, emitting a vinegar-like smell.
“Once it’s started, there's nothing we can do except maybe put them in a freezer,” he said.
Schicker also created four showcases of UPU history, located in its headquarters: "Air mail": showcasing old air mail route maps, as well as stamps relating to the theme; "UPU Monuments": rejected candidacies for the current UPU Monument in Bern; "Tribute to the UPU staff": documents used or produced by the UPU central services, including telegraphic codes, vocabulary for translators, reels, and most notably, in-depth statistics concerning all the UPU members dating back to its foundation; "Services of the UPU": lesser-known services, such as postal cheques and postal identity cards.
He could not have completed the project without the help of UPU staff, John Stevenson and Mike Laheyne, for their invaluable help in getting the projector running and helping him locate valuable items, as well as Solange Avila, the now retired librarian.
Now in 2025, with Schicker’s internship completed, the archival search wrapped up, and the historical video released to the public, Schicker said the basement levels of the UPU still have stories to tell. There are myriad documents to examine, reels to view and study and digitize before they are lost to decomposition, digital files that have not been accessed, and even a stash of undeveloped rolls of film that have yet to be viewed.
This article first appeared in Union Postale Spring 2025.