Envelopes are a serious business. There is even an Envelope Manufacturers Association, otherwise better known as EMA. If you are an envelope manufacturer, you know how important envelopes are to our daily life, and you have an association behind you that offers you all sorts of industry resources, technical publications, statistics of ongoing and changing importance, and any and all other possible information which could affect the envelope manufacturer and that industry’s business atmosphere.
Being an envelope manufacturer is serious business. What these people understand is that a well-created envelope, one that is put together by an envelope manufacturer who knows his/her craft, truly holds the success of the entire postal system in his/her hands. The use of mail as we know it now would truly cease to exist without envelopes, and envelopes come about as the result of an envelope manufacturer.
The necessity of some sort of covering for important messages is not in any way a new idea. It is a concept that has been around for centuries. In one of its earliest iterations, envelopes were simply cut-outs which roughly fit around the message paper, secured so that the message would be fully enclosed. It must have been an ancestor of an envelope manufacturer of today who decided there was a smart business to be had in the mass production of such message enclosures. That brilliant individual put into motion the creation of standard envelopes available for purchase, rather than, as up until that time, using haphazardly and personally cut paper wrappers.
Entrepreneurship in an early form! While there was not yet an association of these folks getting together to make their industry one of form and substance, there was afoot a movement to improve the standard for postal items. At the front of that movement stood the envelope manufacturer, the person who literally held the success of it all in the palm of his hand. This envelope manufacturer, and others, was so crucial to the early postal movement because it would be on his ingenuity, or lack thereof, upon which all future mailings would find success . . . or failure.
That is a lot of pressure. Thankfully, there were a lot of intelligent and creative people working on the development of the best way to send something from Point A to Point B. Each and every envelope manufacturer improved on the last, and by the 1800s, we had a relatively universal envelope, in Britain, anyway, useful and well-used amongst all since the cost of postage had been set at a penny all ‘round. So it was that anyone with something important to share long distance could do so if they could drum up a piece of paper, some ink, an envelope, and a penny for the stamp.
And so our need to communicate went large-scale, from one corner of the world to the other . . . and everywhere in between. Few stop to think of how nearly-impossible any of this would have been without the envelope manufacturer who put together that first standard envelope, one much like we know of today. Unfortunately, his name has been lost to the history books but his legacy will live on forever, and for that we should all be thankful. Every single envelope manufacturer in business today, most of them quite possibly members of the Envelope Manufacturers Association, understands the historical significance of that very first envelope, and each one of them has taken on its descendants as a serious business.
The seemingly smallest parts of daily life, and what might appear most inconsequential, are often the true joints which hold together an industry or an integrated part of society. Take away any of those pieces and, bit by bit, we would find our structures crumbling. And those companies that include the job title, “Envelope Manufacturer,” bring to you that one seemingly small piece of the internationally-important mail puzzle, day in and day out. With an ever-evolving economy, one that in recent years has taken a turn downward, we need to keep an eye out for our lesser-touted job descriptions. Do you buy from an envelope manufacturer whose business is in, say, Missouri, or one that is outside the United States? The choice is, of course, yours but in today’s world, keeping your buying dollars inside the country helps every one of your fellow citizens, and does a lot towards helping to keep that envelope manufacturer in Missouri in business.
An envelope manufacturer puts out a large amount of product each and every day. Think of how many times you may use an envelope during the course of your work day. Then consider how many other folks are doing the same—both small, single business owners and large corporations, or even Mary or John or Ann and Steve, all of whom have letters to put in the mail on any given day. Each of those posted items will go out in an envelope, and there was an envelope manufacturer behind every one. If you even loosely put these numbers together today for a daily count, you might begin to see how you and me, and everyone around each of us, are doing our parts to keep a company in the United States in business, and jobs in the hands of American citizens.
It is important to stop every now and then and consider the origination of the simplest of tools used in our modern-day life, moment by moment. If we learn to appreciate what we have and what helps us operate easily and efficiently throughout our lives, we will be more likely to understand how in just the slightest effort, we can work together to do what we need to get done. At the same time, and here’s the even greater part, we are helping out those who help us . . . for example, that envelope manufacturer—both the one who long ago smartly came up with the idea of a universal type of enveloping for our important messages, and the one who, today, works hard to keep those envelopes on the market for all of our postal needs.
If you mail a letter today, thank an envelope manufacturer!