Curators Choice – Airgraphs
The Museum’s collection features two Airgraphs sent in 1943 and 1944 by Sergeant Leonard Wood to his Aunty and Grandmother who lived on George Street in Scunthorpe. The Airgraph process was invented by Kodak Eastman in the 1930s in collaboration with air operators.
The Airgraph service was set up in 1941 to solve the problem of sending post between Britain and the Middle East during the Second World War. Letters from the troops were important for morale but had to be sent by plane, taking up a lot of precious space and making them vulnerable to loss if the plane went down. Using the Airgraph system, letters were photographed and shrunk onto microfilm in Cairo. The microfilm was sent on to Britain, the letters printed out and safely delivered.
In this video, Collections Officer Rebecca Lucas, takes a closer look at the two Airgraphs in the collection.
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