“Chain Letter Evolution”, 2006 (; backlinks; similar):
Apocryphal letters claiming divine origin circulated for centuries in Europe. After 1900, shorter more secular letters appeared in the US that promised good luck if copies were distributed and bad luck if not. Billions of these “luck chain letters” circulated in the next 100 years. As they replicated through the decades, some accumulated copying errors, offhand comments, and calculated innovations that helped them prevail in the competition with other chain letters. For example, complementary testimonials developed, one exploiting perceived good luck, another exploiting perceived bad luck. Twelve successive types of paper luck chain letters are identified which predominated US circulation at some time in the 20th century. These types, and their major variations, are described and analyzed for their replicative advantage.
In the 1970’s a luck chain letter from South America that touted a lottery winner invaded the US and was combined on one page with an indigenous chain letter. This combination rapidly dominated circulation. In 1979 a postscript concluding with “It Works” was added to one of these combination letters, and within a few years the progeny of this single letter had replaced all the millions of similar letters in circulation without this postscript. These and other events in paper chain letter history are described, and hypotheses are offered to explain advances and declines in circulation, including the near extinction of luck chain letters in the new millennium.
Perhaps the most dramatic event in chain letter history was the advent of money chain letters. This was spawned by the infamous “Send-a-Dime” chain letter which flooded the world in 1935. The insight and methods of its anonymous author, likely a woman motivated by charity, are examined in detail in a separate article titled “The Origin of Money Chain Letters”. This constitutes §4.1 below, where its link is repeated. It can be read independently from this treatise.
The online Paper Chain Letter Archive contains the text and documentation of over 900 chain letters. Most of these texts have been transcribed from collected physical letters, but many come from published sources including daily newspapers present in online searchable archives. Some unusual items in the archive are: an anonymous 1917 chain letter giving advice on obtaining conscientious objector status; a 1920 Sinn Féin revolutionary communication; rare unpublished scatological parody letters from 1935; a bizarre chain letter invitation to a suicide from 1937; and a libelous Proctor & Gamble boycott alleging satanism from 1986. An annotated index provides easy access to all chain letters in the archive. An Annotated Bibliography on Chain Letters and Pyramid Schemes contains over 425 entries. A Glossary gives precise definitions for terms used here, facilitating the independent reading of sections.
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