Arthur Summerfield

Arthur Ellsworth Summerfield (March 17, 1899 – April 26, 1972) was a U.S. political figure who served as the 57th Postmaster General of the United States from 1953 to 1961. As Postmaster General, he was an ardent opponent of obscenity.

Summerfield was born in Pinconning, Michigan, on March 17, 1899, the son of Cora Edith Ellsworth, (Born in Indiana on April 11, 1877 - Died in Flint, Michigan, on January 18, 1933) and William Henry Summerfield, (Born in Zilwaukee, Michigan, in 1876 - Died in Flint, Michigan, in 1938).

Before embarking on his political career, Summerfield had become well known in Michigan as the owner of one of the largest General Motors automobile dealerships in the state; and one of the largest in the Midwest. On July 22, 1918, Summerfield married the former Miriam Wealthy Graim, (Born in Alma, Michigan, on September 7, 1898 - Died in Flint, Michigan, on February 12, 1987). They had two children:

Summerfield served as the chairman of the Republican National Committee between 1952 and 1953. At the 1952 Republican National Convention he played a key role in winning the GOP presidential nomination for General Dwight Eisenhower. As Michigan's delegate chairman Summerfield convinced the large, uncommitted Michigan delegation to support Eisenhower, thus providing "Ike" with a major boost before the voting.

In December 1952, President-Elect Eisenhower chose Summerfield as the federal Postmaster General; he served in that post from 1953 until 1961. His assistant postmaster was former U.S. Representative Ben H. Guill of Texas.

As postmaster general, Summerfield oversaw attempts to reform and modernize the Post Office and the U.S. mail system, which was still conducting many sorting and processing operations by hand. Summerfield called for an increase in postage rates to subsidize the purchase of new mechanized mail processing and sorting equipment. Some of this equipment was adopted, including the Hamper-Dumper internal mail sorting/transport system and the Mail-Flo Letter Processing System, which used conveyors to speed mail processing. However, rapidly increasing mail volume and postal deficits prevented the Post Office from completely modernizing and mechanizing all of its many post offices. To improve the Post Office's image with the public, Summerfield began a promotional campaign designed to showcase Post Office achievements.

On July 4, 1955, in order to highlight its new image as a modern organization, the Post Office adopted a new red, white, and blue color scheme for all Post Office collection boxes, trucks, delivery vans, and equipment, as well as new technology and procedures for mail delivery. As part of that effort, Summerfield supported experiments with rocket-delivered mail, using the missile mail carrier. The first and only flight of the missile mail carrier occurred on June 8, 1959, when a letter-stuffed Regulus cruise missile was successfully launched from the U.S. Navy submarine USS Barbero.

As Postmaster General, Summerfield was a vigorous opponent of the mailing of obscene materials through the postal system. In 1955, postal inspectors seized a rare volume of the 2,400-year-old play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, which Summerfield described as "obscene, lewd and lascivious". When the first unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover was published in the US in 1959 by Grove Press, Summerfield moved to ban it from being sent by mail, saying that "any literary merit the book may have is far outweighed by the pornographic and smutty passages and words".