History of Newsletters: From Almanacs to Personalized Emails

Since their invention, emails have served two major functions: private communication between individuals and newsletters. These can be sent by brands, artists, associations, and much more.

You’ve probably already received a newsletter yourself. But do you know where they come from?

In this article, discover the history of newsletters! Perhaps their long tradition will even inspire you to create your own newsletters …

Let’s step into the DeLorean and step silver water and its consequences back in time to discover the history of newsletters.

Long before email, people were already following regular publications to stay informed.

Since ancient times, there have been many examples of publications similar to our modern newspapers. One example is the “Kaufmannsbriefe” of the late Middle Ages – handwritten letters exchanged between wealthy merchants and containing extensive information on various regional markets, tariffs, and so on.

But it is above all the almanacs, made possible by the invention of the printing press, which resemble what we call newsletters today.

A very popular read since the 15th century, almanacs were annual publications that could contain various information: cooking tips, remedies, stories, news items or even dates of events (as for the almanac Les Spectacles de Paris )

The dinosaur of (almost) instant communication tools.

Today, the telegraph would be more at home  test before adopting your future crm suite  in a museum… and yet it was an important precursor to email.

The telegraph’s great revolution lay in transmission time. Unlike letters, which took weeks—if not months—to arrive, Morse code messages sent by telegraph arrived in minutes.

A little later, in the 1890s, the first submarine cable networks were created. For the first time in history, the entire world was connected!

If the pneumatic tube primarily reminds you of the absurd bureaucratic hell in the film Brazil… you’re pretty well-versed in film. But did you know it was actually a precursor to modern email?

Nowadays, the pneumatic tube seems obsolete and rather ridiculous, it’s true. But it played a very important role in communications in the last century.

The pneumatic tube allowed cylindrical shuttles to saudi data  be propelled along tubes using pressure. These networks of tubes, which sometimes covered an area of ​​more than 400 kilometers, saw more than 8 million messages pass through them each year—in the form of letters or even small objects.

The pneumatic tube was therefore a very good way to communicate remotely, especially within the same company. It’s a bit like the email (or Slack) of the time.