The cover had a purple 2½d ‘Sideface’ stamp of Tasmania cancelled with a roller HOBART postmark of the early 1900s and it was addressed to W. Schulz Jnr, General Manager, The Cosmopolitan Correspondence Club, Milwaukee, Wis., U.S.A. and there was a ‘medallion’ at the top left corner. The reverse was not seen (Figure 1).
The ‘medallion’ was a ‘sticker’ denoting THE COSMOPOLITAN CORRESPONDENCE CLUB, MILWAUKEE, WIS. U.S.A. The sticker was in a belt & buckle form, and there was a griffin on both sides of a globe, below which a banner was inscribed ‘RESPONDEZ S’IL VOUS PLAIT’ (Figure 2).
As the 19th century drew to a close, the Wright brothers were working on their future flying craft. The Wright brothers had a vision that would take man into the dimensional atmosphere of the future. With the beginnings of the 20th century most people thought of flying as a stunt or as a sport while others saw the possibilities that airplanes would eventually cross the continents and the oceans linking Planet Earth together. On December 16, 1907 the US Navy left Hampton Roads, Virginia and began a diplomatic cruise round-the-world. People began to think globally. People increased their travel outside the boundaries of their countries. People began to use the mails to correspond with family and friends all over the world.
Louis Rodrigues Wyllie, born on October 4, 1883 began writing articles in the Milwaukee WI “Globe Trotter” journal about the peoples of the world, their cultures and of adventurous people who traveled the globe to see and understand others. Wyllie became a correspondent for the National Geographic Society in Washington DC and the Cosmopolitan Correspondence Club in Milwaukee WI. The Cosmopolitan Correspondence Club with a membership of over 6,000 individuals throughout the world began sending postcards to each other demonstrating that postal mail might transverse around-the-world as a precursor for people’s travels round-the-world. I am now making the distinction between the phrases, round-the-world and around-the world. Round-the-world means actually circumnavigating our earth while Around-the-world means visiting arbitrary destinations on our earth without complete circumnavigation.
The Cosmopolitan Correspondence Club postcard pictured below was directed around-the-world visiting seven of its members (3428-3803-4183-4480-4454-3607-3683) beginning on March 1, 1908 and ending it’s around-the-world trip on August 24, 1908. The 1908 postcard) departed Mexico March 1, 1908: United States March 10, 1908: Canada March 12, 1908: Cuba March 30, 1908: Uruguay May 19, 1908: Argentina July 21, 1908: Chile August 15, 1908: and it arrived back in Mexico August 24, 1908 (Figure 3).