Historical Echoes: Pneumatic Tubes And Banking
Maybe your like
« Euro Area Spending Imbalances and the Sovereign Debt Crisis | Main | The Flash Crash, Two Years On »
May 4, 2012 Historical Echoes: Pneumatic Tubes and BankingAmy Farber, New York Fed Research Library
Pneumatic tubes—a system in which cylinder-shaped containers (that could contain messages, money, small objects, and even food) are propelled through a network of tubes via compressed air or partial vacuum—are a relatively old technology. (Pneumatic tubes were patented in the United States in 1940, with earlier forms existing prior to this date). But when used in innovative ways in the past, they were viewed as futuristic. What may come to mind first is the use of pneumatic tubes in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) to transport messages and newspapers. The 1954 film of the book depicts the use of the technology (starting three minutes into this clip).
In Bill Bryson’s homage to growing up in the 1950s, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, he describes the use of pneumatic tubes in a department store:
Every commercial enterprise had something distinctive to commend it. The New Utica department store downtown had pneumatic tubes rising from each cash register. The cash from your purchase was placed in a cylinder, then inserted in the tubes and fired—like a torpedo—to a central collection point, such was the urgency to get the money counted and back into the economy. A visit to the New Utica was like a trip to a future century.
What does this have to do with banks? According to Kent Mustoe, an engineering student and member of a group called the Pneumanics (a team of six students in the L05 section of ECE4007, Georgia Tech’s senior design course for electrical engineers), banking is one of the industries with the longest running use of this technology. He states in his paper, “Pneumatic Transport System Uses and Advances”:
The banking industry is one of the longest running users of a pneumatic transport system. Their method of transportation consists of a single input, single output tube system that connects the bank teller from inside the bank to the customer at an outside terminal . . . This is one of the most practical uses of a pneumatic system due to the fact that the distance between the two end ports is so short. Also the material of the objects being moved is usually paper, which is light weight . . .
Many youtube.com videos about pneumatic tubes in drive-thru banking feature cars crashing into bank structures, but there is also a short video that features a Canadian woman who is delighted to use the bank drive-through.
According to an article in Adweek in 2010, Citadel Bank was running ads featuring a pneumatic tube. However, instead of cash, the tube carried rate announcements and customer inquiries, which were received and read by a nerdy spokesman named Lewis.
DisclaimerThe views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author.
Share this:
- X
RSS Feed
Follow Liberty Street Economics
“What’s really driving inflation?” “Why do some neighborhoods bounce back faster than others?” Meet some of the New York Fed researchers working to answer questions that matter most to the economy.
About the BlogLiberty Street Economics features insight and analysis from New York Fed economists working at the intersection of research and policy. Launched in 2011, the blog takes its name from the Bank’s headquarters at 33 Liberty Street in Manhattan’s Financial District.
The editors are Michael Fleming, Thomas Klitgaard, Maxim Pinkovskiy, and Asani Sarkar, all economists in the Bank’s Research Group.
Liberty Street Economics does not publish new posts during the blackout periods surrounding Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System.
Economic Research Tracker
Liberty Street Economics is available on the iPhone® and iPad® and can be customized by economic research topic or economist.
Most Read this Year
- Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?
- Are Businesses Absorbing the Tariffs or Passing Them On to Their Customers?
- Credit Score Impacts from Past Due Student Loan Payments
- Is College Still Worth It?
- Why Does the U.S. Always Run a Trade Deficit?
We encourage your comments and queries on our posts and will publish them (below the post) subject to the following guidelines:
Please be brief: Comments are limited to 1,500 characters.
Please be aware: Comments submitted shortly before or during the FOMC blackout may not be published until after the blackout.
Please be relevant: Comments are moderated and will not appear until they have been reviewed to ensure that they are substantive and clearly related to the topic of the post.
Please be respectful: We reserve the right not to post any comment, and will not post comments that are abusive, harassing, obscene, or commercial in nature. No notice will be given regarding whether a submission will or will not be posted.
Comments with links: Please do not include any links in your comment, even if you feel the links will contribute to the discussion. Comments with links will not be posted.
Send Us Feedback
Disclosure PolicyThe LSE editors ask authors submitting a post to the blog to confirm that they have no conflicts of interest as defined by the American Economic Association in its Disclosure Policy. If an author has sources of financial support or other interests that could be perceived as influencing the research presented in the post, we disclose that fact in a statement prepared by the author and appended to the author information at the end of the post. If the author has no such interests to disclose, no statement is provided. Note, however, that we do indicate in all cases if a data vendor or other party has a right to review a post.
Archives- 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
Tag » When Were Pneumatic Tubes Invented
-
Pneumatic Tube System (PTS) - Swisslog Healthcare
-
Pneumatic Tube - Wikipedia
-
Pneumatic Tubes: A Brief History - The Atlantic
-
History Of Pneumatic Tube Transport | Invention, Post Transport
-
The Golden Era Of The Pneumatic Tube — When It Carried Fast Food ...
-
History Of The First Pneumatic Tools - ThoughtCo
-
The History Of Pneumatic Tube Systems
-
Pneumatic Tubes - Dead Media Archive
-
The History Of Pneumatic Tube Systems
-
Chicago's Strange History With Pneumatic Tubes
-
Pneumatic Tube - Wikidoc
-
A Brief History Of The Pneumatic Tube Transport Systems That Never Were
-
A Brief History Of People And Animals Traveling Through Tubes
-
A Brief History And Applications Of Pneumatic Tube System Over The ...