Italian Internees held in US internment camps were permitted to write only two short letters and one postcard per week. The length of the letter was determined by the space allotted to the internee on one side of a standardized piece of stationary supplied to internees by the US Government Printing Office as “Form Number 4”. This stationary was one-sized-fits-all, meaning it was the only kind offered to internees, and the brief instructions on the reverse side were printed in English, German, Italian and Japanese.

The stationary was a light blue pre-folded paper sheet 6” wide by 14.75” long, including the folding tab at the top. Light, widely-spaced lines were printed for use by the writer, the reverse of which became the outside when folded for mailing. The tab made the document easy to open for inspection and censorship by authorities, and then reseal.