[ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?

[=JeffH]

 > I'm pretty sure that "electronic mail" would have preceded "e-mail";
 > "electronic mail" is rather a lengthy mouthful, and I'm sure that it was
 > pretty inevitable that i) someone would shorten it to "e-mail", and ii) once
 > that had happened, it would spread pretty quickly.

I tend to agre with the above. When I arrived at Xerox Office System 
Business Unit (responsible for STAR) in early 1984, the term "email" was 
already deeply ingrained.  I suspect that a search of PARC "blue & white" 
publications might yield something (or maybe not).

In terms of the use of the "electronic mail" term, my modest google scholar 
search-fu turns up this early occurance..

Distribution of electronic mail over the broad-band party-line 
communications network (July 1970)
Gross, W.B. ; General Electric Company, Philadelphia, Pa.
Proceedings of the IEEE  (Volume:58 ,  Issue: 7 )
pp 1002 - 1012
ISSN 0018-9219
DOI 10.1109/PROC.1970.7842


There's also this thesis which may yield some clues, although it seems to 
use the term "email" itself rather loosely..

The Evolution of ARPANET email
Ian R. Hardy
13 May 1996
http://www.livinginternet.com/References/Ian%20Hardy%20Email%20Thesis.txt


There is also this..

"Networked E-mail", chapter 19 by David Walden, in "A Culture of Innovation: 
Insider Accounts of Computing and Life at BBN", David Walden & Raymond 
Nickerson, Ed., Waterside Publishing, 2011.
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedpublications/pdf/CultureInnovation_bbn.pdf


HTH,

=JeffH