The 

United 

States 

Postal 

Service

An American History

1775 – 2006
The history of the United States Postal Service is an ongoing story of 

enormous depth and breadth, rooted in a single, great principle: that every 

person in the United States — no matter who, no matter where — has the 

right to equal access to secure, efficient, and affordable mail service. For more than 

231 years, the Postal Service has delivered on that promise, transforming itself 

to better serve its customers. The United States Postal Service: An American History

tells this story and introduces you to people, events, and developments affecting 

postal and national history.

For centuries, our universal mail system has strengthened the bonds of 

friendship, family, and community. Our system has encouraged civil discourse, 

disseminated information, and bolstered the national economy — both as the hub 

of a vital industry and as a trusted courier of the nation’s and world’s business.

The Postal Service has seized upon and immediately investigated new 

technology to see if it would improve service — mail distribution cases in the 

18th century; steamboats, trains, and automobiles in the 19th century; and 

planes, letter sorting machines, and automation in the 20th century. Today, 

computerized equipment helps sort and distribute hundreds of millions of 

pieces of mail each day.

We have worked with customers to better understand and serve their changing 

needs and to keep them informed of how best to utilize our services. We want 

to provide quick, easy, and convenient service. This history gives you a look into 

what that has entailed over the years.

Above all, the history of the United States Postal Service is about the men and 

women whose daily efforts have provided our nation with the finest, most efficient 

mail service in the world. United States postal workers take pride in processing, 

transporting, and delivering the mail to the people of our great country.

I hope you will enjoy reading this history of the United States Postal Service. 

It is a story that we continue to write every day — together.

Sincerely,

John E. Potter

Postmaster General
Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Colonial Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Postal Service Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Early Postal Legislation 6

The Constitution and the Post Office 7

Ebenezer Hazard, Postmaster of New York 7

Benjamin Franklin, First Postmaster General 8

Abraham Lincoln, Postmaster 9

Other Famous Postal Workers 9

The Postal Role in U.S. Development . . 10

Alexis de Tocqueville 11

Moving the Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Steamboats 12

The Pony Express 13

The Confederate Post Office Department 14

Mail by Rail 15

Owney, Mascot of the Railway Mail Service 17

Star Routes 18

Reaching Out to Everyone . . . . . . . . . . 20

Free City Delivery 20

City Delivery Pioneer 21

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) 22

Postmasters in the Mid-19th Century 23

U.S. Postage Stamps 26

The 20th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Parcel Post 28

Postal Savings System 29

Airmail 29

New York to San Francisco 31

Airmail Pilot Bill Hopson 32

ZIP Code 33

New Deal Art: Eager and Alive 34

Post Office Names 36

Post Office Buildings: All Shapes and Sizes 37

Postal Reorganization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Reform Proposal 38

Postal Reorganization Act 39

United States Postal Service . . . . . . . . . 40

Finances and Rates 40

Personnel 40

Labor-Management Relations 40

Transportation 40

Pay 41

Postal Mechanization and Early Automation 41

Rates for Domestic Letters 41

ZIP+4 Code 43

The Automation Age 44

Sorting Letters Better 44

Processing Flats 47

Processing Parcels 49

Automating Mail Handling and Acceptance 49

Giving Customers Greater Access 50

Intelligent Mail 50

The Postal Service Board of Governors 52

Governors of the Postal Service 53

Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee 54

Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Measuring Improvement 56

Transformation Plan 57

Partnering with Customers and Competitors 57

President’s Commission on the Postal Service 58

Budget Impacts of 2003 Legislation: 

 Escrow Fund and Military Service Benefits 58

Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act

 of 2006 59

Dealing with the Unimaginable 59

Medal of Freedom 59

Everyday Heroism 60

Delivering Despite Disaster 60

Protecting the Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Extending Mail Service 62

Cleaning the Mailstream 63

The De Autremont Train Holdup, 1923 64

Pursuing Rogues and Robbers 64

Protecting the Innocent 65

The Office of Inspector General . . . . . 66

Discovering Savings 67

Postmasters General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Statistics: Pieces & Post Offices . . . . . . 70

Significant Years in U.S. Postal 

History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Delivery in Cities: A Visual Timeline . . 74

How A Letter Travels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Research Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Postal Insignia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 
On July 26, 1775, members 

of the Second Continental 

Congress, meeting in 

Philadelphia, agreed

That a postmaster General be appointed 

for the United Colonies, who shall hold his 

office at Philada, and shall be allowed a 

salary of 1000 dollars per an: for himself, 

and 340 dollars per an: for a secretary and 

Comptroller, with power to appoint such, 

and so many deputies as to him may seem 

proper and necessary.

That a line of posts be appointed under 

the direction of the Postmaster general, from 

Falmouth in New England to Savannah in 

Georgia, with as many cross posts as he shall 

think fit.1

This simple statement signaled the 

birth of the Post Office Department, the 

predecessor of the United States Postal 

Service and the second oldest federal 

department or agency of the United 

States of America.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 
Colonial Times

18th Century Tavern

In colonial times, overseas mail often 

was brought to taverns and coffee 

houses.

I

n early colonial times, correspondents depended on friends, 

merchants, and Native Americans 

to carry messages among the colonies. 

However, most correspondence ran 

between the colonists and England, 

the Netherlands, or Sweden — their 

mother countries. It was largely to 

handle this mail that, in 1639, the first 

official notice of mail service in the 

colonies appeared. The General Court 

of Massachusetts designated Richard 

Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston as the official repository of mail brought from or 

sent overseas, in line with the European 

practice of using coffee houses and taverns as mail stations.

Local authorities operated post routes 

within the colonies. Then, in 1673, 

Governor Francis Lovelace of New York 

set up a monthly post between New York 

and Boston. The service was short-lived, 

but the post rider’s trail became known 

as the Old Boston Post Road, part of 

today’s U.S. Route 1.

Governor William Penn established 

Pennsylvania’s first Post Office in 1683. 

In the South, private messengers, usually 

slaves, connected the huge plantations; a 

hogshead (a barrel 43 inches high and 26 

inches in diameter) of tobacco was the 

penalty for failing to relay mail to the 

next plantation. As plantations expanded 

inland from port regions, so did the 

communications network.

Central postal organization came 

to the colonies only after 1692, when 

Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant 

from the British Crown, whose settlements dominated the Atlantic seaboard, 

for a North American postal system.2

Neale never visited America. Instead, he 

appointed Governor Andrew Hamilton 

of New Jersey as his deputy postmaster 

general. Neale’s franchise cost him only 

six shillings and eight pence a year but 

was no bargain. He died heavily in 

debt in 1699 after assigning his interests 

in America to Andrew Hamilton and 

another Englishman, Robert West.

In 1707, the British government 

bought the rights to the North American 

postal system from West and Andrew 

Hamilton’s widow. The government 

then appointed Hamilton’s son John as 

deputy postmaster general of America. 

He served until 1721, when he was succeeded by John Lloyd of Charleston, 

South Carolina.

In 1730, Alexander Spotswood, a 

former lieutenant governor of Virginia, 

became deputy postmaster general of 

America. The appointment of Benjamin 

Franklin as postmaster of Philadelphia in 

1737 may have been Spotswood’s most 

notable achievement. Franklin, only 31 

years old at the time, was a successful 

printer, publisher, and civic leader. He 

would later become one of the most 

popular men of his age.

 The United States Postal Service
Two other Virginians succeeded 

Spotswood: Head Lynch in 1739 and 

Elliot Benger in 1743. When Benger 

died in 1753, Benjamin Franklin 

and William Hunter, postmaster of 

Williamsburg, Virginia, were appointed 

by the Crown as joint postmasters general for the colonies. Hunter died in 

1761, and John Foxcroft of New York 

succeeded him, serving until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

During his time as joint postmaster 

general for the Crown, Franklin made 

important and lasting improvements 

in the colonial posts. He began to 

reorganize the service, setting out on 

a long tour to inspect Post Offices in 

the North and as far south as Virginia. 

New surveys were made, milestones 

were placed on principal roads, and 

new and shorter routes were laid out. 

For the first time, post riders carried 

mail at night to speed service between 

Philadelphia and New York.

Thanks in large part to Franklin’s 

efforts, the colonial posts in North 

America registered their first profit in 

1760. When Franklin left office, post 

roads operated from Maine to Florida 

and from New York to Canada. Mail 

between the colonies and the mother 

country operated on a regular schedule, 

with posted times. 

The Crown dismissed Franklin in 

1774 for actions sympathetic to the 

cause of the colonies. Shortly after, 

William Goddard, a printer, newspaper 

publisher, and former postmaster, set up 

the Constitutional Post for intercolonial 

mail service. Colonies funded it by subscription, and net revenues were to be 

used to improve mail service rather than 

to be paid back to the subscribers. By 

1775, when the Continental Congress 

met at Philadelphia, Goddard’s post was 

flourishing, and 30 Post Offices operated 

between Williamsburg and Portsmouth, 

New Hampshire.

The Constitutional Post required 

each postmaster to hire only reputable 

post riders. Each post rider had to swear 

to secure his mail under lock and key. 

As for the Crown’s service, Goddard 

warned: 

Letters are liable to be stopped & opened 

by ministerial mandates, & their Contents 

construed into treasonable Conspiracies; and 

News Papers, those necessary and important 

vehicles, especially in Times of public Danger, 

may be rendered of little avail for want of 

Circulation ...3

The Constitutional Post afforded 

security to colonial messages and provided a communication line that played 

a vital role in bringing about American 

independence. ■

Benjamin Franklin

by Charles Willson Peale, 1787

The last known portrait of Franklin.

Library of Congress

18th Century Post Route Map 

A version of this map appeared in 

Herman Moll’s Atlas Minor, published 

in London in 1729. The map’s legend, 

“An account of ye Post of ye Continent 

of Nth America,” describes weekly 

mail service to and from the 13 Post 

Offices, including “the 3 Great Offices 

... Boston, New York & Philadelphia.”

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 
Three weeks after the battles of 

Lexington and Concord, the 

Second Continental Congress 

met in Philadelphia in May 1775 to 

plan for the defense of the colonies 

against British aggression and “to 

take into consideration the state of 

America.”4 The conveyance of letters and intelligence was essential to 

the cause of liberty. A committee, 

chaired by Benjamin Franklin and 

including Samuel Adams, Richard 

Henry Lee, Philip Livingston, 

Thomas Lynch, and Thomas Willing, 

was named to consider the creation 

of a postal system. 

The committee reported back 

to Congress on July 25, 1775. The 

Continental Congress agreed to the 

committee’s recommendations on the 

following day, creating the position 

of Postmaster General, and naming 

Franklin to it. Richard Bache, Franklin’s 

son-in-law, was named comptroller,

and William Goddard was appointed 

surveyor. 

Under Franklin and his immediate 

successors, the postal system mainly carried communications between Congress 

and the armies. Postmasters and post 

riders were exempt from military duties 

so service would not be interrupted.

Benjamin Franklin served as 

Postmaster General until November 

7, 1776. He was in office when the 

Declaration of Independence created 

the United States in July 1776, making 

Franklin the first Postmaster General 

of the United States. America’s present 

Postal Service descends from the system 

Franklin placed in operation.

Early Postal Legislation

In 1781, Congress ratified the Articles 

of Confederation. Article IX addressed 

postal issues:

The United States in Congress assembled 

shall also have the sole and exclusive right 

and power of ... establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, 

throughout all the United States, and 

exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to 

defray the expenses of the said office ...

Postmaster General Ebenezer 

Hazard, serving from 1782 to 1789, 

created new east-west post routes as the 

population expanded westward, including a route to serve the frontier town of 

Pittsburgh. Although he devoted most 

of his energies to developing inland service, Hazard also reestablished monthly 

mail service to Europe, which the war 

had disrupted.

Authorized by Congress in 1785 

to contract with stagecoach companies 

to carry mail on heavily traveled routes, 

Hazard established a regular mail route 

via stagecoach between Boston and 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire. President 

George Washington criticized Hazard 

when he substituted riders on horseback 

on some routes to improve service and 

reduce costs. Washington supported the 

use of postal allocations for subsidiary 

purposes and looked at coaches as giving “a facility to the means of traveling 

for strangers ... a circumstance highly 

beneficial to any country.”5

During Hazard’s tenure the entire 

postal headquarters staff consisted of 

himself, a secretary/comptroller, an 

inspector of dead letters, three surveyors, 

and 26 post riders. He wrote a friend 

about his job’s demands: 

... I have not had time for proper relaxation, and, in three years past, have not 

been to the distance of ten miles from this 

city. I once hired a clerk, but found my salary was not equal to that expence in addition to the support of my family, and was 

obliged to dismiss him.6

At Hazard’s suggestion, Congress 

passed the Ordinance of October 18, 

1782, revising and codifying postal laws 

and regulations. The ordinance gave 

the federal government a monopoly on 

mail, restricted censorship to times of 

war or when specifically ordered by the 

Postmaster General or Congress, and 

allowed post riders to carry newspapers 

at moderate rates.

The Postal Service Begins

 The United States Postal Service
The Constitution and the

Post Office

In June 1788, the ninth state ratified the Constitution, which gave 

Congress the power “To establish Post 

Offices and post Roads” in Article 

I, Section 8. A year later, the Act 

of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), 

continued the Post Office and made 

the Postmaster General subject to the 

direction of the President. Four days 

later, President Washington appointed 

Samuel Osgood as the first Postmaster 

General under the Constitution. A 

population of almost four million was 

served by 75 Post Offices and about 

2,400 miles of post roads.

The Post Office received two oneyear extensions by the Acts of August 4, 

1790 (1 Stat. 178), and March 3, 1791

(1 Stat. 218). The Act of February 

20, 1792 (1 Stat. 232), continued the 

Post Office for another two years and 

formally admitted newspapers to the 

mails, gave Congress the power to 

establish post routes, and prohibited 

postal officials from opening letters. 

Later legislation enlarged the duties 

of the Post Office, strengthened and 

unified its organization, and provided 

rules for its development. The Act of 

May 8, 1794 (1 Stat. 354), continued 

the Post Office indefinitely.

The Post Office moved from 

Philadelphia in 1800 when Washington, 

D.C., became the seat of government. 

Two horse-drawn wagons carried all 

postal records, furniture, and supplies. ■

Ebenezer Hazard, Postmaster of New York

Ebenezer Hazard was postmaster of New York from October 5,

1775, until about January 1777,

when he was appointed surveyor

of the (national) Post Office.

On November 14, 1776,

Postmaster Hazard petitioned the Continental

Congress for a salary

increase, noting his

previous year’s salary

was “by no means a

compensation for his

services” due to the

extraordinary costs

associated with the

war.7 Hazard hoped that

his friend, the Reverend

John Witherspoon, a member

of the Continental Congress, would

intercede on his behalf, and wrote

to Witherspoon of the financial and

physical challenges he faced. The

general Hazard refers to is George

Washington.

I shall only observe, that the 

word ‘incidents’ used in our quarterly accounts ... certainly can mean 

nothing more than those incidents 

which are usual in time of peace; 

such as office rent, firewood, 

sealing-wax, etc., and cannot justly be construed to 

include the extraordinary 

expenses occasioned by 

the present war, which 

could not have been 

foreseen at the time of 

the institution of a Post 

Office by Congress.

... The necessity of

keeping the office near 

Head-Quarters arose from 

the importance of the General’s 

despatches, and his being near the 

centre of the Army, who are almost 

the only persons for whom letters 

now come per post. The General 

has doubtless informed Congress 

of his different removals. In each 

of these I have followed him; and I 

am sorry I have reason to say, that 

so little attention has been paid 

to me as a gentleman, or respect 

shown to the Congress’s commission with which I am honoured, that 

I have been obliged to follow him on 

foot. I do not mean even to hint a 

reflection upon the General, whom 

I esteem and respect. Furnishing 

me with a horse did not belong to 

his department; but those whose 

business it was have not treated 

me genteelly. However, lest it 

should be said that I was unfaithful in my office, and to convince his 

Excellency of my readiness to oblige 

him, and serve the publick, I submitted to this indignity, and the fatigue 

consequent upon it, although it was 

not my business, as a Postmaster, 

to follow the Army like a sutler.8

A sutler was a peddler who followed an army and sold to it.

Stagecoaches

Beginning in 1785, the Continental 

Congress encouraged the use of 

stagecoaches to transport mail 

between Post Offices to subsidize 

the growth of stagecoach lines. 

Although more costly and sometimes 

less suitable for mail transport than 

a rider on horseback, stagecoaches 

were favored when awarding mail 

transportation contracts until 1845.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 
Born in Boston in 1706, Benjamin

Franklin left school at age 10 to

work in his father’s candle shop.9

In 1718, Franklin apprenticed to

his brother James, a printer and

founder of Boston’s New England 

Courant. Franklin read voraciously,

contributed anonymous articles to

his brother’s newspaper, and managed the paper while his brother was

imprisoned for a political offense. At

17, Franklin ran away and ended up

in Philadelphia, where he found work

as a printer. Franklin started his own

print shop by 1728 and purchased

The Pennsylvania Gazette. His wildly

successful Poor Richard’s Almanack

secured his fortune.

Postal Career Begins

Franklin was appointed postmaster

of Philadelphia by the British Crown

Post in 1737. Newspaper publishers

often served as postmasters, which

helped them to gather and distribute

news. Postmasters decided which

newspapers could travel free in the

mail — or in the mail at all.

Postmaster General Elliott Benger

added to Franklin’s duties by making him comptroller, with financial

oversight for nearby Post Offices.

Franklin lobbied the British to succeed Benger when his health failed

and, with Virginia’s William Hunter,

was named joint postmaster general

for the Crown on August 10, 1753.

Franklin surveyed post roads

and Post Offices, introduced a

simple accounting method for postmasters, and had riders carry mail

both night and day. He encouraged

postmasters to establish the penny

post where letters not called for at

the Post Office were delivered for a

penny. Remembering his experience

with the Gazette, Franklin mandated

delivery of all newspapers for a small

fee. His efforts contributed to the

Crown’s first North American profit

in 1760.

In 1757, while serving as joint

postmaster general, Franklin went to

London to represent Pennsylvania’s

government. In 1763, back in the

colonies, he traveled 1,600 miles surveying post roads and Post Offices

from Virginia to New England.

In 1764, Franklin returned to

London, where he represented the

interests of several colonial governments. In 1774, judged too sympathetic to the colonies, he was dismissed as joint postmaster general.

First Postmaster General under 

the Continental Congress

Back on American soil in 1775,

Franklin served as a member of the

Second Continental Congress, which

appointed him Postmaster General

on July 26 of that year. With an

annual salary of $1,000 and $340 for

a secretary and comptroller, Franklin

was responsible for all Post Offices

from Massachusetts to Georgia and

had authority to hire postmasters as

necessary.

Founding Father of a New Nation

In 1776, Franklin worked with the committee that created the Declaration

of Independence, then left for Paris

to secure French support for the war

with England. The treaty of alliance he

negotiated in 1778 was vital to the success of the American Revolution. Later,

Franklin helped negotiate the peace

treaty with Great Britain.

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in

1785. He attended the Constitutional

Convention in 1787 and lived to see

the Constitution adopted. He died

April 17, 1790.

Franklin was a man of many talents. He helped establish a library,

fire company, academy, philosophical society, militia, hospital, and

better streets and street lighting in

Philadelphia. His scientific contributions included a study of electricity and lightning, theories of heat

absorption, measurement of the Gulf

Stream, and invention of the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin

stove.

Biographer Carl Van Doren wrote:

In any age, in any place, Franklin 

would have been great ... (N)umerous 

as his achievements were, they were 

less than he was.10

Benjamin Franklin, 

First Postmaster

General

 The United States Postal Service
Two postmasters became U.S.

Presidents later in their careers­ —

Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman.

Truman held the title and signed

papers but immediately turned the

position and its pay over to an assistant. Lincoln was the only President

who had served as a postmaster.

On May 7, 1833, 24-year-old

Lincoln was appointed postmaster

of New Salem, Illinois. Lincoln served

until the office was closed May 30,

1836. The United States Official 

Register, published in odd-numbered

years, dutifully records A. Lincoln as

receiving compensation of $55.70 in

the 1835 volume and $19.48 for one

quarter’s work in the 1837 volume.

Besides his pay, Lincoln, as postmaster, could send and receive personal letters free and get one daily

newspaper delivered free.

Mail arrived once a week. If an

addressee did not collect the mail,

as was the custom, Lincoln delivered

it personally — usually carrying the

mail in his hat. Even then, Lincoln was

“Honest Abe.”

According to Lincoln’s biographer,

Benjamin P. Thomas:

Dr. A. G. Henry, one of Lincoln’s 

closest friends, and himself postmaster for a time at Sangamontown, 

told Isaac N. Arnold that when the 

New Salem office was discontinued 

Lincoln had on hand a balance of 

some sixteen or eighteen dollars which 

he brought with him to Springfield. 

Perhaps the Post Office Department 

overlooked this small sum, for not 

until months later did an agent call on 

Lincoln to collect it. During the intervening time Lincoln had been financially hard-pressed, and Dr. Henry, who 

was present when the agent called, 

was afraid that Lincoln might not have 

the money. Henry told Arnold: 

“I was about to call him aside 

and loan him the money, when 

he asked the agent to be seated 

a moment, while he went over to 

his trunk at his boarding house, 

and returned with an old blue sock 

with a quantity of silver and copper coin tied up in it. Untying the 

sock, he poured the contents on 

the table and proceeded to count 

the coin, which consisted of such 

silver and copper pieces as the 

country-people were then in the 

habit of using in paying postage. 

On counting it up there was found 

the exact amount, to a cent, of 

the draft, and in the identical coin 

which had been received. He 

never used, under any circumstances, trust funds.”11

Lithographed and published 

by Edw. Mendel.

Abraham Lincoln, 

Postmaster

John Brown

Abolitionist, postmaster, Randolph, PA

Bing Crosby

Singer and actor, clerk, Spokane, WA 

Walt Disney

Producer, substitute carrier, Chicago, IL

Charles R. Drew

Scientist and surgeon, part-time special 

delivery messenger, Washington, DC

William Faulkner

Novelist, postmaster, University, MS

Samuel L. Gravely

First African-American admiral, railway mail 

clerk 

Will Hays

President, Motion Picture Producers and 

Distributors of America, Postmaster 

General 

Sherman Hemsley

Actor, clerk, Philadelphia, PA, and 

New York, NY 

Conrad Hilton

Businessman, postmaster, San Antonio, NM

Harry Hooper

Baseball Hall-of-Famer, postmaster, 

Capitola, CA 

Rock Hudson

Actor, letter carrier, Winnetka, IL 

Sidney Lanier

Poet, clerk, Macon, GA 

Charles Lindbergh

Aviator, contract airmail pilot

Bill Nye

Humorist, postmaster, Laramie, WY

Knute Rockne

Football coach, clerk, Chicago, IL

Adlai E. Stevenson

Vice President, First Assistant 

Postmaster General 

Noah Webster

Lexicographer, special agent

Richard Wright

Author, substitute clerk, Chicago, IL

Other Famous 

Postal Workers

Library of Congress

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 
The Postal Role in U.S. Development

The 19th century saw the growth 

of the United States. The Post 

Office Department, the communications system that helped bind the 

nation together, developed new services 

that have lasted into the 21st century 

and subsidized the development of 

every major form of transportation.

Between 1789, when the federal government began operations, and 1861, 

when civil war broke out, the United 

States grew dramatically. Its territory 

extended into the Midwest in 1787 

through the Northwest Ordinance, 

reached down the Mississippi River 

and west to the Rocky Mountains after 

the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and 

stretched to the Pacific coast by the 

1840s. The country’s population grew 

from 3.9 million people in 1790 to

31.4 million in 1860. 

The Post Office Department grew 

too. The number of Post Offices 

increased from 75 in 1790 to 28,498

in 1860. Post roads (roads on which 

mail travels) increased from 59,473 

miles at the beginning of 1819 to 

84,860 by the end of 1823. By the end 

of 1819, the Department served citizens 

in 22 states, including the newest states 

of Illinois (1818) and Alabama (1819). 

These new territories and states, 

as well as established communities, 

pressed the Post Office Department 

for more routes and faster delivery. 

The Department met these needs, 

expanding its service and developing 

ways to move mail more quickly. By 

1822, it took only 11 days to move 

mail between Washington, D.C., and 

Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1828, there were 7,530 Post 

Offices and 29,956 postal employees, 

mail contractors, and carriers, making 

the Department the largest employer 

in the executive branch. Because the 

Department awarded a large number 

of jobs and contracts, the Postmaster 

The United States in 1857

10 The United States Postal Service
General’s power grew as well. President 

Andrew Jackson recognized the 

potential for patronage and, in 1829, 

invited William T. Barry of Kentucky 

to become the first Postmaster General 

to sit as a member of the President’s 

Cabinet. Barry’s predecessor, John 

McLean of Ohio, had been the first 

Postmaster General to refer to the 

Post Office, or General Post Office as 

it sometimes was called, as the Post 

Office Department, but the organization was not specifically established as 

an executive department by Congress 

until June 8, 1872 (17 Stat. 283).

By 1831, postal employees accounted 

for 76 percent of the civilian federal 

workforce. Postmasters outnumbered 

soldiers 8,764 to 6,332 and were the 

most widespread representatives of the 

federal government.

As the country grew, people in 

new states and territories petitioned 

Congress for even more post routes, 

regardless of their cost or profitability. The Post Office Department, and 

thus the federal government, had to 

decide whether to subsidize routes that 

promoted settlement but did not generate enough revenue to pay for themselves or to operate in the black. The 

Department struggled with this issue. 

With congressional support and keeping fiscal responsibility firmly in mind, 

the Department ultimately made decisions in the 19th century that reflected 

public service as its highest aim. It 

funded post routes that supported 

national development and instituted 

services to benefit all residents of the 

country.

The Post Office Department also 

simplified rates in the middle of the 

19th century. Before that time, postage 

was based on the number of sheets in 

a letter and the distance a letter traveled. Families, friends, or businesses 

further distant paid more to keep in 

touch. For instance, from 1799 to 

1815, it cost:

8 cents/sheet sent 40 miles or fewer

10 cents/sheet sent 41 to 90 miles

12 1/2 cents/sheet sent 91 to 150 miles

17 cents/sheet sent 151 to 300 miles

20 cents/sheet sent 301 to 500 miles

25 cents/sheet sent more than 500 miles

In 1845, the Department began 

charging rates essentially based on 

weight and whether a letter was going 

more than or fewer than 300 miles. 

In 1855, the rate structure was three 

cents for a letter weighing a half-ounce 

and traveling up to 3,000 miles, which 

included most of the United States and 

its territories. Letters going farther than 

3,000 miles were charged postage of ten 

cents per sheet.

The Act of March 3, 1863 (12 Stat. 

704), based postage for a letter on its 

weight and eliminated all differences 

based on distance, thus providing universal service to customers no matter 

where they lived in the country.

The act also created three classes

of mail: First-Class Mail, which 

embraced letters; second-class mail, 

which covered publications issued at regular periods; and third-class mail, which 

included all other mailable matter. ■

Alexis de 

Tocqueville

In 1831, Frenchman Alexis de

Tocqueville began his travels in

America, a journey that led to

his classic book, Democracy in 

America. He wrote of the mail:

I traveled along a portion of 

the frontier of the United States 

in a sort of cart, which was 

termed the mail. Day and night 

we passed with great rapidity 

along the roads, which were 

scarcely marked out through 

immense forests. When the 

gloom of the woods became 

impenetrable, the driver lighted 

branches of pine, and we journeyed along by the light they 

cast. From time to time we came 

to a hut in the midst of the forest; this was a post-office. The 

mail dropped an enormous 

bundle of letters at the door of 

this isolated dwelling, and we 

pursued our way at full gallop, 

leaving the inhabitants of the 

neighboring log houses to send 

for their share of the treasure.12

Library of Congress

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 11
Moving the Mail

Steamboats

In 1811, cutting-edge technology met up 

with the nation’s mail system, and there 

was no looking back. Fast-moving steamboats began traveling the rivers, replacing packet boats, rowboats, and rafts as a 

means to carry mail. 

Beginning in 1815, operators of 

steamboats and other craft had to deliver the letters and packets they carried to 

local postmasters within three hours of 

docking in daylight or two hours after 

sunrise the following day. By the 1820s, 

more than 200 steamboats regularly 

served river communities, and the Post 

Office Department issued contracts 

for these vessels to carry mail. In 1823, 

Congress declared waterways to be post 

roads. Use of steamboats to carry mail 

peaked in 1853 prior to the expansion 

of railroads. 

Even before gold was discovered 

in California in 1848, the Post Office 

Department had awarded contracts to 

two steamship companies to carry mail 

between New York and California. The 

aim was to get a letter from the East 

Coast to California in three to four 

weeks, but this goal often was missed. 

Mail traveled by ship from New York 

to Panama, moved across Panama by 

canoes and mules, then went on to San 

Francisco by ship. When the Panama 

Railroad was completed in 1855, it eased 

transit across the isthmus, but a speedier 

method was needed to move mail. 

As early as 1848, some overland mail 

reached California, if erratically, via the 

military. Scheduled, semiweekly overland service began September 15, 1858, 

with a contract to John Butterfield’s 

Overland Mail Company, using 

the 2,800-mile southern stage route 

between Tipton, Missouri, and San 

Francisco. The specified running time 

was 24 days, but it often took months.

Californians felt their isolation. 

For example, Los Angeles learned 

California was admitted to the Union 

six weeks after the fact. Three years 

later, an article attributed to the Los 

Angeles Star (October 1, 1853) asked its 

readers: 

Can somebody tell us what has become 

of the U.S. mail for this section of the world? 

Some four weeks since it has arrived here. 

The mail rider comes and goes regularly 

enough, but the mailbags do not. One time 

he says the mail is not landed in San Diego; 

another time there was so much of it the donkey could not bring it, and he sent it to San 

Pedro on the steamer — which carried it up 

to San Francisco. Thus it goes wandering up 

and down the ocean ...

Faster transportation to the Pacific 

coast was needed.

Steamboat

Carrying mail, passengers, and freight, 

the City of Providence traveled the 

Mississippi River from St. Louis to New 

Orleans from 1880 to 1894.

E. B. and N. Philip Norman Collection, Mss. 1084, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, 

Baton Rouge, LA

12 The United States Postal Service
The Pony Express

The Pony Express rider galloping 

across the Plains and through 

far-flung settlements holds a 

permanent place in the American 

imagination even though the Pony 

Express ran for only 18 months, from 

April 1860 to October 1861.

The Pony Express

American transportation pioneer 

William H. Russell advertised for hostlers and riders to work on the Overland 

Express Route via Salt Lake City in 

March 1860.

Russell had failed repeatedly to get 

the backing of the Senate Post Office

and Post Roads Committee for an 

express route to carry mail between

St. Joseph, Missouri — the westernmost 

point reached by the railroad and

telegraph — and California. St. Joseph 

was the starting point for the nearly 

2,000-mile central route to the West. 

Except for a few forts and settlements, 

the route beyond St. Joseph was a vast, 

unknown land, inhabited primarily by 

Native Americans.

Many thought that year-round transportation across this area was impossible 

because of extreme weather conditions. 

Russell organized his own express to 

prove otherwise.

With partners Alexander Majors and 

William B. Waddell, Russell formed 

the Central Overland California and 

Pike’s Peak Express Company. They 

built new relay stations and readied 

existing ones. The country was combed 

for good horses — hardy enough to 

challenge deserts and mountains and 

to withstand thirst in summer and ice 

in winter. Riders were recruited hastily 

but, before being hired, had to swear 

on a Bible not to cuss, fight, or abuse 

their animals and to conduct themselves honestly.

On April 3, 1860, the Pony Express 

began its run through parts of Missouri, 

Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, 

Utah, Nevada, and California. On average, a rider covered 75 to 100 miles 

daily. He changed horses at relay stations set 10 to 15 miles apart, swiftly 

transferring himself and his mochila (a 

saddle cover with four pockets or cantinas for mail) to the new mount.

The first mail by Pony Express from 

St. Joseph to Sacramento took ten days, 

cutting the overland stage time via the 

southern route by more than half. The 

fastest delivery was in March 1861, when 

President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural 

address was carried from St. Joseph to 

Sacramento in 7 days and 17 hours.

On July 1, 1861, the Pony Express 

began operating under contract as a 

mail route. By that time, the Central 

Overland California and Pike’s Peak 

Express Company was deeply in debt. 

Though it had charged as much as $5 

a half ounce for a letter at a time when 

ordinary U.S. postage was no more than 

ten cents, the company did not make its 

operating expenses. 

The Pony Express officially ended 

October 26, 1861, after the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, and 

became an enduring legend. 

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 13
The DeWitt Clinton

The DeWitt Clinton, the first train in New York to carry passengers 

and one of the first locomotives built in the United States, ran from 

Albany to Schenectady, a 17-mile distance, in less than an hour on 

August 9, 1831. The Post Office Department was quick to use this 

new technology to move mail. 

The Post Office Department of the

Confederate States of America was

established February 21, 1861, by

an act of the Provisional Congress

of the Confederate States. On

March 6, 1861, the day after

Montgomery Blair’s appointment

by President Abraham Lincoln as

Postmaster General of the United

States, former U.S. Congressman

John Henninger Reagan was

appointed postmaster general of

the Confederate States of America

by Jefferson Davis, President of the

Confederate States.

South Carolina, Mississippi,

Florida, Alabama, Georgia,

Louisiana, and Texas already had

seceded from the Union. In the following months, Virginia, Arkansas,

North Carolina, and most of

Tennessee followed suit. Reagan

instructed southern postmasters to

continue to render their accounts

to the United States as before until

the Confederate postal system was

organized. Meanwhile, he sent job

offers to southern men in the Post

Office Department in Washington.

Many accepted and brought along

their expertise, as well as copies of

postal reports, forms in use, postal

maps, and other supplies.

In May 1861, Reagan issued

a proclamation stating that he

officially would assume control of

the Post Office Department of the

Confederate States on June 1,

1861. Postmaster General Blair

responded by ordering the cessation of United States mail service

throughout the South on May 31,

1861.

Although an able administrator

headed the Confederate Post Office

Department, its mail service was

continuously interrupted. Through a

combination of pay and personnel

cuts, postage rate increases, and

streamlining of mail routes, Reagan

eliminated the postal deficit that

existed in the South. But blockades

and the invading Northern army, as

well as a growing scarcity of postage stamps, severely hampered

postal operations.

Federal mail service in the South

gradually resumed as the war came

to an end. By November 15, 1865,

241 mail routes had been restored,

and by November 1, 1866, 3,234

Post Offices out of 8,902 in the

South were returned to federal

control.

Postmaster General Reagan was

arrested at the end of the war but

later was pardoned and eventually

made it back to Congress, where he

became chairman of the Committee

on Post Offices and Post Roads.

The Confederate Post Office Department

John Henninger Reagan

14 The United States Postal Service
Mail by Rail

Some three decades before the Pony 

Express galloped into postal history, the 

“iron horse” made its formal appearance. In August 1829, an Englishbuilt locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion,

completed the first locomotive run 

in the United States on the Delaware 

and Hudson Canal Company Road 

in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. The next 

month, the South Carolina Railroad 

Company adopted the locomotive as its 

tractive power.

In 1830, the Baltimore & Ohio’s 

Tom Thumb, America’s first steam locomotive, successfully carried more than 

40 people at over ten miles per hour. 

This beginning was considered less than 

auspicious when, in late August 1830, 

a stage driver’s horse outran the Tom 

Thumb on a parallel track in a race at 

Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland. Later, however, a steam locomotive reached the 

unheard-of speed of 30 miles per hour 

in an 1831 competition in Baltimore. 

The Post Office Department recognized the value of rail to move 

mail as early as November 30, 1832, 

when stagecoach contractors on a 

route from Philadelphia to Lancaster, 

Pennsylvania, were granted an allowance of $400 per year “for carrying 

the mail on the railroad as far as West 

Chester from December 5, 1832.”13

Although the Department apparently 

awarded several contracts for rail transportation as a part of stagecoach routes 

in succeeding years, the Postmaster 

General listed only one railroad company as a contractor during the first 

six months of 1836, for Route 1036 

from Philadelphia to Mauch Chunk, 

Pennsylvania.

The Department appointed the first 

route agent, John Kendall, nephew of 

Postmaster General Amos Kendall, to 

accompany the mails between Albany 

and Utica, New York, in 1837. An Act 

of July 7, 1838, designated all United 

States railroads as post routes, and railroad mail service increased rapidly. 

In June 1840, two mail agents were 

appointed to the Boston-Springfield 

route, “to make exchanges of mail, 

attend to delivery, and receive and 

forward all unpaid way letters and 

packages received.”14 The route agents 

opened the pouches from local offices, 

separated mail for other local points on 

the line for inclusion in the pouches 

for those offices, and sent the balance 

to distributing Post Offices for further 

sorting. Gradually, the clerks began to 

make up mail for connecting lines and 

local offices, and the idea of sorting 

mail on the cars evolved.

In 1862, William A. Davis, head 

clerk of the St. Joseph, Missouri, Post 

Office, began the first experiment in 

distributing mail in railroad cars on 

the Hannibal-St. Joseph run. Although 

this practice expedited the connection 

with the overland stage at St. Joseph, it 

was discontinued in January 1863. On 

August 28, 1864, the first U.S. railway 

post office (RPO) route was established 

officially when George B. Armstrong, 

Chicago’s assistant postmaster, placed 

a car equipped for general distribution in service between Chicago and 

Clinton, Iowa, on the Chicago and 

North Western Railroad. Similar routes 

were established between New York and 

Washington, D.C.; Chicago and Rock 

Island, Illinois; Chicago and Quincy, 

New York Central Railroad

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 15
Illinois; and New York and Erie, 

Pennsylvania.

When railway mail service began, 

the cars were equipped primarily to 

sort and distribute letter mail. By about 

1869, other mail was being sorted. 

Parcel Post service, added in 1913, soon 

outgrew the limited space aboard trains. 

Terminals, established adjacent to major 

railroad stations, allowed parcels to be 

sorted then loaded into mail cars and 

RPOs for transport to cities and towns.

In 1930, more than 10,000 trains 

moved mail. Following passage of the 

Transportation Act of 1958, which 

allowed the discontinuance of moneylosing passenger trains, mail-carrying 

passenger trains began to decline rapidly. By 1965, only 190 trains carried 

mail, and by 1970, the railroads carried 

virtually no First-Class Mail.

On April 30, 1971, the Post Office 

Department terminated seven of the 

eight remaining routes. The last railway 

post office, which operated between 

New York and Washington, D.C., on 

Penn Central/Conrail, made its final 

run on June 30, 1977.

Highway and air congestion and an 

increase in the weight of catalogs and 

advertising mail during the 1980s led to 

renewed rail use. Amtrak carried mail 

on many trains, and freight trains pulled 

flatcars holding trailers full of mail. In 

1993, Amtrak and the Postal Service 

reintroduced the RoadRailer®, special 

intermodal equipment that could travel 

on highways and on rails without having to be hoisted onto a railroad flatcar. 

Following the terrorist attacks of 

September 11, 2001, rail transportation 

of mail helped close the gap caused by 

temporary disruptions to commercial 

air service. 

Although Amtrak stopped carrying mail in October 2004, the nation’s 

freight railroads continue to carry mail 

through their intermodal service. ■

The Mississippi

The Mississippi, an early steam 

engine, was built in 1834.

16 The United States Postal Service
On an autumn day in 1888, a shaggy

pup took his first step toward becoming a postal legend when he crept

into the Albany, New York, Post

Office. Postal employees allowed him

to stay and named him Owney.

At first, Owney stayed close to

the Post Office, but he soon began

riding mail wagons to the train depot

and then rode the railway mail car

down to New York City and back to

Albany. As Owney traveled farther,

his friends at the Albany Post Office

feared he might wander too far

away to find his way home again so

they purchased a leather collar with

a tag reading “Owney, Post Office,

Albany, N.Y.” The railway mail service clerks recorded Owney’s travels

by attaching metal baggage tags to

his collar to identify the rail lines he

traveled on.

He was soon weighed down by

his collection of tags. Postmaster

General John Wanamaker presented

Owney with a little jacket to distribute their weight more evenly.

Owney took to traveling farther

and staying away longer, eventually visiting Mexico, Canada,

Japan, China, Singapore,

Suez, Algiers, and the

Azores.

While being shown off to

an Ohio newspaper reporter,

Owney bit the postal clerk who

was handling him. The postmaster

had Owney put down on June 11,

1897. Railway mail clerks chipped

in money to have a taxidermist preserve Owney’s body, which then

was sent to postal headquarters in

Washington, D.C., for exhibit.

In 1911, the Post Office

Department entrusted Owney to the

Smithsonian Institution. Since 1993,

Owney has been part of the National

Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.

Owney, Mascot of the Railway Mail Service 

Catching Mail

A railway mail service clerk operates a 

catcher arm to grab a mailbag from a 

mail crane alongside the tracks as his 

train races past, 1913.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 17
Post riders on horseback were the

first contractors to carry mail between

Post Offices. In 1773, post road

surveyor Hugh Finlay noted that a

stagecoach driver held a contract

to carry semi-weekly mail between

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and

Boston, Massachusetts. In 1785, the

Continental Congress authorized the

Postmaster General to award mail

transportation contracts to stagecoach operators, in effect subsidizing public travel and commerce with

postal funds. Despite their higher

costs and sometimes lower efficiency,

stagecoach proposals were preferred

over horseback.

An Act of March 3, 1845, took

steps to reduce mail transportation costs. Congress abandoned its

preference for stagecoaches, with

contracts to be awarded to the lowest bidder for what “may be necessary to provide for the due celerity,

certainty and security of such transportation.”15 These were known as

“celerity, certainty and security” bids.

Postal clerks shortened the phrase to

three asterisks or stars (***). The bids

became known as star bids, and the

routes became known as star routes.

In 1845, more than two-thirds

of the Post Office Department’s budget was for transportation. By 1849,

the Department cut transportation

costs on all routes — horseback,

stage, steamboat and railroad — by

17 percent, from $2,938,551 in 1844

to $2,428,515. Route distances rose

20 percent for the same years,

from 35.4 million miles to 42.5 million miles in 1849. Star routes were

largely responsible for the savings as

contractors switched to horseback,

cutting per-mile costs 38 percent,

from 7.2 cents to 4.5 cents.

Still, throughout the 1850s, the

Department continued to favor

stagecoaches over horses on certain

routes. In 1852, Postmaster General

Samuel D. Hubbard instructed

contract bidders to state the type of

conveyance “if a higher mode than

horseback be intended,” noting that

stagecoaches were preferred on

certain routes.16

Postmaster General Joseph Holt’s

1859 Annual Report criticized the

“enormous sums” paid to stagecoach

companies to transport mails, “some

of which [were] so light as scarcely to

yield a revenue sufficient to defray the

expense of carrying them on horseback.” He declared, “In advertising

for the new lettings, ‘Star Bids’... will

alone be invited ... without any designation of modes of conveyance.”17

The 1860 Annual Report is the last

to discriminate between “coach” and

“inferior” modes of service.18

Contractors had to be at least 16

years old until 1902, when the age

limit was raised to 21. Subcontractors

or carriers could be 16. Contractors

were bonded and took an oath of

office; subcontractors and carriers

also took the oath.

From 1802 to 1859, postal laws

required carriers to be free white persons. Violators were fined. The typical four-year contract did not provide

payment for missed trips, regardless

of weather conditions. Unexcused

service failures could result in fines up

to three times the trip’s price.

Regular schedules made carriers easy targets for thieves. Criminal

punishment was harsh. Anyone found

guilty of robbing carriers could receive

five to ten years of hard labor for the

first offense and death for the second. Meanwhile, some carriers faced

the hazards of snow, avalanches, ice

packs, cliff-hugging roads, seas of

mud, and dangerous waters.

Contractors provided their own

equipment. A 1930s-era Post Office

Department memo quotes Harry

Elfers, who transported mail ten miles

from Sandusky, Ohio, to Kelleys Island

in Lake Erie. In bad weather, he would

sail from the island to Marblehead, the

closest mainland point, only four miles

away. That could take 20 minutes or

8 hours, depending on the weather.

Either way, his pay was the same.

Elfers recalled the specialized equipment he used:

Mail by Mule

The contract mail route to the 

Havasupai Indian Reservation, 

Supai, Arizona, far below the 

southern rim of the Grand 

Canyon, is the last mule train 

delivery in the United States. 

Helicopters and mail drops are 

impractical here, so a mule 

train makes the 6- to 8-hour 

round trip 5 days a week, 

bringing everything from food 

to furniture to the reservation.

Star Routes

18 The United States Postal Service
When I was a youngster I was 

out in a boat about all the time. Now 

I don’t care for ordinary sailing but 

battling with the ice has a fascination 

for me. As soon as the ice begins 

to form, I feel eager to get out one 

of the ‘ironclads’ and fight my way 

across. An ‘ironclad’ is a flat-bottomed skiff. There’s a sail in the bow 

to carry us through the water or over 

the ice when conditions are right. 

There are two iron-shod runners on 

the bottom so the boat may be used 

as a sled. The sides are sheathed 

with galvanized iron. This is very 

important, because thin ice will cut a 

boat like a knife.19

Most star route carriers traveled

by horse or horse-drawn vehicle

until the early 20th century. Boats,

sleds, snowshoes, and skis also

were used. Today’s contractors use

trucks, tractor trailers, and automobiles or whatever it takes — mule

trains into the Grand Canyon,

flat-bottomed pole boats in the

Louisiana bayous, and airplanes and

hovercraft in Alaska. Dog sleds were

used in Alaska until 1963. Today,

mail is dropped by parachute on

some Alaskan routes. During the

winter, snowmobiles carry mail in

the highlands of Utah, Colorado,

and Montana.

In The Story of Our Post Office,

Marshall Cushing writes about Mrs.

Clara Carter, who, while carrying mail

between Maine’s West Ellsworth and

Ellsworth Post Offices around 1892,

also delivered mail to customers on

the route.20 Such unofficial arrangements were formalized beginning

July 1, 1900, when some contracts

provided for delivery to and collection

from rural mail boxes erected along

the routes. By 1918, some contracts

also permitted the sale of stamps,

money orders, and registered mail

along routes.

In 1948, Congress allowed the

Postmaster General to renew four-year

contracts with satisfactory service providers rather than award a new contract to the lowest acceptable bidder

to prevent the many contract failures

resulting from speculators who underbid tried-and-true carriers by just a

few dollars. Congressman Thomas J.

Murray of Tennessee explained:

I think when a star-route contractor has carried the mail for 20 to 25 

years ... it is unjust and unfair for 

him to be deprived of his contract 

for another 4-year term by cut-throat 

bidding.21

Star routes declined in the 1950s

as unnecessary and duplicate service

was eliminated. However, the 1960s

saw growth as the Highway Act of

1958 improved highways while rail

service declined. Between 1960 and

1970, star-route miles more than

doubled. In the 1970s, star routes

officially became known as highway

contract routes, although popular

usage of the older term continues.

At the end of 2006, the Postal

Service had 16,707 highway contract

routes. About 45 percent of these

provided delivery to customers along

the routes.

Mail by Sled Star route contractors have a history of employing any means necessary to transport 

the mail. This carrier transported mail into the mountains of Idaho via horse-drawn 

sled circa 1920. His horses wore special snow shoes.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 19
Free City Delivery

Before 1863, postage paid only for the 

delivery of mail from Post Office to Post 

Office. Citizens picked up their mail, 

although in some cities they could pay 

an extra two-cent fee for letter delivery 

or use private delivery firms. Among the 

postal reforms suggested by progressive 

Postmaster General Montgomery Blair in 

his 1862 report to the President was free 

delivery of mail by salaried letter carriers, 

which he felt would “greatly accelerate deliveries, and promote the public 

convenience.”22 He reasoned that if the 

system of mailing and receiving letters 

was more convenient, people would use 

it more often, and pointed to increasing postal revenues in England, which 

already had adopted free city delivery. 

Congress agreed. An Act of Congress 

of March 3, 1863, effective July 1, 1863, 

provided that free city delivery be established at Post Offices where income 

from local postage was more than sufficient to pay all expenses of the service. 

For the first time, Americans had to put 

street addresses on their letters. 

Reaching Out To Everyone

By June 30, 1864, free city delivery had been established in 65 cities 

nationwide, with 685 carriers delivering mail in cities such as Baltimore, 

Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, 

Cleveland, Detroit, New York, 

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and 

Washington, D.C. By 1880, 104 cities 

were served by 2,628 letter carriers, and 

by 1900, 15,322 carriers provided service 

to 796 cities. 

Postmasters, groups of citizens, or 

city authorities could petition the Post 

Office Department for free delivery service if their city met population or postal 

revenue requirements. The city had to 

provide sidewalks and crosswalks, ensure 

that streets were named and lit, and 

assign numbers to houses. 

Initially, carriers hand-delivered 

mail to customers. If a customer did 

not answer the carrier’s knock, ring, 

or whistle, the mail remained in the 

carrier’s satchel to be redelivered when 

the customer was home. By 1912, new 

customers were required to provide 

mail slots or receptacles, and postmasNew York City

Fifth Avenue, 1913.

Library of Congress

20 The United States Postal Service
City Delivery Pioneer

Joseph William Briggs, a

Cleveland, Ohio, postal

clerk, often is credited

with conceiving the

idea of free city

delivery while contemplating long

lines of customers trying to keep

warm as they

inched toward

his window in the

winter of 1862.

Many were women

hoping for news of

loved ones in the Civil

War. Briggs enlisted local

businesses to serve as staging

areas for sorting customers’ mail,

and he began delivering mail to his

patrons free of cost.

In 1864, Briggs wrote

Postmaster General Montgomery

Blair, suggesting improvements

to the free letter carrier system,

launched in 1863. Blair liked Briggs’

ideas, brought him to Washington,

and appointed him special agent in

charge of superintending the operation of the letter carrier system, a

role he performed until his death on

February 23, 1872.

A 1921 postal committee

charged with determining who

should be credited with the establishment of free city delivery, after

examining the available evidence,

reported to Postmaster General Will

Hays that “no one individual can be

considered the author or originator

of this service ...” The committee

said, “Mr. Briggs cannot be properly

credited as the author of the City

Free Delivery Service, but the evidence seems sufficient to warrant

the statement that he was the first

letter carrier in the city of Cleveland,

Ohio.”24

A plaque in the Cleveland

Post Office commemorates Briggs’

service as that city’s first free letter carrier and his contributions to

establishing the service nationwide.

ters were urged to encourage existing 

customers to provide them as well. As 

late as 1914, First Assistant Postmaster 

General Daniel C. Roper estimated that 

a letter carrier spent 30 minutes to an 

hour each day waiting at doors where 

there was person-to-person delivery. As 

of March 1, 1923, mail slots or receptacles were required for delivery service.

By the 1930s, as a convenience to 

customers living on the margins of a 

city, letter carriers began delivering to 

customers with “suitable boxes at the 

curb line.”23 In the ensuing decades 

American suburbanization, which

exploded in the 1950s, brought an 

increase in curbside mailboxes. The 

Department introduced curbside cluster boxes in 1967. Their use has been 

increasingly encouraged in recent 

decades to promote efficiency and 

economy of service. 

Originally, letter carriers worked 52 

weeks a year, typically 9 to 11 hours a 

day from Monday through Saturday, 

and if necessary, part of Sunday. An 

Act of June 27, 1884, granted them 

15 days of leave per year. In 1888, 

Congress declared that 8 hours was 

a full day’s work and that carriers would be paid for additional hours worked per day. 

The 40-hour work week 

began in 1935. 

Carriers walked as many 

as 22 miles a day, carrying up to 50 pounds of 

mail at a time. They were 

instructed to deliver letters 

frequently and promptly 

— generally twice a day to 

homes and up to four times 

a day to businesses. The second 

residential delivery was discontinued on April 17, 1950, in most cities. 

Multiple deliveries to businesses were 

phased out over the next few decades as 

changing transportation patterns made 

most mail available for first-trip delivery. 

The weight limit of a carrier’s load was 

reduced to 35 pounds by the mid-1950s 

and remains the same today.

In 2006, 224,400 letter carriers delivered mail in the nation’s cities.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 21
Rural Free Delivery (RFD)

In 1890, nearly 41 million people — 

65 percent of the American population — lived in rural areas. Although 

many city dwellers had enjoyed free 

home delivery since 1863, rural citizens had to pick up their mail at the 

Post Office, leading one farmer to ask: 

“Why should the cities have fancy mail 

service and the old colonial system still 

prevail in the country districts?”25

Postmaster General John Wanamaker, 

who served from 1889 to 1893, was a 

merchant who became one of the most 

innovative and energetic people ever to 

lead the Post Office Department. He 

thought it made more sense to have one 

person deliver mail than to have 50 people ride into town to collect their mail. 

He cited business logic and social philosophy as reasons to give rural dwellers 

free delivery. Businesses could expand 

their markets. Rural customers paid the 

same postage rates as city people. Rural 

people needed the important information provided by newspapers yet did not 

always have time to walk or ride to the 

Post Office. Young people might stay on 

the farm if correspondence and magazines eased their isolation.

“I think the growth of the Farmers’ 

Alliance movement and the other farmers’ movements in the past few years has 

been due to this hunger for something 

social as much as to anything else,” 

Wanamaker wrote in 1891.26 He proposed that rural customers receive free 

delivery.

On October 1, 1890, Congress 

authorized funding of $10,000 to test 

the “practicability” of delivering mail 

to small towns, defined as those having populations of from 300 to 5,000 

people, and nearby rural districts.27 For 

the experiment, it was suggested that 

each postmaster hire a man or boy for 

an hour or two a day to deliver the 

mail or that school teachers give the 

mail to pupils for delivery to parents or 

neighbors. However, only adults were 

employed. Twelve communities were 

selected for what was called village free 

delivery. The results were satisfactory 

although some customers returned 

to collecting their mail from the Post 

Office by choice when the novelty 

wore off. People farther away from 

more heavily populated areas still had 

no delivery.

In January 1892, Congressman 

James O’Donnell introduced “A Bill 

to Extend the Free Delivery System 

of Mails to Rural Communities,” but 

the House Committee on Post Office 

and Post Roads balked at the proposed 

$6 million price tag. An amendment 

bringing the figure down to $100,000 

also was rejected.

Rural Carrier, Rural Route 

No. 2, Rochester, Indiana

Although a uniform has never been 

prescribed for rural carriers, some, 

such as this carrier, chose to wear 

one. When it was established in 

October 1900, this carrier’s route 

was 35 miles long and served 1,000 

customers.

22 The United States Postal Service
In 1860, postmasters took the

following oath: “I, ________, do

swear/affirm that I will faithfully

perform all the duties required of

me, and abstain from everything

forbidden by the laws in relation to the establishment of the

Post Office and post roads within

the United States. I do solemnly

swear/affirm that I will support the

Constitution of the United States.”

Postmasters had to post a

bond and reside in the community

where the Post Office was located. The postmaster was exempt

from militia duty but could be

called upon to work on the roads.

The job of postmaster was

an important one — candidates

for the job were proposed by the

outgoing postmaster, the local

community, or local congressmen.

Beginning in 1836, postmasters

at the largest Post Offices were

appointed by the President and

usually received the job as a political plum. The Postmaster General

continued to appoint postmasters

at smaller Post Offices. The Post

Office often was kept as a sideline

to the postmaster’s primary occupation, such as storekeeper.

The postmaster had to keep

the Post Office open during normal business hours and, if mail

was delivered on a Sunday, for

one hour after the delivery of mail.

If a church service was going on,

the postmaster had to wait until

it concluded and then open the

office for an hour. This decision

dated back to the 19th-century

controversies over the drivers of

mail wagons blowing on a horn

or a trumpet as the wagon came

into town. Some ministers complained that the men would rise

up, leave the church, and head

for the Post Office, where they

would visit with each other and

even play cards.

The decision to keep the Post

Office closed during services

was a compromise. However, the

Postmaster General refused to

stop mail wagons from running

on Sundays, since this would

delay the mail too much.

Postmasters in the Mid-19th Century

Francis E. Bush, Postmaster

Postmasters often were pillars of their 

communities. Francis E. Bush, 95, 

served two terms as postmaster of 

Standing Stone, Pennsylvania, from 

1875 to 1889 and then from 1901

to 1929.

Postmasters’ Convention

Postmasters met in Waco, Texas, on July 12, 1899, for the 

first convention of the Texas Postmasters Association.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 23
A year and two months later, on 

March 3, 1893, a bill introduced by 

one-term Georgia Congressman Tom 

Watson passed. It appropriated $10,000 

for experimental rural free delivery. On 

March 6, 1893, Wilson S. Bissell was 

sworn in as Postmaster General. He did 

not pursue the experiment, citing the 

pressure of more important concerns 

and the need for at least $20 million to 

inaugurate rural free delivery, a figure 

later identified as a guess. Instead, he 

recommended establishing additional 

Post Offices where needed.

Bissell was succeeded by William L. 

Wilson on March 1, 1895. Wilson agreed 

with his predecessor that rural free delivery was not practical but was willing to 

attempt the experiment if Congress 

made money available. That year, 

Congress appropriated $20,000 for the 

experiment and another $10,000 in 

1896, bringing the total to $40,000 — 

enough for the Post Office Department 

to begin its rural free delivery experiment.

On October 1, 1896, rural free 

delivery service began in Charles Town, 

Halltown, and Uvilla in West Virginia, 

Postmaster General Wilson’s home state. 

Within a year, 44 routes were underway 

in 29 states. 

Just 5 days before Christmas in 1899, 

the Post Office Department decided to 

experiment with extending RFD across 

an entire county. Postmaster General 

Charles Emory Smith ordered that 63 

small Post Offices and the routes of 35 

star route contractors and mail messengers be discontinued and that rural free 

delivery be established in their place in 

Carroll County, Maryland. County-wide 

delivery proved viable.

Judged a success, rural free delivery 

became a permanent service effective July 1, 1902. The word “free” was 

dropped in 1906, since it was understood.

During the six experimental years 

before rural delivery became a permanent service, customers sent more than 

10,000 petitions asking that routes be 

established. The Department had time 

to evaluate the extent to which RFD 

could replace small, fourth-class Post 

Offices and star routes, whether it could 

be used to offer services such as money 

orders, and what national RFD service 

would cost. The Department also had 

an opportunity to see what else was 

needed to make the service successful: 

good roads, standardized mailboxes, 

and a “great army of rural carriers” 

— about 8,500 in 1902. The Post Office 

Department claimed that, “as a class 

there are no more faithful employees in 

the Government service.”28

The backing of the National Grange, 

National Farmers’ Congress, and State 

Farmers’ Alliance was important to 

rural delivery’s establishment and success, as was the enthusiastic response of 

rural customers. Although one Kansas 

farmer expressed concern that rural 

people would become lazy if they did 

not have to pick up their mail, more 

typical were reactions such as those of 

the Colorado woman who was glad to 

Rural Carrier, Harbor Springs, 

Michigan, circa 1910

Rural free delivery stimulated road 

improvement nationwide, since 

passable roads were a prerequisite 

for establishing new delivery routes. 

Rural carriers supplied their own 

transportation — from horses and 

buggies to bicycles, motorcycles, and 

automobiles — to deliver the mail. 

They were allowed to use automobiles 

on their routes as early as 1907, 

where roads and topography 

permitted.

24 The United States Postal Service
Early Rural Mailboxes

Until the Post Office Department 

standardized specifications for rural 

mailboxes, a variety of boxes and 

containers were used.

“have our mail fresh instead of stale” 

and the Arizona citizen who wrote:

I am more than ever proud of being an 

American citizen. ... I live three and a half 

miles from the Tempe post-office, and have 

been sick for a week past, yet my mail is 

brought to my door every morning, except 

Sunday. ... It looks as if “Uncle Sam” had 

at last turned his eye in our direction.29

Farmers helped by putting out boxes 

for the rural carriers — everything from 

lard pails and syrup cans to old apple, 

soap, and cigar boxes. Postal officials 

decided a standardized box would 

improve service and, in 1901, asked 

manufacturers to design boxes to the 

following specifications:

The box must be made of metal, 6 by 8 

by 18 inches, and weather-proof.

Boxes should be constructed so they can 

be fastened to a post at a height convenient to the carrier without alighting.

Keys for customers’ boxes should be easy 

to use by a carrier with “one gloved 

hand in the severest weather.”30

Manufacturers stenciled the words 

“Approved by the Postmaster-General” 

on satisfactory boxes. In 1902, the Post 

Office Department required customers 

to have these boxes in order to receive 

rural free delivery. Boxes could be 

square, oblong, circular, or semicircular 

but had to protect mail from rain, snow, 

and dust.

Rural carriers sold stamps and 

money orders, registered letters, and, in 

short, served as traveling Post Offices. 

They were the vanguard for delivery 

in suburban areas, a “middle territory, neither distinctly city nor rural in 

character” first mentioned by the Post 

Office Department in its Annual Report

of 1902, with Bridgeport, Connecticut, 

cited as an example.31 Rural carriers 

served suburban areas until these areas 

were annexed by an adjacent city postal 

district. Carriers supplied their own 

transportation —­ usually horses and 

wagons until, in 1929, the Post Office 

Department noted that improved roads 

had led to “almost a complete change 

in rural delivery from horse-drawn 

vehicles to motor cars.”32

Although rural carriers could deliver 

packages weighing up to four pounds, 

by law the Post Office Department 

could not deliver heavier packages, 

which had to be mailed using private 

express companies. Beginning in 1904 

the Department asked Congress for 

authorization to experiment with the 

delivery of larger packages. In 1911, 

Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock 

recommended that Congress allow 

such service in rural and urban areas 

and requested a total of $150,000 for 

such an experiment, with the thought 

of paving the way for a general Parcel 

Post. 

The increase in the number of rural 

delivery routes led to a decrease in the 

number of small Post Offices. In 1901, 

the Post Office Department operated 

the largest number of Post Offices in 

American history, 76,945. The next 

year, there were 1,000 fewer Post 

Offices. Despite a growing population 

and more mail, the number of Post 

Offices continued to drop each subsequent year, with the exception of 1947 

and 2001.

In 2006, almost 37 million homes 

and businesses were served by the Postal 

Service’s rural letter carriers. Rural delivery continues to provide a vital link 

between urban and rural America. ■

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 25
Clockwise from upper right: 

1847, first U.S. stamps, 

George Washington and 

Benjamin Franklin; 1907, 

Pocahontas; 1993, Elvis

Presley; 1940, Booker T.

Washington; 1998, Breast

Cancer Research, the first 

semipostal stamp.

U.S. Postage 

Stamps

The Post Office Department issued its

first postage stamps on July 1, 1847.

Previously, letters were taken to a Post

Office, where the postmaster would

note the postage in the upper right corner. The postage rate was based on the

number of sheets in the letter and the

distance it would travel. Postage could

be paid in advance by the writer, collected from the addressee on delivery,

or paid partially in advance and partially

upon delivery.

The First Postage Stamps

In 1837, Great Britain’s Sir Rowland Hill

proposed a uniform rate of postage for

mail going anywhere in the British Isles

and prepayment by using envelopes

with preprinted postage or adhesive

labels. On May 6, 1840, the stamp

that became known as the Penny

Black, covering the one-penny charge

for half-ounce letters sent anywhere in

the British Isles, became available in

postal facilities.

United States Postage Stamps

Alexander M. Greig’s City Despatch

Post, a private New York City carrier,

issued the first adhesive stamps in the

United States on February 1, 1842.

The Post Office Department bought

Greig’s business and continued use of

adhesive stamps to prepay postage.

After U.S. postage rates were

standardized in 1845, New York City

Postmaster Robert H. Morris, among

others, provided special stamps or

markings to indicate prepayment of

postage. These now are known as

Postmasters’ Provisionals.

On March 3, 1847, Congress

authorized United States postage

stamps. The first general issue postage stamps went on sale in New

York City, July 1, 1847. One, priced

at five cents, depicted Benjamin

Franklin. The other, a ten-cent stamp,

pictured George Washington. Clerks

used scissors to cut the stamps

from pregummed, nonperforated

sheets. Only Franklin and Washington

appeared on stamps until 1856, when

a five-cent stamp honoring Thomas

Jefferson was issued. A two-cent

Andrew Jackson stamp was added

in 1863. George Washington has

appeared on more U.S. postage

stamps than any other person.

Until government-issued stamps

became obligatory January 1, 1856,

other payment methods remained

legal.

Postal Stationery

The first printed stamped envelopes

were issued July 1, 1853. They have

always been produced by private contractors and sold at the cost of postage plus the cost of manufacture. With

the exception of manila newspaper

wrappers used from 1919 to 1934,

watermarks have been mandatory for

stamped-envelope paper since 1853.

The watermarks usually changed with

every four-year printing contract to

help identify the envelope and paper

manufacturers.

Austria issued the first postal card

in 1869. The United States followed in

May 1873. Postal cards, known today

as stamped cards, are produced by

the government and carry preprinted

postage, unlike privately produced

postcards, which do not bear postage. The 1873 Annual Report of the 

Postmaster General noted:

As predicted, they have been favorably received. They have supplied a 

public want, and have made a new 

and remunerative business for the 

Department.33

Postal cards were sold at face

value until January 10, 1999, when

a charge for the cost of manufacture

was added.

Commemorative Stamps

In 1893, the first U.S. commemorative stamps, honoring that year’s

World Columbian Exposition in

Chicago, were issued. The subject — Columbus’s voyages to

the New World — and size of the

stamps were innovative. Standardsized stamps were too small for

engraved reproductions of paintings

that portrayed events connected to

26 The United States Postal Service
Columbus’s voyages. The stamps

were 7/8 inches high by 1-11/32 inches

wide, nearly double the size of previous stamps.

Over the years, commemorative

stamps have been produced in many

sizes and shapes, with the first triangular postage stamp issued in 1997

and the first round stamp in 2000.

The first stamp honoring an

American woman was the eightcent Martha Washington stamp of

1902. The first to honor a Hispanic

American was the one-dollar Admiral

David Farragut stamp in 1903. Native

Americans were portrayed in a general way on several earlier stamps, but

the first to feature a specific individual

was 1907’s five-cent stamp honoring Pocahontas. In 1940, a ten-cent

stamp commemorating Booker T.

Washington became the first to honor

an African American.

Other firsts include the 1993 29-

cent stamp featuring Elvis Presley.

The public was invited to vote for the

“young” or the “older” Elvis for the

stamp’s design. Youth triumphed, and

this has become the best-selling U.S.

commemorative stamp to date.

Booklets

Stamp booklets were first issued

April 16, 1900. They contained

12, 24, or 48 two-cent stamps.

Parafinned paper was placed

between sheets of stamps to keep

them from sticking together. The

books, which carried a one-cent

premium until 1963, had light cardboard covers printed with information

about postage rates. Stamp booklets

remain a staple and are enjoying a

resurgence in popularity because of

their availability at a wide range of

non-postal retail outlets.

Coils and Vending

The first coil (roll) stamps were issued

on February 18, 1908, in response

to business requests. Coils were also

used in stamp vending equipment.

The Department hoped to place vending machines in Post Office lobbies to

provide round-the-clock service without extra workhours. Machines were

also planned for hotels, train stations,

newsstands, and stores. Twentyfive different vending machines were

tested, with six chosen for tests in the

Baltimore, Minneapolis, New York,

Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis

Post Offices. Both coil stamps and

imperforate sheets were produced

for vending machines, with the latter

receiving a variety of distinctive perforations and separations.

Nondenominated Stamps

The first nondenominated stamps

(stamps without a printed value) in

the United States were two Christmas

stamps issued October 14, 1975.

The Postal Service had requested a

rate change from 10 to 13 cents and

was unsure when the Postal Rate

Commission would issue a recommended decision in the case. When

the rate change was delayed, the

stamps were sold for 10 cents.

A similar situation led the Postal

Service to issue nondenominated

stamps on May 22, 1978. They bore

the letter “A” rather than a denomination. The stamps were prepared in

case of a shortage of stamps in the

uncertain new denomination. They

were sold for 15 cents for domestic

use only. Nondenominated stamps

with letter designations through “H”

were issued in conjunction with postage rate changes through 1998.

Self-adhesives

The Postal Service originally developed self-adhesive stamps to make

precanceled stamps more secure.

Precanceled stamps are canceled

across the face before being sold.

In the late 1960s, as many as 20

percent of them were soaked off and

reused. Precanceled stamps skipped

a processing step that often caught

reused stamps.

With the Christmas 1974 issue,

the Postal Service experimented with

a self-adhesive precanceled stamp. It

was believed that the tightly bonded

self-adhesive would not permit stamps

to be soaked off. An additional security feature placed slits in the stamps

to foil attempts to peel them off.

Unfortunately, the stamps cost three to

five times more to produce than regular postage stamps, they could still be

soaked off and reused, and stamps in

the hands of collectors started to selfdestruct.

In 1989, the Postal Service again

experimented with self-adhesive

stamps, this time with emphasis on

customer convenience. The new selfadhesives had a water-soluble adhesive and were produced on coated

paper, so the effects of the adhesive

would not be destructive. Introduced

nationwide in 1992, self-adhesive

stamps now are issued in formats that

include booklets, coils, sheets, and

souvenir sheets.

Semipostals

Semipostals are stamps on which the

price exceeds the cost of postage; the

difference is devoted to a particular

cause. An act of Congress resulted in

the Breast Cancer Research stamp,

the first United States semipostal, on

July 29, 1998, with proceeds above

the cost of postage going to breast

cancer research. The Postal Service

issued the Heroes of 2001 stamp on

June 7, 2002, with proceeds going

to the families of emergency workers

killed or injured in connection with the

September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks

on the United States.

On October 8, 2003, the Postal

Service issued the Stop Family 

Violence semipostal, to contribute to

the nationwide fight against domestic

violence.

Forever Stamp

In May 2006, the Postal Service filed

a proposal for a Forever stamp, a

nondenominated, nonexpiring stamp

intended for customers mailing a piece

of First-Class Mail. The stamp would

be valid for the first ounce of postage.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 27
At the start of the 20th century, 

Americans were served by the 

Post Office Department. At the 

century’s close, they were served by 

the United States Postal Service. At the 

beginning of the 20th century, most 

Americans lived in rural areas. By its 

end, the country was an industrial and 

service economy of international preeminence, and the character, volume, 

and means of transporting mail had 

changed. The Post Office Department, 

transformed into the United States 

Postal Service, continued its tradition 

of innovation, adaptation, and change 

to better serve postal customers.

Parcel Post 

By law, the Post Office Department 

could not carry parcels weighing more 

than four pounds at the beginning of 

the 20th century. Private express companies, which had begun to flourish in the 

mid-1800s, delivered large packages. 

The establishment of rural free delivery had provided a heady taste of life 

for rural Americans. Soon the demand 

increased for the delivery of packages 

containing food, dry goods, drugs, and 

other commodities not easily available 

to farmers. When Congress considered 

enacting a law to allow Parcel Post service, express companies and country 

merchants fought long and hard against 

it. Rural residents, who represented 54 

percent of the country’s population in 

1910, were equally emphatic in wanting Parcel Post. While Congress was 

hotly debating the question, one express 

company declared a large dividend 

to stockholders. Public indignation at 

their so-called exorbitant profits helped 

Congress decide the issue.

The Act of August 24, 1912 (37 Stat. 

539), authorized Parcel Post, a service 

that would:

embrace all other matter, including farm 

and factory products not now embraced by 

law in either the first, second or third class, 

not exceeding eleven pounds in weight, nor 

greater in size than seventy-two inches in 

length and girth combined ...

Parcel Post began on January 1, 

1913. It was an instant success, with 

300 million parcels mailed in the first 

six months the service was offered. The 

effect on the national economy was 

electric. Marketing and merchandising through Parcel Post spurred the 

growth of the great mail-order houses. 

Montgomery Ward, the first mailorder company, started with a catalog 

of more than 100 products in 1872. 

Sears, Roebuck and Company followed 

Montgomery Ward in 1893. The year 

Parcel Post began, Sears handled five 

times as many orders as it did the year 

before. Five years later, Sears doubled 

its revenues.

Parcel Post grew too, literally and in 

volume. Its weight and size limits were 

expanded over time, reaching 70 pounds 

and 100 inches on August 1, 1931.34

After World War II, Parcel Post’s comparatively low rates stimulated its growth 

while the business of express companies 

began to decrease. Eventually, Congress 

intervened to rescue the Railway Express 

Agency from a precarious financial position. On January 1, 1952, the weight of 

parcels sent via the mails to large (first 

class) Post Offices was reduced to 40 

pounds, if the parcels were traveling up 

to 150 miles, and to 20 pounds for any 

greater distance. None of these parcels 

could exceed 72 inches in length and 

girth combined. Parcels bound for other 

Post Offices still could weigh up to 70 

pounds and be up to 100 inches in size. 

Parcel Post volume fell.

To offset this, weight and size limits 

for parcels moving between larger Post 

Offices gradually were increased starting on July 1, 1967, so that by July 1, 

1969, the weight limit for all such parcels had been increased to 40 pounds, 

and by July 1, 1971, the size limit had 

been increased to 84 inches. 

On February 27, 1983, a uniform 

weight and size limit was set at 70 

pounds, 108 inches, for parcels mailed 

from any Post Office to any destination within the United States. On 

January 10, 1999, the size limit for 

Parcel Post increased to 130 inches.

The 20th Century

28 The United States Postal Service
Postal Savings System

An Act of Congress of June 25, 1910, 

established the Postal Savings System 

in designated Post Offices, effective 

January 1, 1911. The legislation aimed 

to get money out of hiding, attract the 

savings of immigrants accustomed to 

saving at Post Offices in their native 

countries, provide safe depositories 

for people who had lost confidence in 

banks, and furnish more convenient 

depositories for working people.

The system paid two percent interest per year. Initially, the minimum 

deposit was $1, and the balance in 

an account could not exceed $500, 

excluding interest.

Deposits were slow at first, but by 

1929, $153 million was on deposit. 

Savings spurted to $1.2 billion during the 1930s and jumped again during World War II, peaking in 1947 at 

almost $3.4 billion.

After the war, banks raised their 

interest rates and began offering the 

same governmental guarantee as the 

Postal Savings System. In addition, 

United States savings bonds gave higher interest rates. Deposits in the Postal 

Savings System declined, dropping to 

$416 million by 1964.

On April 27, 1966, the Post Office 

Department stopped accepting deposits to existing accounts, refused to 

open new accounts, and cut off interest payments as the annual anniversary 

date of existing accounts came up. 

When the system ended officially 

July 1, 1967, about $50 million in 

the unclaimed deposits of more than 

600,000 depositors was turned over to 

the U.S. Treasury Department to be 

held in trust indefinitely.

An Act of August 13, 1971, authorized the Treasury to turn over the 

money on deposit to various states and 

jurisdictions, each sharing proportionately based on its own deposits. Some 

money was kept for future claims, but 

under the Postal Savings System Statute 

of Limitations Act of July 13, 1984 

(Public Law 98-359), no claims could 

be brought more than one year after 

enactment. Thus, no claims made after 

July 13, 1985, have been honored.

The above Statute of Limitations 

applies only to certificates. Postal savings 

stamps and postal savings bonds can 

be redeemed by sending them to the 

Bureau of the Public Debt, Post Office 

Box 426, Parkersburg, WV 26106-0426.

Airmail

The Post Office Department’s most 

extraordinary role in transportation was 

probably played in the sky, a role little 

known today except to postal employees and pioneers of American aviation.

The U.S. government had been cautious in exploring the airplane’s potential. In 1905, the War Department considered three separate offers by Orville 

and Wilbur Wright to share their scientific discoveries on flight, then declined 

for budgetary reasons. Although by 

1908 the Wright brothers had convinced 

many European nations that flight was 

feasible, the U.S. government owned 

only one airplane, and that crashed.

The Post Office Department, however, was intrigued with the possibility 

of carrying mail through the skies and 

authorized its first experimental mail 

flight at an aviation meet on Long 

Island in New York in 1911. Earle 

Ovington, sworn in as a mail carrier by 

Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock, 

made daily flights between Garden City 

Estates and Mineola, New York, dropping his mail bags from the plane to 

the ground where they were picked up 

by the Mineola postmaster.

Later, in 1911 and 1912, the 

Department authorized another 31 

experimental flights at fairs, carnivals, 

and air meets in more than 16 states. 

These flights convinced the Department 

that the airplane could carry a payload of mail. Officials repeatedly 

urged Congress in 1912 to appropriate 

money to launch airmail service. In 

1916, Congress finally authorized the 

use of $50,000 from steam-and-powerboat service appropriations for airmail 

experiments. The Department advertised for bids for contract service in 

Massachusetts and Alaska but received 

no acceptable responses.

In 1918, Congress appropriated 

$100,000 to establish experimental 

airmail routes. The Post Office 

Department urged the Army Signal 

Corps to lend its planes and pilots to 

the Department to start an airmail service. Carrying the mail, the Department 

argued, would provide invaluable crossParcel Post Truck, Lake 

Minnetonka, Minnesota, 

circa 1926

Postal Savings System, 1946

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 29
Airmail Pilot

An airmail pilot immediately handed 

over the mail after flying the last leg of 

the transcontinental route from San 

Francisco to New York in the early 

1920s.

country experience to student flyers. 

The Secretary of War agreed. 

The Post Office Department began 

scheduled airmail service between New 

York and Washington, D.C., May 15, 

1918, an important date in commercial 

aviation. Simultaneous takeoffs were 

made from Washington’s Polo Grounds 

and from Belmont Park, Long Island, 

both trips by way of Philadelphia. 

During the first three months of 

operation, the Post Office Department 

used Army pilots and six Army Curtiss 

JN-4H (“Jenny”) training planes. On 

August 12, 1918, the Department took 

over all phases of airmail service, using 

newly hired civilian pilots and mechanics and six specially built mail planes 

from the Standard Aircraft Corporation. 

These early mail planes had no 

instruments, radios, or other navigational aids. Pilots flew by dead reckoning. 

Forced landings occurred frequently due 

to bad weather, but fatalities in those 

early months were rare, largely because 

of the planes’ small size, maneuverability, and slow landing speed. 

Congress authorized airmail postage 

of 24 cents, including special delivery. 

The public was reluctant to use this 

more expensive service. During the 

first year, airmail bags contained as 

much regular mail as airmail. To better its delivery time on long hauls and 

to lure the public into using airmail, 

the Department’s long-range plans 

called for a transcontinental air route 

from New York to San Francisco. The 

first legs of this transcontinental route 

— from New York to Cleveland with a 

stop at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, then 

from Cleveland to Chicago, with a stop 

at Bryan, Ohio — opened in 1919. A 

third leg opened in 1920 from Chicago 

to Omaha, via Iowa City, and feeder 

lines were established from St. Louis 

and Minneapolis to Chicago. The 

last transcontinental segment, from 

Omaha to San Francisco, via North 

Platte, Nebraska; Cheyenne, Rawlins, 

and Rock Springs in Wyoming; Salt 

Lake City, Utah; and Elko and Reno in 

Nevada; opened on September 8, 1920. 

At this time, mail was carried on 

trains at night and flown by day. Still, 

the new service was 22 hours faster than 

the cross-country all-rail time. 

In August 1920, the Department 

began installing radio stations at each 

airfield to provide pilots with current 

weather information. By November, 

ten stations were operating, including 

two Navy stations. When airmail traffic 

permitted, other government departments used the radios instead of the 

telegraph for special messages, and the Airmail Plane

A compartment in the wing of this 

Ford Tri-Motor Mail Passenger plane 

was lowered to allow mail to be 

loaded and unloaded, circa 1930.

30 The United States Postal Service
Department of Agriculture used the 

radios to transmit weather forecasts and 

stock market reports. 

February 22, 1921, marked the first 

time mail was flown both day and 

night over the entire distance from San 

Francisco to New York. Congress was 

impressed. It appropriated $1,250,000 

for the expansion of airmail service. 

The Post Office Department installed 

additional landing fields, as well as towers, beacons, searchlights, and boundary markers, across the country. The 

Department also equipped the planes 

with luminescent instruments, navigational lights, and parachute flares. 

In 1922 and 1923, the Department 

was awarded the Collier Trophy for 

important contributions to the development of aeronautics, especially in safety 

and for demonstrating the feasibility of 

night flights.

On February 2, 1925, Congress 

passed “An Act to encourage commercial aviation and to authorize 

the Postmaster General to contract 

for airmail service.” The Post Office 

Department immediately invited bids 

from commercial aviation companies. 

By the end of 1926, 11 out of 12 contracted airmail routes were operating. 

The first commercial airmail 

flight in the United States occurred 

February 15, 1926. As commercial 

airlines took over, the Post Office 

Department transferred its lights, 

airways, and radio service to the 

Department of Commerce, including 

17 fully equipped stations, 89 emergency landing fields, and 405 beacons. 

Terminal airports, except government 

properties in Chicago, Omaha, and 

San Francisco, were transferred to 

the municipalities in which they were 

located. Some planes were sold to 

airmail contractors, while others were 

transferred to interested government 

departments. By September 1, 1927, all 

airmail was carried under contract.

Charles I. Stanton, an early airmail pilot who later headed the Civil 

Aeronautics Administration, said about 

those early days of scheduled airmail 

service:

We planted four seeds ... They were 

airways, communications, navigation aids, 

and multi-engined aircraft. Not all of these 

came full blown into the transportation 

scene; in fact, the last one withered and died 

and had to be planted over again nearly a 

decade later. But they are the cornerstones 

on which our present world-wide transport 

structure is built, and they came, one by one, 

out of our experience in daily, uninterrupted 

flying of the mail.35

New York to San Francisco

Best transportation times for mail

2006 Airplane

6–7 hours

1924 Transcontinental airmail

1 day, 10 hours, 20 minutes

1921 Airplane and railroad

3 days, 11 hours

1906 Special through-train

3 days, 18 hours

1900 Transcontinental railroad

4 days, 10 hours

1869 Transcontinental railroad

7 days, 2 hours

1860 Railroad to 

St. Joseph, MO, 

then via 

Pony Express

13–14 days 

(3–4 railroad, 10 horseback)

1858 Railroad to Tipton, MO, then

overland mail route

30–35 days (6–10 railroad, then 24–25 

stagecoach)

1849 Ship or steamboat 

via the Isthmus of Panama

1 month or longer

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 31
William C. Hopson was less than

impressed with photographs of himself.

Submitting a photo to the Post

Office Department’s Airmail Service in

the early 1920s, he wrote:

Enclosed please find photo of bum 

pilot ... When finished with picture just 

post in cellar, it’s guaranteed to keep 

away all rats, mice and other vermin.36

Hopson had 741 hours of flight

time when he became an airmail

pilot on April 14, 1920. He trained at

Hempstead, Long Island, and won a

pilot’s incentive contest sponsored by

Otto Praeger, the Second Assistant

Postmaster General. Hopson flew

413,034 miles, more than all but two

of the service’s 44 pilots, logging

4,043 hours in the air.

Like many airmail pilots, Hopson

flew the British-designed De Haviland

(DH-4B) biplane. Its front cockpit,

transformed into a cargo hold, could

carry about 500 pounds of mail, and

the plane cruised at 95–100 mph.

Although considered reliable, DH-4Bs

tended to stall, and their high landing

speeds made them difficult to land in

short fields. But, wrote Hopson, they

“are the only suitable ships for mountains in all weather.”37

For most of his career, Hopson

flew the Omaha-Chicago leg of the

transcontinental route. In 1925, he

flew into a severe storm near Anita,

Iowa. An air pocket dropped the plane

almost to the ground before Hopson

regained control. By then, his landing

gear and lower wings had harvested

about 75 bushels of corn. The plane

turned over, pinning Hopson underneath. Surrounded by cornstalks and

deluged by rain, he fired his revolver

into the air to attract attention. The

official report said:

The Pilot was only slightly injured, 

the mail wet in spots, and the plane 

practically a washout.38

Between weather and primitive

instrumentation, each airmail trip was

an adventure. As Hopson wrote:

The best system of flying bad 

weather is not so much to go rip roaring through nasty weather, but to use 

your head for something else besides 

a hat-rack, and fly where bad weather 

aint.39

In 1925, base pay for beginning

airmail pilots was $2,000 to $2,800,

depending on how much night flying

they did. Pilots also earned five to

seven cents per mile flown, double for

night flight. Pilots agreed, in writing, to

fly in all kinds of weather.

Hopson’s last flight for the

Department was on August 27, 1927.

On September 1, contract carriers

began transporting all airmail. Hopson

left the Airmail Service two days

later and was hired to fly National Air

Transport’s Contract Air Mail Route 17

between New York and Chicago. This

was the Allegheny route, one of the

most difficult because of limited safe

places for emergency landings.

Hopson died October 18, 1928,

when his plane crashed into the top

of a tree on a hill near Polk,

Pennsylvania, during a bad storm.

One man, grateful that Hopson had

saved his life during an earlier flight,

wrote a tribute that appeared in The 

St. Louis Times on October 20, 1928:

It was a dark, rainy, cloudy day on 

the New York end of the air mail. No 

planes through in two days. I wanted to 

get home to my family in California. 

I insisted on going. It wasn’t bravery 

— it was dumb ignorance, and an 

unlimited confidence in all air mail pilots.

“We will try to get through if you 

insist,” Pilot W.P. Hopson said. And we 

got through, clear to Cleveland. 

Thursday he didn’t get through. 

I kinder feel like his skill saved my life. 

So “Hoppie,” Old Boy, here's hoping 

you are piloting the best cloud the 

Boss has got in his hangar up there, 

and you don’t have to worry about 

low ceiling, engine missing, head 

winds, or even whether the old rip 

cord will pull in case —. 

Yours,

Will Rogers

Airmail Pilot Bill Hopson

32 The United States Postal Service
Mr. ZIP

Mr. ZIP was unveiled in October 1962 

during a postmasters’ convention 

as an icon to promote the ZIP Code 

when it was implemented in 1963. 

He quickly became a widely 

recognized postal symbol.

ZIP Code

During World War II, thousands of 

experienced postal employees left to 

serve with the military. To offset the 

loss, in May 1943 the Post Office 

Department began a zoning address 

system in 124 of the largest cities. 

Under this system, delivery units or 

zones were identified by one or two 

numbers between the city and state — 

for example, Birmingham 7, Alabama 

— so that mail could be separated by 

employees who did not have detailed 

scheme knowledge.

Twenty years later, the Department 

implemented an even farther reaching 

plan, the Zoning Improvement Plan 

(ZIP) Code.

The social correspondence of the 

19th century had given way, gradually then explosively, to business mail. 

By 1963, 80 percent of all mail in the 

United States was business mail. The 

development of the computer brought 

centralization of accounts and sent a 

growing mass of utility bills and payments, bank deposits and receipts, 

advertising, magazines, credit card 

transactions, mortgage bills and payments, and Social Security checks 

through the mail. Yet while mail volume grew and while the Post Office 

Department had been at the forefront 

of advances in transportation, the 

methods and much of the equipment 

used to sort mail in thousands of 

Post Offices remained the same as in 

Benjamin Franklin’s day. A better way 

to sort mail was needed. 

In June 1962, after a study of mechanization, the presidentially appointed 

Advisory Board of the Post Office 

Department made several recommendations. One was the development of a 

coding system, an idea the Department 

had considered for a decade or more. 

A number of coding programs were 

examined and discarded before 

the Department selected 

a system advanced by 

Department officials. 

Postmaster General J. 

Edward Day announced 

that the ZIP Code would 

launch July 1, 1963. 

Preparing for the new 

system involved a realignment of 

the mail system. The Post Office 

Department had previously recognized 

that new avenues of transportation 

would open and had begun to establish focal points for air, highway, and 

rail transportation. Called the Metro 

System, these transportation centers 

were set up around 85 of the country’s 

larger cities to deflect mail from congested city streets. The Metro concept 

was expanded and eventually became 

the core of 552 sectional centers, each 

serving between 40 and 150 surrounding Post Offices. 

Once these sectional centers were 

delineated, the next step in establishing the ZIP Code was to assign codes 

to the centers and the postal addresses 

they served. The existence of postal 

zones in the larger cities, set in motion 

in 1943, helped to some extent, but in 

cases where the old zones failed to fit 

within the delivery areas, new numbers 

had to be assigned. 

By July 1963, a five-digit code had 

been assigned to every address throughout the country. The first digit designated a broad geographical area of the 

United States, ranging from zero for 

the Northeast to nine for the far West. 

This number was followed by two digits 

that more closely pinpointed population concentrations and those sectional 

centers accessible to common transportation networks. The final two digits 

designated small Post Offices or postal 

zones in larger zoned cities. 

The ZIP Code began as scheduled. 

At first, use of the new code was not 

mandatory for anyone, but in 1967, the 

Department required mailers of secondand third-class bulk mail to presort by 

ZIP Code. The public and business 

mailers alike adapted 

well to its use. ■

Postmaster General

J. Edward Day

Day launched the ZIP Code on 

July 1, 1963.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 33
New Deal Art: Eager and Alive

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New

Deal sponsored several art programs

to help get people back to work and

restore confidence in a nation facing

25 percent unemployment in 1933.

From 1934 to 1943, the New

Deal murals and sculpture seen in

Post Offices were produced under

the Treasury Department’s Section of

Painting and Sculpture, later called

the Section of Fine Arts. Unlike the

Works Progress Administration/

Federal Art Project, with which it often

is confused, this program was not

directed toward providing economic

relief. Instead, the art placed in Post

Offices was intended to help boost

the morale of people suffering the

effects of the Great Depression with

art that, in the words of President

Roosevelt, was:

native, human, eager and alive 

— all of it painted by their own kind in 

their own country, and painted about 

things they know and look at often and 

have touched and loved.40

Artists competed anonymously in

national and regional contests. After

receiving a commission, an artist

was encouraged to consult with the

postmaster and other townspeople

to ensure that the subject would be

meaningful. In 2006, more than 1,150

Post Offices across the continental

United States continued to house

this uniquely American art for people

to enjoy as they go about their daily

lives.

Winter Landscape

Canton, Missouri

Artist Jessie Hull Mayer painted 

Winter Landscape in oil and tempera 

for the Canton, Missouri, Post Office, 

located at 500 Lewis Street, where 

it still can be seen. The mural was 

installed in 1940, with restoration 

work done in 1971 and 2005.

34 The United States Postal Service
Air Mail

Piggott, Arkansas

Air Mail by painter Daniel Rhodes is 

a nearly 12-foot long work in oil on 

canvas. The public still can see this 

work of art, installed in 1941, when 

they visit the Piggott, Arkansas, Post 

Office, located at 116 North 3rd 

Avenue.

Postman in Storm

Independence, Iowa

The oil on canvas mural, Postman in

Storm, by Robert Tabor might evoke 

empathic shivers from visitors to the 

Independence, Iowa, Post Office at 

200 2nd Avenue, Northeast. The 

mural was installed in January 1938 

and restored in 2000.

Indian Bear Dance

Truth or Consequences,

New Mexico

Installed in 1938, Indian Bear Dance, 

painted by Boris Deutsch, is a 12-foot 

long, oil on canvas mural located in 

the Geronimo Retail Unit, 300 Main 

Street, Truth or Consequences, New 

Mexico, Post Office. The retail unit 

is open 24 hours a day for postal 

customers and visitors interested in 

New Deal art.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 35
Post Office 

Names

The Beaufort Post Office was 

one of the ten largest Post 

Offices in South Carolina when 

this photograph was taken in 

the 1860s.

Historically, local communities suggested the name for their Post

Offices, subject to the approval of the

Post Office Department. The sources

of some Post Office names are lost

to history; there are no postal records

on name origins. Often Post Offices

were named after the town they

served; sometimes they were named

after the first postmaster. Many Post

Office names changed over time.

For example, the name of the Joliet,

Illinois, Post Office was originally

Juliet, then Romeo, then Juliet again

before being changed to Joliet.

At first, unique names for Post

Offices were not mandatory. The

1825 United States Official Register 

lists many instances of two Post

Offices with the same name in the

same state. Some states had three

Post Offices with the same name

— for example, three Bloomfields

in Ohio and three Washingtons in

Pennsylvania.

By the 1840s, the utility of unique

names was officially recognized.

Instructions on the application to

establish a Post Office read:

The name of the candidate for 

postmaster should not be applied 

as the name of a post office. It is 

preferable to have some LOCAL or 

PERMANENT name, which must not 

be the name of any other office in the 

State; and you should aim to select a 

name not appropriated to any office in 

the United States.41

Despite these instructions, many

new Post Offices were named after the

first postmaster. In one 15-year period

in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, 9

out of 20 new Post Offices were given

the postmaster’s first or last name or

some variant.

Meanwhile, Post Office names too

similar to each other continued to

create confusion. In 1852 Vermont,

mail for Saint Johnsbury East and

Saint Johnsbury Centre often went

to Saint Johnsbury, causing delays.

Instructions in the 1880s addressed

this problem, specifying short names

for offices which would “not resemble

the name of any other post office in

the United States.”42 In the 1890s, the

instructions were relaxed, calling for

names dissimilar to “any other post

office in the State.”43

Between 1850 and 1890 the

number of Post Offices increased

from 18,417 to 62,401. Inconsistent

geographic names were deemed

“a serious and growing evil in the

publications of the Government.”44

On September 4, 1890, President

Benjamin Harrison created the United

States Board on Geographic Names

to settle questions regarding place

names and to induce uniformity. In

its first annual report, issued in 1892,

the Board singled out the Post Office

Department as one of many sources

of confusion, citing the “thousands of

cases where the name of the postoffice does not conform to the local

name of the place.” The Board outlined 13 guiding principles in assigning names, including a preference

for locally-accepted names; avoiding

the possessive form and the words

“city” and “town;” using “burg” over

“burgh,” “boro” over “borough,” and

“center” over “centre;” and choosing

one-word names where possible.

On February 13, 1891, Postmaster

General John Wanamaker ordered

postal employees to follow the

Board’s decisions whenever possible,

and two more orders in the 1890s

reiterated this. As a result, thousands

of Post Office names were shortened

in the 1890s. Perhaps to calm fears

of sweeping name changes, in his

1896 Annual Report the Postmaster

General stated that “in the selection of new names the Department

rule of short, single names is strictly

adhered to, but changes of names

are not [normally] authorized... at

offices of long standing.” Some communities successfully lobbied to have

the earlier form of their name reinstated. For example, the Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, Post Office lost its “h” in

1894, but regained it in 1911.

National Archives and Records Administration

36 The United States Postal Service

NORMAL, AL n EEK, AK n SNOWFLAKE, AZ n EVENING SHADE, AR n ROUGH AND READY, CA n YELLOW JACKET, CO n COS COB, CT 

NEVERSINK, NY n TOAST, NC n ANTLER, ND n PUT IN BAY, OH n GENE AUTRY, OK n SUBLIMITY, OR n BIRD IN HAND, PA n HOPE, RI n 
The Postal Operations Manual,

as revised through August 2006,

required a Post Office to normally

bear the official name of the town or

community it serves.

In 2006, the ten most common

Post Office names were:

Clinton (26)

Franklin (25)

Madison (25)

Washington (25)

Chester (23)

Marion (23)

Greenville (22)

Springfield (22)

Georgetown (21)

Salem (21)

Facility Names

In 1998, the Paterson, New Jersey,

Post Office was designated the

“Larry Doby Post Office,” honoring

the Hall of Fame outfielder who was

the first African American to play

baseball in the American League. In

2003, a Chicago postal facility was

designated the “Cesar Chavez Post

Office,” honoring civil rights leader

Cesar E. Chavez. Since at least 1967

some postal facilities have been

named in honor of individuals — usually by Congress and sometimes by

the Postal Service. About one in six

public laws passed by the 108th

Congress (2003-2004) concerned

the naming of a postal facility in

honor of an individual. This name

applies to the building that houses

the Post Office, not to the Post

Office itself.

The Postal Operations Manual

specifies that the Postal Service

may name a postal facility after an

individual “only with the approval of

the Postmaster General and only if

the individual has been deceased for

at least ten years, with the exception of deceased U.S. Presidents,

Postmasters General, or former members of the [Postal Service’s] Board of

Governors.” These restrictions do not

apply to individuals honored by acts

of Congress.

Some have been simple rustic buildings (Deansboro, New York, 

1931) ...

... while others have inhabited small-town storefronts 

(Childersburg, Alabama, 1941) ...

... and a few have stretched over entire city blocks (New York, 

New York, circa 1915).

Post Office Buildings: All Shapes and Sizes

The architectural style of Post Offices has been as varied as the 

communities they serve. 

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 37

UNITY, ME n BORING, MD n SANDWICH, MA n WOLVERINE, MI n ROLLINGSTONE, MN n ALLIGATOR, MS n ROCKY COMFORT, MO n HEART BUTTE, MT n FRIEND, NE n JACKPOT, NV n BATH, NH n HO HO KUS, NJ n LOCO HILLS, NM

ROUND O, SC n TEA, SD n SODDY DAISY, TN n KNICKERBOCKER, TX n MEXICAN HAT, UT n JAMAICA, VT n ORDINARY, VA n PE ELL, WA n AMIGO, WV n CORNUCOPIA, WI n TEN SLEEP, WY n

n BEAR, DE n FROSTPROOF, FL n TY TY, GA n CAPTAIN HOOK, HI n DEARY, ID n CAVE IN ROCK, IL n SANTA CLAUS, IN n EARLY, IA n PROTECTION, KS n FANCY FARM, KY n CUT OFF, LA n
By the mid-1960s, the Post Office 

Department had deep problems 

due to years of financial neglect 

and fragmented control in the areas of 

facilities, equipment, wages and management efficiency. Highly subsidized rates 

bore little relation to costs.

In October 1966, the Chicago Post 

Office ground to a virtual halt under a 

mountain of mail. In less than a week, 

the logjam was broken, but so was confidence in the status quo.

During February 1967 hearings 

before the House Appropriations 

Subcommittee on Treasury-Post 

Office, Postmaster General Lawrence F. 

O’Brien said that the Department was 

in a “race with catastrophe.” O’Brien 

described the crisis:

At the peak of the crisis in Chicago, ten 

million pieces of mail were logjammed. The 

sorting room floors were bursting with more 

than 5 million letters, parcels, circulars, 

and magazines that could not be processed. 

Outbound mail sacks formed small grey 

mountain ranges while they waited to be 

shipped out.

Our new and beleaguered Chicago postmaster summed it up pretty well when he 

said: “We had mail coming out of our ears.”

What happened in Chicago to cause the 

crisis? The answer is not that something specific happened in 1966, but that enough did 

not happen in the previous 33 years. ... we 

are trying to move our mail through facilities largely unchanged since the days of 

Jim Farley when our mail volume was 30 

percent of what it is today.45

After O’Brien spoke, Oklahoma 

Congressman Tom Steed, chairman of 

the subcommittee, asked:

... would this be a fair summary: that at 

the present time, as the manager of the Post 

Office Department, you have no control over 

your workload, you have no control over the 

rates of revenue, you have no control over the 

pay rates of the employees that you employ, 

you have very little control over the conditions 

of the service of these employees; you have virtually no control, by the nature of it, of your 

physical facilities and you have only a limited control, at best, over the transportation 

facilities that you are compelled to use — all 

of which adds up to a staggering amount of 

“no control” in terms of the duties you have 

to perform.46

The answer was yes. Congress, 

the President, and the Post Office 

Department moved to improve this 

situation.

Reform Proposal 

In [April] 1967, President Lyndon B. 

Johnson appointed a Commission on Postal 

Reorganization, chaired by AT&T’s 

Frederick R. Kappel, to 

“determine whether the 

postal system as presently organized is 

capable of meeting 

Postal Reorganization

The Chicago Post Office

For a week in October 1966, the 

Chicago Post Office, at that time the 

largest Post Office in the world with 

60 acres of floor space, ground to a 

virtual halt under a logjam of 10 million 

pieces of mail. This crisis triggered a 

bipartisan look at postal reform.

38 The United States Postal Service
the demands of our growing economy and our 

expanding population.” In June 1968, the 

Commission found that it was not.

The men who reached that conclusion 

included six heads of major corporations; the 

dean of the Harvard Business School; two 

prominent Democrats; and the President of 

the AFL-CIO. Their view ... was that “the 

procedures for administering the ordinary 

executive departments of Government are 

inappropriate for the Post Office.”

Having rejected political management, 

the Kappel Commission was equally clear 

in rejecting privatization. Leaving the door 

open for future consideration, its report 

said that “[T]ransfer of the postal system to 

the private sector is not feasible, largely for 

reasons of financing; the Post Office should 

therefore continue under government ownership. The possibility remains of private ownership at some future time, if such a transfer 

were then considered to be feasible and in the 

public interest.”

The Commission recommended:

A self-supporting government 

corporation.

Elimination of patronage, which 

controlled all top jobs, all Postmaster 

appointments, and thousands of other 

positions.

That rates be set by a Board of 

Directors “after hearings by expert Rate 

Commissioners ... subject to veto by 

concurrent resolution of the Congress.”

That labor-management impasses 

over contracts and pay be referred to 

the President, who “would be free to 

establish whatever ad hoc methods he 

chooses to resolve the matter. The uncertainties for both parties... make for 

more meaningful bargaining and are, 

in our view, a source of strength.” 47

The commission released its recommendations in June 1968. President 

Richard M. Nixon supported the 

commission’s recommendations; others, including postal union leaders, 

opposed it.

Postal Reorganization Act

On March 12, 1970, after extensive hearings, the House Post Office and Civil 

Service Committee reported a compromise measure containing provisions 

similar to the commission proposals 

endorsed by President Nixon. The bill 

included a 5.4 percent retroactive pay 

raise and a system that would allow 

employees to reach the top of their pay 

grade in 8 rather than 21 years. Postal 

employees called it too little, too late.

On March 18, a work stoppage 

began. It ultimately involved 152,000 

postal employees in 671 locations. The 

President ordered the Army to deliver 

the mail, and the unions asked Labor 

Secretary George Shultz to intervene. 

Postmaster General Winton M. Blount 

agreed to negotiate when the employees 

returned to work. They did, and negotiations began March 25. Eight days later, 

the negotiating parties recommended 

a general wage increase of six percent, 

retroactive to December 27, 1969, for all 

federal employees. Postal workers would 

get an additional eight percent increase 

if there was agreement on, and enactment of, legislation reorganizing the 

Post Office Department.

On April 16, 1970, after continuing negotiations, the Department and 

union leaders announced agreement 

on a reorganization plan, which was 

embodied in a legislative proposal and 

sent to Congress by President Nixon. 

The plan included four provisions that 

Postmaster General Blount saw as necessary: adequate financing authority, 

removal of the system from politics to 

assure continuity of management, collective bargaining, and setting of rates 

by the Postal Service after an opportunity for hearings before an impartial 

rate panel. In addition to the eight 

percent pay increase, the bill provided 

for negotiation of a new wage schedule 

permitting employees to reach the top 

of their pay grade in eight years. 

On August 3, 1970, by a vote of 57 

to 7, the Senate approved the conference report on House Resolution 17070, 

a modified version of the legislation 

proposed by the President. Three days 

later, the House of Representatives 

approved it. On August 12, 1970, 

President Nixon signed into law 

the most comprehensive postal legislation since the founding of the 

Republic, Public Law 91-375, the Postal 

Reorganization Act. ■

Postal Reorganization Act 

of 1970

As Postmaster General Winton M. 

Blount (far left) watched, President 

Richard M. Nixon signed the 

Postal Reorganization Act into 

law on August 12, 1970. The 

act transformed the Post Office 

Department into the United States 

Postal Service.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 39
The Post Office Department was 

transformed into the United 

States Postal Service, an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the 

United States. The mission of the Postal 

Service remained the same, as stated in 

Title 39 of the U.S. Code:

The Postal Service shall have as its basic 

function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the 

personal, educational, literary, and business 

correspondence of the people. It shall provide 

prompt, reliable, and efficient services to 

patrons in all areas and shall render postal 

services to all communities.

The new Postal Service officially 

began operations on July 1, 1971, when 

the Postmaster General ceased to be a 

member of the President’s Cabinet. The 

Postal Service received:

Operational authority vested in a 

Board of Governors and Postal Service 

executive management, rather than in 

Congress.

Authority to issue public bonds to 

finance postal buildings and mechanization.

Direct collective bargaining between 

representatives of management and the 

unions.

A new rate-setting procedure, built 

around an independent Postal Rate 

Commission.

The Postal Reorganization Act 

changed the United States postal system 

in many ways.

Finances and rates

The act established an independent 

Postal Rate Commission of five members, appointed by the U.S. President 

with the advice and consent of the 

U.S. Senate, to recommend postal rates 

and mail classifications for adoption 

by the Postal Service Governors. It 

authorized the Postal Service to borrow 

money from the general public and 

phased out the general public service 

subsidy, which the Postal Service ended 

earlier than required, last accepting an 

operational subsidy in 1982. It also 

authorized appropriations to reimburse 

the Postal Service for carrying congressionally established categories of free 

and reduced-rate mail and required that 

rates for each class of mail cover direct 

and indirect costs attributable to that 

class, plus a portion of institutional 

costs.

Personnel

The act established a postal career 

service, a framework that permits terms 

and conditions of employment to be 

set through collective bargaining. It also 

prohibited political recommendations 

for appointments within the Postal 

Service. The Civil Service retirement 

program was retained.

Labor-management relations

The act authorized collective bargaining 

on wages and working conditions 

under laws applying to private industry 

and provided for binding arbitration if 

an impasse persists 180 days after the 

start of bargaining. The ban on strikes, 

applicable to all federal employees, 

remained. The act authorized the 

National Labor Relations Board to 

determine proper bargaining units, 

supervise representative elections, 

and enforce the unfair labor practices 

provisions. It also protected the rights 

of all employees to form, join, or assist 

a labor organization or to refrain from 

such activity.

Transportation

The act generally extended existing laws 

governing transportation of mail, while 

providing some additional flexibility. 

The distinctions between various 

categories of motor carriers, previously 

contracted by the Post Office 

Department, were eliminated. The Civil 

Aeronautics Board retained authority to 

regulate rates for airmail transportation, 

United States Postal Service

40 The United States Postal Service
but the Postal Service also was granted 

limited authority to contract directly 

with the airlines for air transportation 

services.

Pay

The act specified that the Postal Service 

would maintain compensation and 

benefits for its officers and employees 

comparable to that offered by the private sector for similar work. However, 

the act mandated that no officer or 

employee be paid compensation at a 

rate higher than a Cabinet officer.

Postal Mechanization and Early 

Automation

At the turn of the 20th century, despite 

growing mail volume and limited work 

space, the Post Office Department relied 

on antiquated mailhandling methods, 

such as the pigeonhole method from 

colonial times. Although crude sorting 

machines were proposed by inventors of canceling machines in the early 

1900s and tested in the 1920s, the Great 

Depression and World War II postponed 

widespread development of mechanization until the mid-1950s. 

Rates for Domestic Letters

Before the middle of the 19th

century, rates were based on the

number of sheets in a letter and

the distance it was traveling. In

1845, rates were based on weight

and distance. Beginning in 1863,

domestic letter rates became

“uniform,” that is, they were

based solely on weight, regardless of distance.

(Postage listed below is in cents.)

Effective Date Per 1/2 Ounce

March 3, 1863	 3

March 3, 1883	 2

Per Ounce

July 1, 1885	 2

November 3, 1917	 3

July 1, 1919	 2

July 6, 1932	 3

August 1, 1958	 4

January 7, 1963	 5

January 7, 1968	 6

May 16, 1971	 8

March 2, 1974	 10

First Ounce Each Additional Ounce

September 14, 1975	 10	 9

December 31, 1975	 13	 11

May 29, 1978	 15	 13

March 22, 1981	 18	 17

November 1, 1981	 20	 17

February 17, 1985	 22	 17

April 3, 1988	 25	 20

February 3, 1991	 29	 23

January 1, 1995	 32	 23

January 10, 1999	 33	 22

January 7, 2001	 34	 21

July 1, 2001	 34	 23

June 30, 2002	 37	 23

January 8, 2006	 39	 24

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 41
In 1956, the Post Office Department 

began intense research on coding systems used in 13 other countries and 

began to work with the U.S. Bureau of 

Standards and the Rabinow Engineering 

Company, among others, to develop a 

system best suited to U.S. postal needs. 

They examined codes for extracting 

information and the memory core needed by automated letter sorting machines.

The Post Office Department also initiated projects and awarded contracts to 

develop a number of machines and technologies, including letter sorters, facercancelers, automatic address readers, 

parcel sorters, advanced tray conveyors, 

flat sorters, and letter mail coding and 

stamp-tagging techniques.

The first semiautomatic parcel 

sorting machine was introduced in 

Baltimore in 1956. A year later, a foreign-built multiposition letter sorting 

machine (MPLSM), the Transorma, was 

installed and tested for the first time in 

an American Post Office.

The first American-built letter 

sorter, based on a 1,000-pocket machine 

adapted from a foreign design, was 

developed during the late 1950s. The 

first production contract was awarded 

to the Burroughs Corporation for ten 

machines. The machine was successfully 

tested in Detroit in 1959 and eventually 

became the backbone of letter sorting 

operations during the 1960s and 70s. In 

1959, the Post Office Department also 

awarded its first volume order for mechanization to Pitney-Bowes, Inc., for the 

production of 75 Mark II facer-cancelers. 

The Department’s accelerated mechanization program began in the late 

1960s and consisted of semiautomatic 

equipment such as the MPLSM, the 

single position letter sorting machine 

(SPLSM), and the facer-canceler. In 

November 1965, the Department put 

a high-speed optical character reader 

(OCR) into service in the Detroit Post 

Office. This first-generation machine 

was connected to an MPLSM frame 

and read the city/state/ZIP Code line 

of typed addresses to sort letters to one 

of 277 pockets. Subsequent handlings 

of the letter required that the address be 

read again. 

Mechanization increased productivity. By the mid-1970s, however, it was 

clear that cheaper, more efficient methods and equipment were needed if the 

Postal Service was to offset rising costs 

associated with growing mail volume. 

By 1972, the Postal Service had begun to 

Gehring Mail Distributing 

Machine, Washington, D.C., 

1922

Clerks tested new letter sorting 

equipment to help speed mail service.

42 The United States Postal Service
City Letter Carriers, 

Mobile, Alabama, 1956

City carriers sorted mail into delivery 

sequence by hand until the 

late 20th century.

examine how to sort mail in the order 

a letter carrier would deliver it. In 1978, 

the Postal Service also began to develop 

an expanded ZIP Code to reduce the 

number of mailpiece handlings. 

The new code required new equipment. In September 1982, the first 

computer-driven, single-line OCR was 

installed in Los Angeles. The equipment 

required a letter to be read only once 

at the originating office by an OCR, 

which printed a barcode on the envelope. At the destination Post Office, 

a less expensive barcode sorter (BCS) 

sorted the mail by reading its barcode. 

The Postal Service had begun to 

develop an expanded ZIP Code of

four add-on digits that would speed 

processing when coupled with new 

automation equipment capable of 

sorting mail to small geographic segments, such as city blocks or a single 

building. Following the introduction 

of this ZIP+4 code in 1983, the first 

delivery phase of the new single-line 

OCR channel sorters and BCSs was 

completed by mid-1984. By the end 

of 1984, 252 OCRs were installed in 

118 major mail processing centers 

across the country and were processing an average of 6,200 pieces of mail 

per workhour — a substantial increase 

compared to the 1,750 pieces per work 

hour processed by MPLSMs.

ZIP+4 Code

The ZIP+4 code added a hyphen and 

four digits to the existing five-digit ZIP 

Code. The first five numbers continued 

to identify an area of the country and 

delivery office to which mail is directed. 

The sixth and seventh numbers denoted 

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 43
Automated Equipment

Top: Delivery barcode sorter and 

its crew of two, 1992. One person 

feeds in stacks of letters, the other 

“sweeps” out sorted letters into trays 

in delivery order. 

Middle: Letters zip through modern 

sorting equipment at the rate of ten 

letters per second, 2003.

Bottom: The input subsystem on a 

delivery barcode sorter tags mail that 

needs further processing at a remote 

encoding center, circa 1997.

a delivery sector, which may be several 

blocks, a group of streets, a group of 

Post Office boxes, several office buildings, a single high-rise office building, 

a large apartment building or a small 

geographic area. The last two numbers 

denoted a delivery segment, which 

might be one floor of an office building, one side of a street between intersecting streets, specific departments in a 

firm, or specific Post Office boxes.

On October 1, 1983, the Governors 

of the Postal Service approved price 

incentives for First-Class Mail bearing 

the ZIP+4 Code. 

The Automation Age

An expanding delivery network — with 

up to two million new addresses added 

annually — and uncertain revenue 

growth continually challenge the Postal 

Service to operate more efficiently. Its 

Corporate Automation Plan, approved 

in 1988, was considered the “cornerstone to achieving quality mail service 

at reduced costs,” since mail can be 

processed using automation equipment at one-tenth the cost of manual 

processing.48 The Postal Service delivered 32 percent more mail with nearly 

9 percent fewer employees in 2006 

compared to 1988, largely because of 

its successful implementation of mail 

processing technology.

Sorting Letters Better

Letters account for the greatest amount 

of mail volume — about 73 percent 

in 2006 — so the Postal Service first 

focused on automating the processing 

of letters. In the 1990s, new generations 

of equipment and technology dramatically speeded up letter processing.

By 1989, multiline optical character 

readers had replaced single-line optical 

character readers, allowing equipment 

to read and barcode letters without 

a ZIP+4 code so this mail could be 

sorted on high-speed barcode sorters 

to the individual carriers who would 

deliver the mail. In 1991, BCSs were 

retrofitted so they could scan a wider 

area on a piece of mail to find the 

barcodes, essentially anywhere on the 

envelope face. This gave mailers more 

flexibility in designing their mail, placing their barcodes, and being able to 

barcode letters as they addressed them, 

saving mailers time as well. Previously, 

barcodes had been restricted to the 

lower right hand corner of each piece 

of mail.

In 1991, the Postal Service offered 

discounted rates to mailers who prebarcoded their mail, which then could 

bypass multiline OCRs, saving the 

Postal Service time and money — savings passed on to the mailers. These 

discounts helped the percentage of mail 

with customer-applied barcodes jump 

from just 7 percent in 1990 to 59 percent in 2000. 

Throughout the 1990s, advanced 

facer-canceler systems (AFCSs) were 

deployed. These systems face (orient) 

and cancel 30,000 pieces of mail per 

hour — nearly twice as much as the older 

Mark II facer-cancelers they replaced. 

AFCSs sort mail by address type (script, 

barcoded, and machine imprinted) for 

routing to proper equipment. In 2002 

and 2003, nearly one-third of AFCSs 

were modified with video facing units, 

which use images to orient letters, avoiding manual processing of letters which 

cannot be oriented in the normal way, 

that is, by looking for special ink in the 

stamp or postage area. Each major processing facility was given at least one of 

these enhanced AFCSs.

In 2005, all 1,086 AFCSs were given 

video facing units and were upgraded 

with OCRs so they could identify the 

five-digit destination ZIP Code on each 

letter. Advanced facer-cancelers were 

also upgraded with doubles detectors so 

the Postal Service could reduce rehandling mail that stuck together as it went 

through equipment. That same year, a 

switch was made to ink jet cancelers, 

which included a time stamp, allowed 

different messages, and were easier 

to use and maintain than previous 

mechanical cancelers. 

To take letter mail processing to the 

next level — sorting it automatically to 

the customer level — the Postal Service 

lengthened the nine-digit ZIP+4 code 

by two digits in 1990. These additional 

digits represent specific addresses, 

called “delivery points.” First tested 

in 1991, barcodes representing these 

delivery points enable equipment to 

sort letters into trays in delivery order, 

so carriers can get out on the street to 

deliver mail more quickly. The Postal 

44 The United States Postal Service
Service retrofitted existing equipment 

to sort mail to delivery points and, in 

late 1991, deployed the first delivery 

barcode sorters. Since then, the Postal 

Service has installed more than 8,900 

delivery barcode sorters and carrier 

sequence barcode sorters (smaller units 

with a similar function used since 

1995). By 1998, these machines had 

almost completely replaced the old 

multi-position letter sorting machines. 

Today, letter mail arrives in trays in the 

order of delivery to almost all city carriers and more than 75 percent of rural 

carriers. 

The remote barcoding system, first 

tested in Tampa, Florida, in 1992, provides the Postal Service with a means 

to apply barcodes to mail that cannot be processed by multiline optical 

character readers (MLOCRs) when the 

print quality of an address is poor or 

the handwriting difficult to read. The 

MLOCRs were modified to include 

a video encoding feature that sends 

an image of an illegible address to a 

remote computer reader (RCR) or a 

data conversion operator at a remote 

encoding center, without removing the 

mail from the processing plant. Since 

1996, advanced facer-cancelers have 

captured and sent images of handwritten addresses. If the RCR cannot 

decipher the address, an operator at 

the center reads the address and keys 

in the information so the piece can be 

barcoded for proper sorting. 

The number of remote encoding 

centers peaked by 1997, when 23,000 

employees at 55 centers nationwide 

keyed in address information to barcode about 24 billion letters. The 

number of centers began declining 

just two years later, in 1999, as more 

prebarcoded letters entered the mailstream. Better technology also had 

improved incrementally the address 

recognition rates of the MLOCRs 

and RCRs. For example, in 1997 

MLOCRs received new gray scale 

cameras, and RCRs received new 

handwriting analysis software, which 

helped both machines decipher more 

addresses. In 1998, the Postal Service 

nationally deployed new software that 

enabled MLOCRs to read more than 

50 percent of addresses. In 1999, for 

the first time, the number of MLOCRCarrier Sequence Barcode 

Sorter, 2004

An operator sweeps mail from the 

sorter’s output bins, at his left, to the 

machine’s feeder belt, at his right, 

for another pass through the sorter. 

The output of the next pass will be 

sorted to more specific neighborhood 

locations.

generated barcodes exceeded the number applied by the remote barcoding 

system.

Between 1997 and 2003, the percentage of machine-readable handwritten addresses jumped from less than 

2 percent to about 80 percent. Along 

with other advances, improved address 

recognition increased letter mail productivity in processing plants by nearly 

50 percent from 1993 to 2001.

Since 2000, the Postal Service has 

worked to increase the thickness and 

weight of mail that can be processed 

on automation equipment. In 2000, the 

eight percent of letter mail that still had 

to be processed manually accounted 

for half of the labor cost for processing letters. That year, the Postal Service 

installed six prototype delivery barcode 

sorter expanded capability machines at 

three processing plants. Expanded capability machines process a wider range of 

letter mail, from flimsy to thick, heavy 

pieces, that postal workers previously 

sorted by hand. Carrier sequence barcode sorters received additional stackers 

in 2001 and 2002, allowing machines 

to sort to a greater number of delivery 

points on a route.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 45
In 2000, the Postal Service also 

began to deploy state-of-the-art DIOSS 

systems (delivery input/output subsystem barcode sorters), an upgraded delivery barcode sorter. With up to 302 bins 

to receive mail — five times more than 

the equipment it replaced — DIOSS 

can provide a finer, more localized sort, 

reducing the number of handlings and 

accelerating delivery times. Around 

the same time, identification code sort 

systems were added to barcode sorters, so the machines could sort mail, if 

need be, using the fluorescent barcodes 

sprayed on the backs of envelopes by 

the remote barcoding system to identify 

mailpieces. This saved two additional 

passes through sorting machines to reOperators Feed AFSM 100 ... 

Operators put stacks of verticallyaligned flats (oversize mail) into 

feeders. The flats travel one at a time 

through feeders, OCRs, and buffers 

to the injectors, which insert the flats, 

one-by-one, into cartridges.

barcode mail when address barcodes 

were unreadable.

In 2005, the Postal Service completed deployment of more than 9,000 

wide-field-of-view cameras, which 

replaced aging wide area barcode readers. The newer cameras read a barcode 

virtually anywhere on the front of an 

envelope as well as information-based 

indicia codes such as “electronic postage” and barcodes on certified mail. 

In 2004, to increase its efficiency 

in handling undeliverable-as-addressed 

(UAA) letter mail, the Postal Service 

began deploying the postal automated 

redirection system (PARS) to processing 

plants nationwide. PARS automates the 

handling of UAA letter mail, reducing the number of times it needs to be 

handled and the costs of processing it 

by intercepting portions of this mail 

46 The United States Postal Service
earlier in the sorting process. PARS also 

automates the processing of change 

of address forms and provides two 

revenue-generating services: electronic 

notification to mailers who subscribe 

to the address change service, and hard 

copy notification to mailers who add 

an endorsement to their mail. 

Processing Flats 

Building on the success of its letter 

automation program, the Postal Service 

began to automate the processing of 

flats. Largely comprised of catalogs, 

magazines, and oversize envelopes, 

flats make up nearly 30 percent of the 

mailstream. 

In 1982, the Postal Service deployed 

its first flat sorting machine (FSM), the 

FSM 775. Previously, all flats had been 

processed manually. With four operators keying in part of the ZIP Code, 

the FSM 775 could sort about 6,200 

flats per hour into 100 bins. The FSM 

881, introduced ten years later in 1992, 

could sort about 10,000 flats per hour 

with four operators.

In 1996, FSM 1000s were introduced to handle the one out of four 

flats that could not go through the 

FSM 881s, including newspapers, polywrapped material, and flats weighing 

more than 20 ounces. In 1998, the 

Postal Service began upgrading flat sorting machines, adding barcode readers 

to FSM 1000s and optical character 

readers to FSM 881s. Beginning in 

2002, automated flats feeders and optical character readers were added to the 

FMS 1000s, improving the machines’ 

throughputs and reducing the number 

of people required to staff them. 

The first fully automated flat sorting machine (AFSM 100) was installed 

... Up To 300,000 Flats Per Day

Inside the AFSM 100, cartidges 

transport flats up an inclined conveyor 

(shown at far left) to output bins, 

where flats are sorted to specific 

geographic locations based on their 

barcode, 2005.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 47
in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1999. Each 

AFSM can process 300,000 flats a day, 

almost three times as many as the 

equipment it replaced. The AFSM 100 

has a video encoding feature that sends 

images of unreadable addresses to the 

remote barcoding sytem for barcoding, without removing the mail from 

mailstream. Widescale deployment of 

AFSM 100s was completed in 2002 

with 534 systems installed at 240 mail 

processing facilities nationwide.

In 2004, the Postal Service began 

to install a system called flat ID code 

sort on all AFSM 100s. It tags each 

flat with a special identification code. 

Subsequent operations to sort the 

flats use these ID tags. Beginning in 

2005, automatic induction systems 

and automatic tray handling systems 

were added to AFSM 100s, saving 

even more manual labor. Automatic 

induction systems feed flats into the 

machine, and tray handling systems 

automatically label and offload full 

trays of sorted mail and reload the 

machine with empty trays. 

By 2005, flats productivity had 

nearly doubled in processing facilities, 

with about 80 percent of flats processed 

on the AFSM 100, but time spent sorting flats at delivery offices remained the 

same. Letter carriers spent an average 

of three hours a day sorting their mail 

into delivery order. Unlike most letters, 

flats did not arrive in delivery order. In 

the late 1990s, the Postal Service began 

to explore ways to sort flats into delivery order or “carrier walk” sequence. In 

April 2006, a prototype flats sequencing 

system was installed in Indianapolis for 

field testing. 

Sorting Flats

Postal Service employees load flats 

into an AFSM 100 for sorting, 2001.

48 The United States Postal Service
Processing Parcels

The Postal Service also has turned its 

attention to speeding up the processing 

of parcels, which make up a little over 

one percent of mail volume. Small parcel and bundle sorters were introduced 

in 1988, mechanizing one of the most 

labor-intensive operations in the Postal 

Service. The small parcel and bundle 

sorter uses a conveyor system with four 

to six induction stations where operators face and key mail based on ZIP 

Code. Then, conveyors transport the 

mail to specific bins for delivery or 

further processing. Beginning in 1999, 

feed systems were added to the sorters, 

reducing labor costs. 

In 1992, the Postal Service began 

to deploy package barcode sorting 

systems to process prebarcoded parcels 

and to apply barcoded labels to nonbarcoded parcels. In 2001, singulate, 

scan, and induction units were introduced. These units send parcels, one 

by one, through a unit that measures 

and weighs them, and then through 

a scanning tunnel that reads the barcode. Next, parcels are fed automatically onto the sorter at a rate of more 

than 5,000 per hour. 

In 2004 the Postal Service began 

to deploy the automated package 

processing system (APPS), which uses 

an OCR/barcode reader/video coding 

system to sort more packages more 

quickly. Deployment of the APPS, 

which can process up to 9,500 parcels 

per hour, continued through 2006. 

Automating Mail Handling and 

Acceptance

The Postal Service has used automation 

not only to sort mail but also to move 

containers of mail in processing plants 

and to verify the preparation of large 

mailings that can receive discounts. 

In 1996, the Board of Governors 

approved funds to integrate robotics into major mail processing plants. 

In 1997, the Postal Service started to 

deploy 100 robotic tray handling systems, automating the sorting and loading of trayed letter mail to containers or 

pallets for transportation. In 2000 and 

2001, 100 gantry robots were deployed 

— essentially arms running along overhead tracks that can distribute tubs and 

trays of mail. 

In 1998, the Postal Service began 

using ABE (automation barcode evaluator) systems to help ensure that large 

mailings had clear, readable barcodes 

so they could be processed efficiently. 

In 2001, the Postal Service introduced 

MERLIN (mailing evaluation readability lookup instrument) to further 

automate the labor-intensive process of 

evaluating bulk mailings for discount 

eligibility. In addition to analyzing barcodes, MERLIN can analyze mail size 

and weight and produce the necessary 

reports for mail acceptance. MERLIN 

samples all mailings of more than 

10,000 pieces and some smaller bulk 

mailings.

Robotic Arm, 1999 

The Postal Service began integrating 

robotics into its mail handling in 1997.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 49
Automated Postal Center 

(APC), 2004

The Postal Service installed 2,500 

APCs at postal facilities nationwide 

in 2004. APCs offer customers 

self-service access to most retail 

transactions.

Giving Customers Greater Access

The Postal Service has installed automated equipment in lobbies to better 

serve Post Office customers. In the 

1990s, the focus of this effort was the 

integrated retail terminal (IRT), a computer that incorporates an electronic 

scale. It provides information to customers during a transaction and simplifies postal accounting by consolidating 

data. Postage validation imprinters 

attached to the IRTs produce self-sticking postage labels with a barcode for 

automated processing. 

In 1998, the Postal Service started 

rolling out the POS (point of service) 

ONE system. By 2005, more than 

60,000 retail terminals were installed in 

more than 15,000 facilities nationwide. 

By providing state-of-the-art computer 

technology and connecting retail units 

through phone lines or satellite connections, POS ONE provides real-time 

information and faster, more efficient 

service.

The Postal Service also has taken 

advantage of personal computers 

to help small businesses and home 

office users. In March 1998, the 

Postal Service authorized tests of PC 

Postage. Developed and distributed by 

USPS-approved vendors, PC Postage 

produces information-based indicia 

— digitally-encoded, two-dimensional 

barcodes that postal customers can 

print directly onto envelopes or 

address labels. Users have access to 

postage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 

from their homes or offices. In 2004, 

the Postal Service began market-testing 

Customized Postage, which enables 

customers to personalize PC Postage 

with digital images.

In 2002, the Postal Service 

launched Click-N-Ship on its Web site, 

www.usps.com. Click-N-Ship lets customers create shipping labels, calculate 

and pay postage, and insure packages 

online. In its first six months of operation, customers used the service to 

produce more than one million shipping labels. In January 2006 a mailing 

list feature was added to Click-N-Ship, 

allowing users to create group mailing 

lists and store up to 3,000 addresses. 

In 2004, the Postal Service launched 

the PostalOne! system on its Web site. 

PostalOne! gives business mailers access 

to a streamlined process for mail entry, 

payment, tracking, and reporting.

In 2004, the Postal Service also 

deployed 2,500 mailing kiosks called 

Automated Postal Centers (APCs) 

nationwide. Like ATMs in banks, APCs 

offer customers an alternative to counter service in busy Post Offices, providing self-service mailing with an integrated scale and a touch-screen menu.

Intelligent Mail

Since at least 1999, the Postal Service 

has worked to provide customers with 

more information on each mailpiece 

as it travels through the system. The 

goal is to have an “intelligent mail” 

system in place by 2009. The system 

would operate like a Global Positioning 

System for mail, using a standardized 

barcode on each piece of mail and mail 

container that will enable customers to 

see where their mail is at every step.

Intelligent Mail refers to the capture and sharing of information about 

each mailpiece throughout the system, 

from its point of origin to its destina-

50 The United States Postal Service
tion. Realizing that today’s customers want to know more about their 

mail, in the last seven years the Postal 

Service has increased the transparency 

of its mailstream. 

In March 1999, the Postal Service 

launched Delivery Confirmation service 

to provide customers with the date, 

time, and ZIP Code of delivery for 

Priority Mail and parcels. Customers 

call a toll-free number or visit www.

usps.com. More than 300,000 handheld 

scanners were deployed to letter carriers 

to support Delivery Confirmation service. In 2001, the Postal Service added 

Signature Confirmation, allowing customers to request a copy of the signature of the individual who received the 

mailpiece. In 2006, the Postal Service 

began deploying new handheld scanners that can take a digital image of the 

signature, allowing customers to see it 

the same day. 

In 2002, the Postal Service officially 

launched Confirm service, which provides tracking information to participating letter and flat mailers. Mailers 

print an identifying barcode, known 

as a PLANET Code, on their mail. 

Automated equipment reads the barcode and makes information available 

to the mailer via the Internet on the 

time, place, and operation that handled 

the mail.

In January 2003, the Postal Service 

created the Intelligent Mail and 

Address Quality group, to focus its 

efforts towards developing informationrich mail. The group’s intelligent mail 

plan is based on adopting one information-rich code for each type of mail. 

These will uniquely identify each mailpiece, provide distribution information, 

and point to services such as address 

change, special services, tracking, and 

delivery confirmation. 

In 2003, the Postal Service began 

experimenting with new barcoding 

systems to expand data encoding capacity and, at the same time, reduce space 

occupied on a piece of mail by multiple barcodes. The solution, finalized 

in 2005, was a barcode that uses four 

vertical bar types rather than two. It 

encodes almost three times more information than the current codes. It also 

can consolidate information from both 

the POSTNET and PLANET barcodes 

and has the ability to incorporate many 

other services in the future. The new 

barcode was tested by Confirm service 

users in 2005. Beginning September 1, 

2006, Confirm service subscribers and 

address change service users were given 

the option of using the new barcode, 

with other services to follow as technology evolves. ■

Intelligent Scanning

New handheld scanners, deployed 

in 2006, enable letter carriers to not 

only scan barcodes but also to take a 

digital image of customer signatures 

to share with mailers the same day.

Information-rich Barcode

With four types of vertical bars 

rather than two, the new barcode 

can hold nearly three times as much 

information as previous versions.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 51
The Postal Service Board of Governors

The Board of Governors was established by the Postal Reorganization

Act of August 12, 1970. It is comparable to a board of directors of a private corporation. The Board includes

nine Governors who are appointed

by the President with the advice and

consent of the Senate.

The nine Governors select a

Postmaster General, who becomes a

member of the Board, and those ten

select a Deputy Postmaster General,

who also serves on the Board.

The Postmaster General serves

at the pleasure of the Governors

for an indefinite term. The Deputy

Postmaster General serves at the

pleasure of the Governors and the

Postmaster General.

Originally, Governors of the

Postal Service were appointed

for terms of nine years. In 1970,

when the Board was established,

the first nine appointments were

for staggered terms of one to

nine years. Subsequent appointments were made for a full nine

years or, when vacancies occurred,

for the remainder of the unexpired terms. However, the Postal

Accountability and Enhancement

Act of 2006 changed the terms of

the Governors from nine to seven

years. Each Governor’s term expires

on December 8 of a given year.

Governors can be removed only for

cause.

The Governors are chosen to

represent the public interest and

cannot be representatives of special

interests. Not more than five of the

nine may belong to the same political

party.

The Postmaster General and the

Deputy Postmaster General participate with the Governors on all

matters except for voting on rate or

classification adjustments, adjustments to the budget of the Postal

Regulatory Commission, and elections of the chairman and vice

chairman of the Board. While the

entire Board approves requests to

the independent Postal Regulatory

Commission for changes in rates and

classes of mail, the Governors alone,

upon receiving a recommendation

from the Commission, may approve,

allow under protest, reject, or modify

that recommendation.

The entire Board determines the

dates on which new rates and classification adjustments become effective.

The Board directs the exercise

of the powers of the Postal Service,

directs and controls its expenditures,

reviews its practices, conducts longrange planning, and sets policies on

all postal matters. The Board takes

up matters such as service standards, capital investments, and facilities projects exceeding $25 million. It

also approves officer compensation.

A chairman and a vice chairman

organize and conduct the meetings. The Governors elect the chairman and the vice chairman from

among the members of the Board.

There are four standing committees:

Audit and Finance, Capital Projects,

Compensation and Management

Resources, and Governance and

Strategic Planning.

The Governors employ a fulltime secretary, who serves as the

primary staff assistant to the Board.

The secretary is generally responsible

for coordinating the resources of the

Postal Service so that the Board fulfills

its statutory duties in the most efficient and informed manner possible.

The Board of Governors meets

on a regular basis, generally in

Washington, D.C., but meetings

may be scheduled in some other

city where the members can see

firsthand a Postal Service or large

mailer’s operation.

All meetings are open to the public

unless the Board specifically votes to

close all or part of a meeting in line

with exemptions permitted by the Government

in the Sunshine Act

[5 U.S.C. 552 b (b)].

Post Office Department 

Headquarters, 1899-1934

This granite building on Pennsylvania 

Avenue, not far from the White 

House, was the last to simultaneously 

house both postal Headquarters and 

the Washington, D.C., Post Office. 

Horse-drawn wagons brought mail to 

the building in its early years. By the 

time postal Headquarters moved to 

a larger building, almost all mail was 

carried by motor vehicles.

52 The United States Postal Service
Date Appointed

Theodore W. Braun January 11, 1971

Charles H. Codding January 11, 1971

Patrick E. Haggerty January 11, 1971

Andrew D. Holt January 11, 1971

George E. Johnson January 11, 1971

Frederick R. Kappel January 11, 1971

Elmer T. Klassen January 11, 1971

Crocker Nevin* January 11, 1971

Myron A. Wright January 11, 1971

John Y. Ing June 22, 1972

Robert E. Holding October 26, 1972

Hayes Robertson May 14, 1974

William A. Irvine March 3, 1975

Hung Wai Ching August 5, 1976

Robert L. Hardesty August 16, 1976

William J. Sullivan January 12, 1979

Richard R. Allen October 5, 1979

George W. Camp October 5, 1979

Paula D. Hughes August 19, 1980

David E. Babcock August 20, 1980

Timothy L. Jenkins August 20, 1980

Wallace N. Hyde December 31, 1980

John R. McKean March 9, 1982

Peter E. Voss July 28, 1982

John L. Ryan May 10, 1983

Ruth O. Peters December 2, 1983

Frieda Waldman January 6, 1984

John N. Griesemer December 12, 1984

Date Appointed

J. H. Tyler McConnell December 18, 1985

Robert Setrakian December 18, 1985

Crocker Nevin* August 15, 1986

Norma Pace May 21, 1987

Ira D. Hall November 23, 1987

Tirso del Junco, M.D. July 15, 1988

Susan E. Alvarado July 15, 1988

Bert H. Mackie December 9, 1988

LeGree S. Daniels August 6, 1990

Sam Winters November 23, 1991

Einar V. Dyhrkopp November 24, 1993

S. David Fineman May 26, 1995

Robert F. Rider May 26, 1995

Ned R. McWherter October 2, 1995

Ernesta Ballard November 13, 1997

John F. Walsh November 16, 1999

Alan C. Kessler November 3, 2000

Albert V. Casey August 6, 2002

James C. Miller III April 22, 2003

Carolyn Lewis Gallagher	 November 3, 2004

Louis J. Giuliano November 3, 2004

John S. Gardner January 6, 2006

Mickey D. Barnett August 17, 2006

James H. Bilbray August 17, 2006

Katherine C. Tobin August 17, 2006

Ellen C. Williams August 17, 2006

Thurgood Marshall Jr. December 15, 2006

Governors of the Postal Service

* Crocker Nevin served two separate terms.

Postal Service Headquarters, 

1973-Present

Vlastimil Koubek designed the Postal 

Service Headquarters building. The 

building’s façade has precast concrete 

panels in a terra cotta color and is 

located in Southwest Washington, 

D.C., just a few blocks north of the 

Potomac River. 

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 53
The Post Office Department’s Citizens’

Stamp Advisory Committee was

established March 21, 1957, by

Orders of the Postmaster General

56304 and 56305, to provide a

breadth of judgment and depth of

experience in various areas which

influence the subject matter, character,

and beauty of postage stamps. As

announced in the Federal Register of

Tuesday, March 26, 1957:

The Stamp Advisory Committee 

shall advise the Post Office Department on any matters pertaining to the 

subject matter, design, production 

and issuance of postage stamps.

The initial seven-member committee

was appointed by Postmaster General

Arthur E. Summerfield on March 26,

1957. Those serving were Deputy

Director of the United States Information

Agency Abbott Washburn; three wellknown philatelists — Franklin R. Bruns,

Jr., Sol Glass, and Harry L. Lindquist;

and three artists — Arnold Copeland,

president of Westport Artists, Inc.;

Ervine Metzl, president of the Society

of Illustrators; and William H. Buckley,

president of the New York Art Directors

Club. Franklin Bruns served as the first

chairman.

The artists were enthusiastic

about the committee and the concept of using the skills of members

from their groups to help design

United States postage stamps. (The

combined memberships of the three

groups included an estimated 95

percent of all commercial artists in

the country.) All three artists played

an important role in improving postage stamp designs by helping the

Post Office Department transition

from near total reliance upon the

Bureau of Engraving and Printing to

commercial artists.

The first meeting of the Citizens’

Stamp Advisory Committee was

opened by Postmaster General

Summerfield on April 30, 1957. As

one of its first orders of business, the

committee decided to establish standards for the selection of subjects for

commemorative stamps.

These guidelines have been

changed, as needed, over the years,

and included the following in 2006:

It is a general policy that U.S. 

postage stamps and stationery primarily will feature 

American or American-related subjects.

No living person shall be 

honored by portrayal on U.S. 

postage.

Commemorative stamps

or postal stationery items 

honoring individuals usually will be issued on, or in 

conjunction with, significant anniversaries of their 

birth, but no postal item will 

be issued sooner than ten 

years after the individual’s 

death.49 The only exception 

to the ten-year rule is the 

issuance of stamps honoring deceased United States 

Presidents. They may be 

honored with a memorial 

stamp on the first birth anniversary following death.

Events of historical significance shall be considered for 

commemoration only on 

anniversaries in multiples of 

50 years.

Only events, persons, and 

themes of widespread 

national appeal and significance will be considered for 

commemoration. Events, 

persons, or themes of local 

or regional significance may 

be recognized by a philatelic 

or special postal cancellation, which may be arranged 

through the local postmaster.

Citizens’ 

Stamp Advisory 

Committee

Stamps recommended by 

the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory 

Committee and approved by 

the Postmaster General for 

issuance in 2007 commemorate, 

clockwise from upper left: Henry 

Wadsworth Longfellow, James 

Stewart, Pacific Lighthouses, Ella 

Fitzgerald, Mendez v. Westminster 

School District, Nature of 

America: Alpine Tundra, and 

Pollination.

54 The United States Postal Service
Stamps or stationery items 

shall not be issued to honor 

fraternal, political, sectarian, or service/charitable 

organizations. Stamps or 

stationery shall not be issued 

to promote or advertise commercial enterprises or products. Commercial products 

or enterprises might be used 

to illustrate more general 

concepts related to American 

culture.

Stamps or stationery items 

shall not be issued to honor 

cities, towns, municipalities, 

counties, primary or secondary schools, hospitals, libraries, or similar institutions. 

Due to the limitations placed 

on annual postal programs 

and the vast number of such 

locales, organizations, and 

institutions in existence, it 

would be difficult to single out 

any one for commemoration.

Requests for observance of 

statehood anniversaries will 

be considered for commemorative postage stamps only at 

intervals of 50 years from the 

date of the state’s first entry 

into the Union. Requests for 

observance of other staterelated or regional anniversaries will be considered only as 

subjects for postal stationery 

and again only at intervals of 

50 years from the date of the 

event.

Stamps or stationery items 

shall not be issued to honor 

religious institutions or 

individuals whose principal 

achievements are associated 

with religious undertakings or 

beliefs.

Semipostal stamps are 

designed to raise funds for 

causes determined to be in 

the national public interest 

and appropriate. Semipostal 

stamps are sold for a price 

above their postage value. 

The difference between the 

sales price and the postage 

value of semipostal stamps 

consists of an amount (less 

a deduction for the Postal 

Service’s reasonable costs) 

to be given to other executive agencies in furtherance 

of specified causes. The 

Postal Service issues 

semipostals in accordance 

with legislation.

Requests for commemoration of universities and other 

institutions of higher education shall be considered only 

for stamped cards and only 

in connection with the 200th 

anniversaries of their founding.

No stamp shall be considered for issuance if one 

treating the same subject 

has been issued in the past 

50 years. The only exceptions to this rule are traditional themes such as 

national symbols and holidays.

In November 1960, Postmaster

General Summerfield approved the

Benjamin Franklin Award, then in the

form of a certificate, for members of

Congress, special advisory groups,

or employees making a contribution to the Post Office Department

not connected with official employment. On December 15 of that year,

members of the Citizens’ Stamp

Advisory Committee received the first

Benjamin Franklin awards in appreciation for the distinguished and

outstanding public service each rendered as a member of the Citizens’

Stamp Advisory Committee.

Today the committee consists

of up to 15 members appointed by

the Postmaster General, who also

appoints the chairman. The members share a respect for philately

and are experts on history, science

and technology, art, education,

sports, or other subjects of public

interest.

The committee meets four times

a year to review suggestions for new

postage stamps. Committee members receive travel expenses, and

nongovernment members receive

a meeting stipend. Most subjects

chosen to appear on stamps and

postal stationery are suggested

by the public. The Postal Service

receives approximately 50,000 proposals each year. Every proposal is

considered.

The committee’s primary goal

is to select subjects that are both

interesting and educational for recommendation to the Postmaster

General, who decides which stamps

will be issued.

Besides recommending new

subjects for commemorative stamps

each year, the committee also suggests subjects for the extensive line

of regular stamps. The committee

considers the interests of stamp

collectors as well as all citizens and

looks for subjects that will stand the

test of time, be consistent with public opinion, and have broad national

appeal.

Ideas for stamp subjects should

be addressed to:

Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee

Stamp Development

United States Postal Service

1735 North Lynn Street Room 5013

Arlington VA 22209-6432

Subjects should be submitted at

least three years in advance of the

proposed date of issue to allow sufficient time for consideration and for

design and production, if the subject

is approved.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 55
I

n the 36 years since the Postal 

Reorganization Act was signed, 

technological advances have both 

improved the operations and services offered by the Postal Service and 

increased competition and customer 

expectations. A decade of prosperity in the 1980s, with a concomitant 

growth in mail volume, was followed 

by slower economic growth in the 

1990s. Bankruptcies, consolidations, 

and restructuring of markets reduced 

the flow of business mail. In 1991, 

overall mail volume dropped for the 

first time in 15 years. The following 

year, volume rose only slightly, and the 

Postal Service narrowly avoided the first 

back-to-back declines in mail volume 

since the Great Depression. In an effort 

to address financial challenges and hold 

rates steady, in 1992 the Postal Service 

created a new organizational structure 

that replaced 5 regions and 73 field 

divisions with 10 areas and 85 districts.

Total mail volume began to grow 

again and, from 1992 through 2000, 

reached record levels. Then, in 2001, 

the Postal Service again saw a slight 

drop in total mail volume compared 

to the previous year. The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center 

buildings caused a tragic loss of human 

lives and rippled out to affect many 

areas. One was to intensify recessionary 

effects on the mailing and advertising industry. In 2002, total mail volume dropped to 202.8 billion pieces, 

down nearly five billion pieces from 

the previous year. Volume began to 

rise again in 2004 largely because of 

growth in Standard Mail. In 2005, for 

the first time, the volume of Standard 

Mail exceeded that of First-Class Mail. 

However, First-Class Mail continued to 

generate more revenue than any other 

class of mail.

In 2006, the Postal Service sorted 

and delivered more than 213 billion 

pieces of mail, about 40 percent of the 

world’s total mail volume and more 

than any other postal administration in 

the world.

Measuring Improvement

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, 

private express companies ruled the 

package delivery market until Congress, 

concerned about the high rates being 

charged, authorized the Post Office 

Department to begin carrying larger 

parcels to provide an alternative for 

customers. In the 20th and opening 

years of the 21st centuries, competition 

grew for every postal product. The rise 

of electronic communications and other 

technologies offered alternatives for 

sending statements, payments, and personal messages. Private companies continued to dominate the market for the 

urgent delivery of mail and packages.

Recognizing the need to become 

more competitive, the Postal Service 

began to change and restructure in the 

early 1990s. In 1990, the Postal Service 

awarded two contracts to private firms 

to independently measure First-Class 

Mail service and customer satisfaction, 

providing benchmarks for evaluating 

service improvements. In 1993, the 

Postal Service awarded an additional 

contract to measure the satisfaction levels of business mailers. 

First-Class Mail service performance is independently measured 

under the External First-Class (EXFC) 

Measurement System. By 2000 EXFC 

scores for on-time delivery reached 

a record high of 94 percent for the 

first time. In 2006 the Postal Service 

reported a national 95 percent success 

rate in on-time overnight delivery, with 

a number of service areas achieving 97 

percent on-time delivery.

Transformation

Transformation Plan

“The Postal Service has been 

a reliable, trusted provider of 

communications for more than 

two centuries. It is a basic and 

fundamental service provided to 

the people of America by their 

government. It helps keep Americans 

in touch, and it is the hub of a 

$900 billion mailing industry. We are 

working to keep this critical national 

asset strong and vibrant, today and 

far into the future.” 

— Joint statement by the Postmaster 

General and the Chairman, Board of 

Governors, April 2002

56 The United States Postal Service
Transformation Plan

In April 2001, United States 

Comptroller General David Walker 

placed the Postal Service’s transformation efforts and long-term outlook on 

the General Accounting Office’s “high 

risk” list because of the Postal Service’s 

significant financial, human capital, and 

structural challenges. Walker stated that:

The Service’s ability to provide universal 

postal service ... will be increasingly threatened unless changes are made, both within 

current law and to the legal and regulatory 

framework that governs the Service.50

The General Accounting Office, 

now the Government Accountability 

Office, asked the Postal Service for a 

comprehensive plan that addressed 

these concerns. A year later, on April 

4, 2002, the Postal Service submitted 

its Transformation Plan to Congress. 

The plan presented targets to improve 

service and manage costs. The Postal 

Service began to implement the plan’s 

service, customer satisfaction, workplace improvement, and financial recommendations even before submitting 

it to Congress.

In September 2005, the Postal 

Service published its Strategic 

Transformation Plan, 2006–2010, which 

identified further strategies to enhance 

the Postal Service’s core business of 

delivering mail. The results? 

 From 2002 through 2006, the 

Postal Service saw: 

Record-level service performance and 

customer satisfaction scores during a 

period when the Postal Service had 

added nearly 7 million new addresses 

to its delivery network. 

Consistent growth in total factor 

productivity.

Nearly $5 billion in cost savings since 

2000, a five-year savings target identified in the plan. 

A 7.5 percent reduction in the number 

of career employees with no layoffs. 

Greater efficiency and added value 

to the mail through innovative technology. 

The Postal Service has worked with

customers to improve mail service

since it first began operations in

1971, and even earlier, as the Post

Office Department.

Mail Users Councils, renamed

Postal Customer Councils (PCCs)

in 1971, were first established in

300 large cities in 1961. That year,

faced with large amounts of business mail deposited after 5 p.m.,

the Department began a Mail Early

campaign. Local business and

postal executives meet regularly to

schedule bulk mailings and discuss

ways to improve customer service,

customer satisfaction, and corporate profitability through educational

programs, mailer clinics, and seminars. By the end of 2006, more

than 100,000 businesses belonged

to PCCs.

The Mailers’ Technical Advisory

Committee (MTAC) was established

in January 1965. Its members represented, and continue to represent,

major bulk-mailing associations and

organizations, including publishers, advertising mailers, envelope

and greeting card manufacturers,

as well as representatives from

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

MTAC offers technical advice in

implementing policies and solving problems and has suggested

improvements to the ZIP Code and

ZIP+4 programs, handling changes

of address, and presorting and barcoding, among other initiatives. It

has worked with postal officials on

optical character recognition and

electronic payment and transactions

for business mail deposited at Post

Offices. In 2005, MTAC worked on

programs to see that large, bulk

mailings moved into the mailstream

more smoothly and were accurately

prepared and addressed; it also

focused on service measurement

and improvement.

Consumer Advisory Councils,

called Customer Advisory Councils

prior to 2000, were established

by 1989. The councils consist of

groups of citizens who volunteer to

work with local postal management

on issues of interest to local communities.

More recently, the Postal Service

has allied with some of its traditional

competitors to improve delivery

operations.

In 2001, the Postal Service

formed a business alliance with

FedEx, using FedEx’s air network

for the domestic air transportation

of U.S. Mail and allowing the company to place self-service collection

boxes on postal property. In 2006,

the Postal Service signed a new

contract with FedEx, continuing the

alliance.

In 2004, the Postal Service contracted with United Parcel Service

(UPS) for air transportation of U.S.

Mail. In June 2006, the Postal

Service expanded the alliance, contracting with the company for air

transportation of mail to and from

98 U.S. cities.

Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee, 1967

Partnering With Customers and Competitors

Established in 1965, the Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) 

represented 26 mailing industries by 1967, including newspaper, magazine, 

and classroom publishers; mail order companies; advertisers; envelope 

manufacturers; and the religious press.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 57
President’s Commission on the 

Postal Service

In 1967, a presidential commission on 

the Post Office Department met at 

a time when Congress subsidized 25 

percent of postal costs, and the Post 

Office Department was in the red. In 

August 1970, the Postal Reorganization 

Act was signed into law, creating the 

United States Postal Service under an 

economic assumption that continuing 

growth in mail volume and revenue 

would support the continued growth of 

the postal infrastructure — a model that 

no longer is valid.

In a March 2001 letter to the 

President, the Postal Service Governors 

stated that significant statutory reform 

was needed to continue to provide consistent, satisfactory, universal service to 

the American people. 

On December 11, 2002, President 

George W. Bush issued an executive order establishing the President’s 

Commission on the Postal Service. The 

nine-member bipartisan commission 

was to identify the operational, structural, and financial challenges facing 

the Postal Service; examine potential 

solutions; and chart a course to build a 

healthy financial foundation. Postmaster 

General John E. Potter described the 

work of the commission as consistent 

with, and complementary to, the Postal 

Service’s Transformation Plan.

Gathering information from postal 

stakeholders, including congressional 

leaders, union officials, postal employees, customers, and other representatives of the nation’s $900 billion mailing industry, the commission issued 

its report, Embracing the Future, to the 

President in 2003. The report called for 

the Postal Service to remain a public 

institution subject to broader oversight, 

to focus on universal mail service as 

its core value, to be guided by the best 

business practices, to overhaul the postal 

network, to clarify the postal monopoly, 

and to maintain a culture of excellence. 

Budget Impacts of 2003 Legislation:

Escrow Fund and Military Service 

Benefits

In November 2002, the Office of 

Personnel Management reported that 

the Postal Service would overpay its 

retirement obligations over the long 

term for postal employees and retirees 

enrolled in the Civil Service Retirement 

System (CSRS) by $71 billion.

Within months, Congress passed 

the Postal Civil Service Retirement 

System Funding Reform Act of 2003, 

which became Public Law 108-18 

on April 23, 2003. The act modified 

the way the Postal Service funded its 

obligations to the CSRS, to prevent 

overfunding. The act also dictated 

how the Postal Service would spend its 

estimated savings: to pay down debt 

in 2003 and 2004, and to maintain 

postage rates in 2005. In 2006, the 

act required that the Postal Service’s 

estimated annual savings — about $3.1 

billion — be considered an operating 

expense of the Postal Service, to be 

held in escrow for future use as determined by Congress.

But the projected savings did 

not represent cash actually on hand. 

Although funds were available through 

2005, by 2006 inflationary costs and 

reduced revenue had whittled away the 

financial benefit of lower CSRS payments. To fund the escrow account, in 

2005 the Postal Service requested an 

across-the-board increase of 5.4 percent 

in rates and fees, while warning that a 

biannual increase of 1 to 1.5 percent to 

fund this account might be needed in 

the future. The Postal Rate Commission 

and the postal Governors approved 

the request. On January 8, 2006, most 

postal rates and fees increased by about 

Military Mail, 2005

The Postal Service, working with 

the Military Postal Service Agency, 

delivered 70 million pounds of mail 

to men and women serving in Iraq in 

2006.

AP Images

58 The United States Postal Service
5.4 percent — including the price of a 

First-Class stamp, from 37 to 39 cents 

— solely to fund the escrow account.

The 2003 act also created another 

challenge for the Postal Service: it 

transferred to the Postal Service from 

the Department of the Treasury the 

responsibility for funding military 

pensions of current and former postal 

employees, amounting to $27 billion 

in costs transferred from taxpayers to 

postal ratepayers.

Postal Accountability and 

Enhancement Act of 2006

On December 9, 2006, after several years 

of discussion and study, Congress passed 

the far-reaching Postal Accountability 

and Enhancement Act, H.R. 6407. 

President Bush signed the act into law 

on December 20, 2006. The act divided 

postal products into market-dominant 

and competitive categories; created the 

Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) 

out of the Postal Rate Commission and 

increased the PRC’s regulatory powers; 

returned the obligation to pay military 

service costs to the Department of 

Treasury; and replaced escrow requirements to fund retiree health benefits.

The act included other changes to 

the way the Postal Service has operated 

since the Postal Reorganization Act of 

1970. 

Any rate changes that take place in the 

12 months after passage of the Postal 

Accountability and Enhancement Act 

would be determined under the regulations in place prior to passage of the act.

Increases in the rates for market-dominant products such as First-Class Mail 

will be restricted by a cap tied to the 

Consumer Price Index for 10 years. 

This cap would be reviewed by the 

PRC at that time.

Increases in competitive products such 

as Express Mail will not be capped. 

Rates will cover attributable costs and 

contribute to institutional costs.

The Postal Service must establish a set 

of service standards for its market-dominant products within one year and 

then develop a plan, to be submitted to 

Congress, for meeting these standards.

The PRC will have subpoena power 

over the Postal Service and can levy 

fines against it if the Postal Service does 

not take remedial action when the PRC 

finds a complaint filed regarding rates, 

regulations, or service standards has 

merit.

Governors will serve for 

seven- rather than nineyear terms.

The PRC will report to 

Congress every five years 

on the effectiveness of the 

Postal Accountability and 

Enhancement Act, with suggestions, if appropriate.

At least four of the nine Governors 

must have experience in managing 

organizations employing 50,000 or 

more people.

The Postal Regulatory Commission 

must create an Office of Inspector 

General. The Board of Governors 

will continue to appoint the Inspector 

General of the Postal Service.

The act abolished the requirement for 

fact-finding, replacing it with a requirement for mediation.

Injured employees must use annual, 

sick, or leave without pay for three 

days before they can collect continuation of pay benefits.

Dealing With the Unimaginable

On September 11, 2001, terrorists 

attacked the United States, killing 

thousands. The Postal Service helped 

keep the lines of communication open 

despite severe restrictions on commercial 

air operations during this tragic time.

As the Postal Service dealt with 

these challenges, a photo editor in Boca 

Raton, Florida, died from inhalation 

anthrax on October 5, 2001, the first 

known case in the United States since 

1976. A week later, a media employee 

in New York City was diagnosed with 

cutaneous anthrax after opening a letter 

addressed to an NBC anchorman. On 

October 15, 2001, a letter postmarked 

in Trenton, New Jersey, was delivered 

to the Capitol Hill office of a U.S. 

Thomas L.

Morris, Jr.

Joseph P.

Curseen, Jr.

Medal of Freedom

The Postmaster General’s Medal

of Freedom was created in 2001

to recognize outstanding

individual contributions to the Postal

Service. The

first recipients

of the medal

were Thomas

L. Morris, Jr.,

and Joseph P.

Curseen, Jr.

Both men

worked at the

Brentwood mail

processing facility in

Washington, D.C., and both

died in October 2001 of inhalation anthrax. The medals were

presented to their widows during

a memorial service held in their

honor by the Postal Service.

The Postmaster General’s Medal

of Freedom honored Mr. Morris and

Mr. Curseen for making the ultimate

sacrifice as they served others.

After closing in 2001, the

Brentwood facility reopened in

December 2003 with a new name:

The Joseph Curseen, Jr., and the

Thomas Morris, Jr., Processing

and Distribution Center. A large

plaque on the building states:

We are poorer for their loss but 

richer for having been touched 

by these dedicated, hard-working 

heroes. We will never forget.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 59
In 1901, John J. Comisky, a New

Jersey letter carrier walking his

route, saw a 12-year old boy

struggling for his life in the Passaic

River. Comisky jumped into the

river, brought the boy to shore,

then continued delivering mail in

his dripping-wet uniform.

In 1927, Charles M. Taylor,

a railway mail clerk in St. Louis,

pulled six women and children

from a wrecked, submerged

Pullman car.

In 1928, Paul F. Collins, an airmail pilot, tightly circled his plane

around a burning house late in

the evening of February 10, until

the plane’s buzzing sounds woke

up the family of eight inside, who

escaped the fire.

A Boston letter carrier, Daniel

M. Long, leaped from Harvard

Bridge to save a drowning man

in 1930.

From 18th century post riders who carried and protected

the mail to injured airmail pilots in

the early 20th century who pulled

mail from crashed planes and carried it over mountains to safety,

when needed, postal employees

have risen to whatever levels are

required to serve, and sometimes

save, their customers.

In 1982, the National

Association of Letter Carriers and

the Postal Service formalized a

long tradition of watching out for

their customers when they established the Carrier Alert Program.

Customers could register for the

program, and letter carriers would

report any suspicious incidents or

accumulations of mail that might

indicate the customer was unable

to collect his or her mail because

of illness or injury.

Every year, hundreds of postal

employees are recognized as

heroes, sometimes risking their

own lives to save others in their

community.

Senator. The letter claimed to contain 

anthrax, and this proved to be true. 

The Postal Service then went to work 

with other agencies to deal with bioterrorism.

The Postal Service announced the 

formation of a mail security task force, 

headed by the Chief Postal Inspector; 

authorized its employees to wear protective gear; and considered ways to 

sanitize mail, including irradiating it 

with electron beams. The Postal Service 

also notified people at every mailing 

address about how to identify and handle suspicious letters and packages.

On October 21, 2001, Joseph P. 

Curseen, Jr., an employee at 

the Brentwood postal facility in 

Washington, D.C., that handled mail 

for Capitol Hill, was diagnosed with 

inhalation anthrax. That night, another 

employee, Thomas L. Morris, Jr., died 

from inhalation anthrax. The next 

morning, Curseen also died.

Postmaster General John E. Potter 

announced the sad news, then stated:

800,000 Postal Service employees are 

using everything they’ve learned, doing 

everything humanly possible, to keep the 

mail safe and keep it moving. And we’re 

determined not to let terrorists stop us.51

By October 27, anthrax spores had 

been detected in other locations. All 

told, at least five deaths and several 

cases of anthrax poisoning are known.

In 2004, after multiple tests, the 

Postal Service began installing biohazard detection equipment to protect 

postal employees, customers, and 

the mail, and continues to work to 

strengthen the security of the mail.

Delivering Despite Disaster

In 2005, along with millions of other 

people, postal employees faced one of 

their greatest challenges.

On August 25, 2005, Hurricane 

Katrina made landfall near Miami, 

Florida, as a category 1 hurricane. 

The storm headed southwest to the 

Gulf of Mexico, where it gathered 

strength before making landfall again 

on the morning of August 29 near 

New Orleans, Louisiana. By that time 

Katrina was a category 3 hurricane with 

sustained winds of 125 mph. Later that 

same day, the New Orleans levee system failed, filling the city with water.

One of the most destructive storms 

in United States history, Katrina 

devastated entire sections of coastal 

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, 

and put 80 percent of the City of New 

Orleans underwater. The storm claimed 

more than 1,800 lives, with many more 

unaccounted for, and displaced more 

than one million people. 

Before the storm hit, the Postal 

Service diverted inbound New Orleansarea mail to the Houston, Texas, mail 

processing and distribution center. At 

the New Orleans processing and distribution center, employees moved mail 

to an upper floor, to protect it from 

floods. Within days of the storm, the 

Postal Service joined with the Social 

Security Administration and other 

agencies to arrange for the distribution 

of Social Security, pension, and benefit 

checks, which were due to be delivered 

at the beginning of September. The 

Postal Service set up temporary check 

distribution centers; they delivered 

more than 30,000 checks before the 

centers were closed in mid-September. 

More than 4,000 postal employees 

and their families were displaced by 

Hurricane Katrina, ending up in nearly 

every state. Through national media outlets, the Postal Service urged displaced 

employees to check in via a national 

toll-free hotline to make sure employees received their paychecks as well as 

assistance and job-related information. 

Despite suffering personal losses, many 

postal employees returned to work 

almost immediately to help deliver 

checks, medicines, and other vital mail. 

Through national news media the 

Postal Service also urged displaced residents to file change-of-address forms 

so that their mail could be sent to 

them directly, bypassing storm-stricken 

regions. Customers filed forms online at 

www.usps.com, over the phone at 1-800-

ASK-USPS, and at local postal facilities. 

Mail facilities were set up in temporary 

shelters at Houston’s Astrodome and in 

dozens of communities throughout the 

nation so that mail could reach evacuees 

wherever they were. By year’s end, the 

Postal Service had processed change-ofaddress forms from more than 520,000 

households that had been displaced by 

Everyday Heroism

60 The United States Postal Service
Hurricane Katrina as well as Hurricane 

Rita, which struck near the LouisianaTexas border the following month. Due 

to intense national interest the Postal 

Service provided an overview of changeof-address data to national news media, 

since it was the only reliable way to 

track the movement of evacuees.

Besides Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 

two other major hurricanes — Dennis 

and Wilma — hit the southern United 

States during the 2005 hurricane season, 

which was the worst on record. All told, 

in 2005 hurricanes destroyed 17 postal 

facilities and damaged more than 500. 

Despite the devastation, postal 

employees delivered, handing out mail 

from trailers, recreational vehicles, 

and even tents, where street delivery 

was not possible. Within two weeks of 

Hurricane Katrina, full service had been 

restored to 82 percent of affected Post 

Offices. Mail service in New Orleans 

resumed in October, when residents 

began returning to the ravaged city. 

The eventual resumption of street delivery was a welcome sign of normalcy. As 

letter carriers gradually returned to city 

streets they were greeted with smiles, 

laughter, hugs, and tears. ■

Return to Normalcy

On September 20, 2005, Letter 

Carrier Kenneth Patterson in Biloxi, 

Mississippi, spoke with a customer 

while on his rounds.

After the Storm

Two and a half weeks after Hurricane 

Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Letter 

Carrier Deborah Johnson resumed 

deliveries in West Biloxi, Mississippi.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 61
Protecting the Mail

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, 

which protects postal customers 

and employees from criminal 

attack and the mail from criminal misuse, traces its roots to Benjamin Franklin. 

While postmaster of Philadelphia (1737-

1753) under the British postal administration, Franklin’s duties included “regulating several offices, and bringing the 

officers to account.”52

Extending Mail Service

The position of “surveyor” was created 

in December 1772, with Hugh Finlay 

named “Surveyor of Post roads on the 

Continent of North America” by the 

British postmasters general.53 Finlay 

toured Post Offices from Maine to 

Georgia to evaluate service and suggest 

improvements. In 1775, the Second 

Continental Congress appointed 

William Goddard surveyor of the 

United Colonies; he would become the 

first American surveyor. Goddard established new Post Offices, arranged mail 

transportation contracts, and settled 

postmasters’ accounts.

In 1782, the position of surveyor was abolished to save money; 

Postmasters General and their assistants acted in the capacity of inspector 

through the 1790s.

By 1801, the title “special agent” 

was used. In March 1801, a special 

agent was appointed to investigate 

delays in moving mail between 

Washington, D.C., and Kentucky. Six 

years later, another was hired to secretly 

investigate mail robberies in Tennessee.

By 1830, an Office of Instruction 

and of Mail Depredations was created, 

headed by General Agent Preston S. 

Loughborough. His duties were to:

investigate, in person, cases of mail robberies and of missing letters; to correspond 

with district attorneys ... to examine mail 

routes, and the manner in which mail contracts are executed; to examine post offices; the 

characters and conduct of postmasters ...

and to communicate:

the decisions of the Postmaster General on 

questions ... concerning the construction of 

post office laws and regulations.54

By 1837, the Post Office Department’s four special agents were paying 

surprise visits to Post Offices, auditing accounts, and reporting on the 

general state of affairs. Twelve special 

agents were employed by 1843, and 

the Postmaster General attributed a 

decrease in mail thefts to their “vigilance ... in ferreting out and bringing 

to justice depredators.”55 In the 1840s, 

special agents also were sent to Texas 

(1846), Oregon (1847), and California 

(1848), to superintend the establishment of new service. 

In October 1850, the Postmaster 

General outlined agents’ duties:

Arresting and helping convict mail 

thieves. 

Overseeing mail service. 

Occasionally asking local business communities for improvement suggestions.

Keeping a daily journal of activities, to 

be transcribed twice a month and sent 

to the Department.56

By 1855, the Post Office Department 

employed 18 special agents — 3 at large 

and 15 domiciled across the United 

William Goddard

In 1775, William Goddard was 

appointed as the first surveyor of the 

new American postal system.

62 The United States Postal Service
P.H. Woodward

P.H. Woodward, special agent from 

1865 to 1876, described agents’ 

clever detective work and derring-do 

in his 568-page book Guarding the

Mails; Or, The Secret Service of the

Post Office Department.

States. Twenty-one agents served by 

1861, including one assigned solely to 

the New York City Post Office, which 

handled more than three times the mail 

of the next largest Post Office. 

The Civil War brought new challenges. Special agents helped deliver 

mail to Union troops in the South and 

reestablished service as southern states 

returned to federal control. Finding 

individuals willing and able to serve as 

postmasters in the South was difficult 

because, until July 1868, all prospective 

postmasters had to swear that they had 

not voluntarily aided the Confederacy 

or Confederate soldiers. The 1865 

Official Register of the United States listed 

33 special agents, including 5 in charge 

of specific southern Post Offices.57

The number of agents grew with 

the Post Office Department and with 

congressional mandates to protect the 

mail and to protect the American public 

from obscenity, fraud, and lotteries conducted through the mail. 

Cleaning the Mailstream

In February 1865, Jacob Collamer, a 

U.S. Senator from Vermont and former 

Postmaster General, told his fellow 

senators that the traffic in obscene 

books and pictures was “getting to be a 

very great evil.”58 An Act of Congress 

of March 3, 1865, provided that “no 

obscene book, pamphlet, picture, print, 

or other publication of a vulgar and 

indecent character, shall be admitted 

into the mails.”59 The act was broadened in 1872 to ban obscene envelopes and postal cards, then expanded 

in 1873 when Congress passed the 

Comstock Act, named after Special 

Agent Anthony Comstock, a zealous 

anti-vice crusader. In addition to banning the mailing of obscene materials, 

the Comstock Act banned mailing any 

items or information relating to contraception or abortion, or receiving them 

with intent to distribute. 

In 1872, Congress also passed the 

Mail Fraud Statute, which empowered 

special agents to pursue swindlers 

who previously had used the mails 

“with almost absolute impunity.”60

“Swindling circulars” enticed victims to 

buy counterfeit money, tickets for nonexistent lotteries, and miraculous “medicines” and devices.61 For a mere $5 (or 

three for $10), citizens could buy “THE 

MAGIC BELT! FOR RENDERING 

ONE’S SELF ‘INVISIBLE’” (“Go 

where you will, no living being can see 

you, nor in any way be aware of your 

presence”).62 In 1876 Chief Special 

Agent P. H. Woodward noted that 

swindlers not only fleeced innocent victims by enticing them to send money 

through the mail but tempted postal 

employees with an “easy conscience” 

to redirect money-filled envelopes 

addressed to a “professional cheat” into 

their own pockets.63 In 1875, out of 

307 people arrested for violating postal 

laws, 115 were postal employees. 

In 1880, the title “post-office inspector” replaced “special agent.” In recommending the change, Postmaster General 

David M. Key said: 

the duties of these officers are by no 

means confined to the detection and arrest 

of offenders ... most of their time is occupied 

in the inspection of the postal service, the 

examination of postmasters’ accounts, the 

investigation of the solvency of their bonds, 

the collection of debts ... and the general 

supervision of all officers and employe’s.64

In the late 19th century, the first 

federal law prohibiting all lottery-related 

mail was passed, the Anti-Lottery Act of 

1890. The act targeted the New Orleansbased Louisiana Lottery Company, the 

only legal U.S. lottery at the time, which 

earned profits of more than $10,000,000 

a year, mostly via the U.S. Mail. Armed 

with the new law, inspectors quickly 

shut down the lottery, whose business 

had been so vast that, within three 

months, revenue at the New Orleans 

Post Office dropped by one third and 

nine clerks had to be let go. 

During the Spanish-American War 

of 1898, several experienced inspectors 

oversaw temporary military Post Office 

stations serving the troops and investigated thefts of soldiers’ mail. In 1898, 

inspectors also went to Alaska to reorganize the mail service there; the discovery 

of gold had led to avalanches of mail. 

In 1900 inspectors investigated postal fraud in Cuba, which was under U.S. 

military jurisdiction, and traveled to 

Puerto Rico and Hawaii to supervise the 

start of mail service in these new U.S. 

territories. In 1903, 40 inspectors particWarning Consumers

Hoping to “save the credulous from 

being swindled,” in 1880 Anthony 

Comstock wrote Frauds Exposed; Or,

How the People Are Deceived and

Robbed, and Youth Corrupted.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 63
The De Autremont 

Train Holdup, 1923

On October 11, 1923, brothers Ray,

Roy, and Hugh De Autremont held

up a Southern Pacific train in Oregon

because they believed it carried

$500,000 in gold. (It did not.) The

brothers murdered the train engineer,

brakeman, and fireman, and used

too much dynamite to blow open the

mail car, killing the railway postal clerk

and destroying the mail. They fled the

scene empty-handed, leaving behind

several incriminating clues. An extensive manhunt followed, with postal

inspectors following clues as far as

Central America, Mexico, Canada, and

Alaska. All three brothers were caught

in 1927, after being recognized from

reward posters. “We literally plastered

the United States with circulars,” one

inspector recalled. “I knew it would

be through those we would get the

men.”65 All three brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

The De Autremont Investigation

Reward posters led to the arrest 

and conviction of the De Autremont 

brothers.

ipated in a sweeping internal investigation of irregularities in the awarding of 

contracts, leading to the removal or resignation of 17 Post Office Department 

officers and employees, including First 

Assistant Postmaster General Perry S. 

Heath and Superintendent of Free 

Delivery August W. Machen. In 1905, 

the Department had 216 inspectors; by 

1911, the number had increased to 390.

Pursuing Rogues and Robbers

During World War I, the need for 

military postal facilities was decided 

by inspectors, who also investigated 

the loyalty of potential employees and 

possible violators of the Espionage 

and Sedition Acts. After the war and 

through the 1930s, inspectors contended with an increase in mail robberies by armed gangs. Thefts became so 

numerous that, in 1921, about 50,000 

surplus military firearms were distributed to railway postal clerks. In 1921 

and again in 1926, thousands of U.S. 

Marines guarded valuable mail at vulnerable points throughout the country, 

as identified by inspectors. Two of the 

most notorious train robberies were the 

botched robbery at Siskiyou, Oregon, 

in 1923, and a well-planned heist at 

Rondout, Illinois, in 1924. Inspectors 

doggedly investigated each case and 

eventually saw the thieves convicted. 

Meanwhile, inspectors continued 

protecting the public from evolving consumer fraud. In 1920 they investigated 

and helped convict Charles Ponzi, the 

father of illegal pyramid schemes, who 

filched millions of dollars from the public for supposed investments.66

During World War II, inspectors 

served as liaisons between civilian 

and military postal facilities, regularly 

inspecting both types of facilities to 

ensure prompt, secure handling of mail, 

investigating complaints of theft, and 

helping military authorities identify the 

guilty parties. 

In 1954, the title “postal inspector” 

was first officially used.

The 1950s saw a rise in illegal drug 

use, a significant factor in postal crime. 

By 1954, about half of all non-postal 

mail thieves in the New York City 

area were addicts who stole checks 

64 The United States Postal Service
from mailboxes to finance their habit. 

Illegal drug use affected the Post Office 

Department on another front as well: 

in 1967 Postmaster General Lawrence F. 

O’Brien noted an increase in the use 

of mail to transmit illegal drugs.67 The 

Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention 

and Control Act of 1970 made it unlawful to use the mail “to transmit or facilitate the manufacture, distribution, disbursing or possession” of illegal drugs; 

postal inspectors immediately seized the 

initiative in pursuing offenders.68

The Security Force, the uniformed 

branch of the Postal Inspection Service, 

was formed in 1970. Primarily responsible for protecting people and property 

and keeping the peace on postal property, postal police officers, like other members of the Postal Inspection Service, 

also respond to natural and man-made 

disasters. 

Protecting the Innocent

Since the passage of the Child 

Protection Act in 1984, postal inspectors have arrested nearly 5,000 suspects 

for using the mail in violation of federal child exploitation laws. In 1999, 

inspectors helped shut down Landslide 

Productions, Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, 

the largest-known child pornography 

enterprise in history, grossing $1.4 

million each month from Web site 

subscriptions. Its founder was sentenced to 1,335 years in prison. The 

company’s customer records sparked 

a two-year undercover sting operation 

called “Operation Avalanche,” with 

investigators contacting former Web 

site subscribers and arresting them if 

they accepted delivery of child pornography. 

Mail fraud — free-prize schemes, foreign lotteries, pyramid schemes, investment fraud, and work-at-home scams 

— has been around for generations, but 

a new type of fraud emerged in the late 

20th century: credit card fraud. More 

than one million credit cards travel 

through the U.S. Mail each day. In 

1992 the Inspection Service partnered 

with major credit card issuers to protect 

cards and cardholders against theft. The 

Inspection Service also worked to prevent credit card fraud through community awareness, publicizing prevention 

guidelines.

Following 9/11 and the discovery 

of anthrax in the mail in October 

2001, postal inspectors were trained 

in hazardous waste operations, emergency response, and the handling of 

mail-screening equipment. Inspectors 

work with postal employees, local first 

responders, and public health personnel to conduct regular interagency drills 

at postal facilities with biohazard detection systems.

In the aftermath of Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita in 2005, nearly 300 

postal inspectors and postal police 

officers, as well as special agents of the 

Office of Inspector General, assisted 

in recovery operations on the Gulf 

Coast. Inspectors and officers worked 

with Postal Service employees to determine damage to postal property, assess 

environmental conditions of facilities, 

and expedite changes of address for 

displaced residents. Inspectors provided 

112 security escorts for Postal Service 

employees and contractors disbursing federal checks to needy citizens. 

They also joined the U.S. Department 

of Justice’s Hurricane Katrina Fraud 

Task Force to investigate and warn citizens of fraud schemes related to relief 

efforts. 

Postal inspectors continue to protect 

the Postal Service, its employees, and its 

customers from criminal attack, and the 

nation’s mail from criminal misuse. ■

Armed Railway Clerks, 1930s

The Postmaster General armed 

railway clerks in 1921 to help combat 

a rash of train robberies. 

Reward Poster

Rewards for the arrest and conviction 

of postal offenders were offered as 

early as 1877. The largest reward ever 

offered — $2.5 million for information 

leading to the arrest and conviction of 

the individual(s) who mailed anthrax in 

2001 — still stands.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 65
The Office of Inspector General 

(USPS OIG) was established 

in the Postal Service by 1988 

amendments to the Inspector General 

Act of 1978. The act had created OIGs 

in 12 federal agencies following a series 

of public spending scandals to investigate and audit the programs and operations of agencies that, in many cases, 

had failed to supervise their own spending, to ferret out fraud and misconduct, 

and to help prevent and end the misuse 

of funds. The act granted the Inspectors 

General broad authority to: 

conduct audits and investigations; 

access all agency records directly, using 

subpoenas if necessary; 

request assistance from other government agencies; 

administer oaths when taking testimony; 

hire staff and manage their own 

resources; and

receive and respond to complaints from 

agency employees, whose confidentiality 

was to be protected. 

Inspectors General were not authorized to take corrective action themselves under the rationale that it would 

be difficult — if not impossible — for 

Inspectors General to review programs 

and operations objectively if they were 

directly involved in carrying them out. 

The Inspector General Act 

Amendments of 1988 created OIGs 

in 39 additional government agencies and entities, including the Postal 

Service, but until 1997 the Chief Postal 

Inspector served as the Postal Service’s 

Inspector General, reporting to postal 

management. 

Recognizing the importance of a 

USPS OIG independent from management, in 1996 Congress created the 

Postal Service’s independent Office of 

Inspector General to be its eyes and 

ears to detect and prevent waste, fraud, 

theft, and misconduct. Although funded by the Postal Service, the Inspector 

General is appointed by the nine presidentially appointed Governors of the 

Postal Service and reports twice a year 

to the Governors and to Congress. 

The USPS OIG’s independence allows 

it to more effectively perform its mission, “to increase the efficiency and 

effectiveness of USPS programs and 

operations, while eliminating and preventing fraud, waste, and abuse.”69

The Postal Service’s independent 

Office of Inspector General began with 

a single employee, Inspector General 

Karla W. Corcoran, who was sworn in 

on January 6, 1997. In one year’s time, 

the office hired 109 employees and 

set up field offices across the country 

to audit and investigate Postal Service 

programs and operations. It also established a hotline number to receive 

allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse, 

which received more than 14,000 calls 

in its second year. 

On August 20, 2003, the current 

Inspector General, David C. Williams, 

was sworn into office. In 2004, the 

scope of his office increased when 

Postmaster General Potter announced 

the transfer of additional investigative responsibilities from the Postal 

Inspection Service to the USPS OIG. 

Beginning February 7, 2005, allegations 

of postal employee misconduct including embezzlement, record falsification, 

workers’ compensation fraud, contract 

fraud, and on-duty narcotics violations, were referred to the USPS OIG. 

On May 1, 2006, the USPS OIG took 

over the responsibility for investigating 

all new allegations of these types. On 

September 1, 2006, the USPS OIG also 

began investigating all new allegations 

of mail theft by postal employees. To 

handle its increased responsibilities, the 

USPS OIG hired more than 260 new 

investigators in 2006. 

By the end of 2006, its staff numbered 1,071 and included special agents 

(federal law enforcement officers authorized to carry firearms, make arrests, and 

The Office of Inspector General

66 The United States Postal Service
One mission of the Office of

Inspector General is to help control

postal costs. Through nationwide

audits of postal operations, facilities, and transportation networks,

the OIG has identified cost savings

in everything from delivery operations to letter mail processing.

For example, from 2004 through

2006, in response to a request

from the Postal Service’s Vice

President of Network Operations

Management, the OIG audited

transportation routes to and from

bulk mail centers (BMCs). Bulk

mail includes magazines, advertising, and merchandise shipped by

major mailers and is processed

in 21 BMCs and other facilities

nationwide. Less time-sensitive

than other mail, bulk mail travels by

highway and railroad, versus by air,

which is more costly. The Postal

Service spends more than $500

million annually on contracts to

transport bulk mail.

In a series of 13 audits, the

OIG identified potential savings of

about $40.6 million by eliminating

or reducing bulk mail transportation

contracts across the country. In

one such audit, the OIG analyzed

all 1,224 trips that delivered mail

to BMCs in the Postal Service’s

Great Lakes Area from March

through September 2004. OIG

staff evaluated mail volume and the

type of mail carried, interviewed

postal employees, reviewed postal

policies and procedures, visited

BMCs and other postal facilities,

and observed and photographed

operations. Working with financial

and computer analysts and other

experts, the OIG identified 96 trips

that could be modified or eliminated without affecting service by

consolidating mail on other trips

— potentially saving the Postal

Service $7.7 million over the life of

the existing contracts.

Discovering Savings

Investigation In Progress

Special agents from the Office 

of Inspector General conduct 

surveillance in 2003.

investigate federal criminal violations), 

auditors (professionals trained in government audit and accounting standards), 

and others crucial to its mission. 

Since it was established, the Office of 

Inspector General has issued 3,077 audit 

reports and management advisories 

accounting for more than $3.7 billion 

in questioned costs, unrecoverable costs, 

funds put to better use, and revenue 

impact. Examples of fraud uncovered 

by USPS OIG investigations include a 

trucking contractor defrauding the Postal 

Service of $1.5 million in fuel rebates; 

a highway route contractor defrauding 

the Postal Service of $120,468 for services not rendered; and a construction 

contractor charging the Postal Service 

$175,630 for work never done.

During fiscal year 2006 alone, the 

Office of Inspector General completed 

6,357 investigations resulting in 293 

arrests, 237 indictments, 209 convictions, and 2,977 administrative actions. 

Injury compensation fraud investigations saved the Postal Service $105 

million in long-term costs, and $20.9 

million in fines and restitution went to 

the Postal Service as a result of investigative work. ■

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 67
Postmasters General

Benjamin Franklin July 26, 1775 Continental Congress

Richard Bache November 7, 1776

Ebenezer Hazard January 28, 1782 

Samuel Osgood September 26, 1789 George Washington

Timothy Pickering August 12, 1791

Joseph Habersham February 25, 1795 

Joseph Habersham ... John Adams

Joseph Habersham ... Thomas Jefferson

Gideon Granger November 28, 1801

Gideon Granger ... James Madison

Return J. Meigs, Jr. March 17, 1814 

Return J. Meigs, Jr. ... James Monroe

John McLean June 26, 1823 

John McLean ... John Quincy Adams

William T. Barry March 9, 1829 Andrew Jackson

Amos Kendall May 1, 1835 

Amos Kendall ... Martin Van Buren

John M. Niles May 19, 1840 

Francis Granger March 6, 1841 William Henry Harrison

Francis Granger ... John Tyler

Charles A. Wickliffe September 13, 1841 

Cave Johnson March 6, 1845 James K. Polk

Jacob Collamer March 8, 1849 Zachary Taylor

Nathan Kelsey Hall July 23, 1850 Millard Filmore

Samuel D. Hubbard August 31, 1852 

James Campbell March 7, 1853 Franklin Pierce

Aaron V. Brown March 6, 1857 James Buchanan

Joseph Holt March 14, 1859 

Horatio King February 12, 1861 

Montgomery Blair March 5, 1861 Abraham Lincoln

William Dennison September 24, 1864

William Dennison ... Andrew Johnson

Alexander W. Randall July 25, 1866 

John A. J. Creswell March 5, 1869 Ulysses Grant

James W. Marshall July 3, 1874

Marshall Jewell August 24, 1874 

James N. Tyner July 12, 1876 

David M. Key March 12, 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes

Horace Maynard August 26, 1880 

Thomas L. James March 5, 1881 James A. Garfield

Thomas L. James ... Chester A. Arthur

Timothy O. Howe December 20, 1881 

Walter Q. Gresham April 3, 1883 

Frank Hatton October 14, 1884 

A list of Postmasters General and the names of those who appointed them

follows. All appointments by the President were made with the advice and

consent of the Senate. Dates prior to 1900 are the dates the Postmasters

General were appointed or commissioned. Dates after 1900 are the dates the

Postmasters General took office. Italics indicate a carryover from the previous 

administration. 

Postmaster General Date Appointed by

68 The United States Postal Service
William F. Vilas March 6, 1885 Grover Cleveland

Don M. Dickinson January 16, 1888 

John Wanamaker March 5, 1889 Benjamin Harrison

Wilson S. Bissell March 6, 1893 Grover Cleveland

William L. Wilson March 1, 1895 

James A. Gary March 5, 1897 William McKinley

Charles Emory Smith April 21, 1898 

Charles Emory Smith ... Theodore Roosevelt

Henry C. Payne January 15, 1902 

Robert J. Wynne October 10, 1904

George B. Cortelyou March 7, 1905

George von L. Meyer March 5, 1907 

Frank H. Hitchcock March 6, 1909 William H. Taft

Albert S. Burleson March 5, 1913 Woodrow Wilson

Will H. Hays March 4, 1921 Warren G. Harding

Hubert Work March 4, 1922 

Harry S. New March 5, 1923 

Harry S. New ... Calvin Coolidge

Walter F. Brown March 6, 1929 Herbert Hoover

James A. Farley March 6, 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt

Frank C. Walker September 11, 1940

Frank C. Walker ... Harry S. Truman

Robert E. Hannegan June 30, 1945 

Jesse M. Donaldson December 16, 1947 

Arthur E. Summerfield January 21, 1953 Dwight D. Eisenhower

J. Edward Day January 21, 1961 John F. Kennedy

John A. Gronouski September 30, 1963 

John A. Gronouski ... Lyndon B. Johnson

Lawrence F. O'Brien November 3, 1965 

W. Marvin Watson April 26, 1968 

Winton M. Blount January 22, 1969 Richard M. Nixon

Appointed by the Governors of the United States Postal Service

Winton M. Blount July 1, 1971 

E. T. Klassen January 1, 1972 

Benjamin F. Bailar February 16, 1975

William F. Bolger March 15, 1978 

Paul N. Carlin January 1, 1985 

Albert V. Casey January 7, 1986 

Preston R. Tisch August 16, 1986 

Anthony M. Frank March 1, 1988 

Marvin T. Runyon July 6, 1992

William J. Henderson May 16, 1998

John E. Potter June 1, 2001

Postmaster General Date Appointed by

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 69
1789 ... 75 $ 7,510 $ 7,560

Income and expenses listed for 1789 are for three months only.

1790	 ...	 75	 37,935	 32,140

1795	 ...	 453	 160,620	 117,893

1800	 ...	 903	 280,804	 213,994

1805	 ...	 1,558	 421,373	 377,367

1810	 ...	 2,300	 551,684	 495,969

1815	 ...	 3,000	 1,043,065	 748,121

1820	 ...	 4,500	 1,111,927	 1,160,926

1825	 ...	 5,677	 1,306,525	 1,229,043

1830	 ...	 8,450	 1,850,583	 1,932,708

1835	 ...	 10,770	 2,993,556	 2,757,350

1840	 ...	 13,468	 4,543,522	 4,718,236

1845	 ...	 14,183	 4,289,842	 4,320,732

1850	 ...	 18,417	 5,499,985	 5,212,953

1855	 ...	 24,410	 6,642,136	 9,968,342

1860	 ...	 28,498	 8,518,067	 14,874,601

1865	 ...	 28,882	 14,556,159	 13,694,728

1870	 ...	 28,492	 18,879,537	 23,998,838

1875	 ...	 35,547	 26,791,314	 33,611,309

1880	 ...	 42,989	 33,315,479	 36,542,804

1885	 ...	 51,252	 42,560,844	 50,046,235

1890	 4,005,408,000	 62,401	 60,882,098	 66,259,548

1895	 5,134,281,000	 70,064	 76,983,128	 87,179,551

1900	 7,129,990,000	 76,688	 102,353,579	 107,740,268

1905	 10,187,506,000	 68,131	 152,826,585	 167,399,169

1910	 14,850,103,000	 59,580	 224,128,658	 229,977,225

 Pieces of Mail Number of Total Operating Total Operating

Year Handled Post Offices Revenue Expenses

Statistics: Pieces & Post Offices

70 The United States Postal Service
1915	 ...	 56,380	 $ 287,248,165	 $ 298,546,026

1920	 ...	 52,641	 437,150,212	 454,322,609

1925	 ...	 50,957	 599,591,478	 639,281,648

1930	 27,887,823,000	 49,063	 705,484,098	 803,667,219

1935	 22,331,752,000	 45,686	 630,795,302	 696,503,235

1940	 27,749,467,000	 44,024	 766,948,627	 807,629,180

1945	 37,912,067,000	 41,792	 1,314,240,132	 1,145,002,246

1950	 45,063,737,000	 41,464	 1,677,486,967	 2,222,949,000

1955	 55,233,564,000	 38,316	 2,349,476,528	 2,712,150,214

1960	 63,674,604,000	 35,238	 3,276,588,433	 3,873,952,908

1965	 71,873,166,000	 33,624	 4,483,389,833	 5,275,839,877

1970	 84,881,833,000	 32,002	 6,472,737,791	 7,982,551,936

Effective July 1, 1971, the Post Office Department was transformed into the United States 

Postal Service, an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of 

the United States.

1971	 86,983,000,000	 31,947	 8,751,484,000	 8,955,264,000

1975	 89,265,979,000	 30,754	 11,548,104,000	 12,574,205,000

1980	 106,311,062,000	 30,326	 18,752,915,000	 19,412,587,000

1985	 140,097,956,000	 29,557	 28,705,691,000	 29,207,201,000

1990	 166,300,770,000	 28,959	 39,654,830,000	 40,489,884,000

1995	 180,733,700,000	 28,392	 54,293,500,000	 50,730,200,000

2000	 207,882,200,000	 27,876	 64,539,900,000	 62,992,000,000

2005	 211,742,700,000	 27,385	 69,907,400,000	 68,283,000,000

2006	 213,137,700,000	 27,318	 72,650,400,000	 71,684,000,000

 Pieces of Mail Number of Total Operating Total Operating

Year Handled Post Offices Revenue Expenses

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 71
Significant Years in U.S. Postal History

1879 Domestic mail divided into four 

classes

1885 Special delivery began

1887 International Parcel Post 

instituted

1893 First commemorative stamps 

issued

1896 Rural free delivery began 

experimentally

1898 Private postcards authorized

1902 Rural free delivery became 

permanent service

1911 Postal Savings System started

First carriage of mail by airplane 

sanctioned by the Post Office 

Department

1912 Village delivery offered

1913 Parcel Post began

Insurance offered

Collect on delivery (COD) 

offered

1914 Government-owned and 

-operated vehicle service 

instituted

1918 Scheduled airmail service began

Non-profit second-class rates 

effective

1920 Metered postage authorized

1924 Scheduled transcontinental 

airmail service began

1927 International airmail began

1941 Highway Post Offices started

1942 V-mail inaugurated

1943 Postal zoning system began in 

124 large cities

1948 Domestic and International Air 

Parcel Post inaugurated

1950 Residential deliveries reduced to 

once a day

1952 Nonprofit third-class rates 

effective

1953 Piggy-back mail service by trailers 

or railroad flatcars started

1955 Certified mail introduced

1957 Citizens’ Stamp Advisory 

Committee created

1959 Missile mail dispatched from 

submarine to mainland Florida

1960 Facsimile mail offered

1961 Mail Users Councils established 

1963 ZIP Code and sectional center 

plan implemented

1964 Self-service Post Offices open

Postmark­ simplified

1965 Optical scanner (ZIP Code 

reader) tested

Mailers’ Technical Advisory 

Committee established 

1966 Postal Savings System terminated

1967 Presorting by ZIP Code became 

mandatory for second- and thirdclass mailers

1968 Priority Mail established as a 

subclass of First-Class Mail

1969 Patronage eliminated in 

postmaster and rural carrier 

appointments

1970 Postal Reorganization Act signed

Express Mail began 

experimentally

MAILGRAM instituted

1971 United States Postal Service began 

operations

Postmaster General no longer in 

Cabinet

Labor contract negotiated 

through collective bargaining, a 

first for the federal government

National service standards 

established

Letter cancelled on moon by 

Apollo 15 mission

1972 Stamps by mail instituted

Passport applications accepted in 

Post Offices

1973 National service standards 

expanded

1974 Highway Post Offices terminated

Self-adhesive stamps tested

1975 Post Office class categories 

eliminated

1976 Discount offered for presorted 

First-Class Mail

1639 Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in 

Boston named repository for 

overseas mail

1775 Benjamin Franklin was appointed 

first Postmaster General under 

Continental Congress

1777 Continental Congress authorized 

appointment of an inspector of 

dead letters

1789 Samuel Osgood was appointed 

first Postmaster General under 

Constitution

1823 Navigable waters designated post 

roads by Congress

1829 Postmaster General joined 

Cabinet

1838 Railroads designated post routes 

by Congress

1845 Act of Congress created star

routes

1847 U.S. postage stamps issued

1853 Stamped envelopes issued

1855 Registered Mail began

Prepayment of postage required

1858 Street letter boxes installed

1860 Pony Express started

1862 Railway mail service began 

experimentally

1863 Free city delivery instituted

Postage rates became uniform, 

regardless of distance 

Domestic mail divided into three 

classes

1864 Post Offices categorized by class

Railway mail service inaugurated

Postal money order system 

created

1869 International money orders 

offered

1872 Congress enacted Mail Fraud 

Statute

Congress makes Post Office 

Department an executive 

department 

1873 U.S. postal cards issued

1874 General Postal Union established 

(later Universal Postal Union)

72 The United States Postal Service
1977 Airmail abolished as a separate 

rate category

Express Mail became permanent 

class of service

Final run of railway post office on 

June 30

1978 Discount offered for presorted 

second-class mail

Postage stamps and other 

philatelic items copyrighted

1979 Discount offered for presorted 

bulk third-class mail

Postal Career Executive Service 

(PCES) established

New size standards implemented

1980 INTELPOST (high-speed 

international electronic message 

service) began

1981 Controlled circulation 

classification discontinued

Discount offered for First-Class 

Mail presorted to carrier routes

1982 Automation began with 

installation of optical character 

readers

E-COM (Electronic ComputerOriginated Mail) offered

Last year Postal Service received 

public service subsidy

1983 ZIP+4 code instituted

1984 Integrated retail terminals 

automated postal windows

1985 E-COM terminated

1986 Field divisions created

1987 Stamps by Phone available

Multiline optical character readers 

ordered

1988 Small parcel and bundle sorters 

deployed

1989 First Postal Store opened

1990 International business reply mail 

offered

Easy Stamp allowed computer 

purchase of stamps

Independent measurement 

of First-Class Mail service 

implemented

1991 Wide area barcode readers added

Delivery point sequence 

processing began

1992 Remote barcoding system 

introduced

Area and district offices created 

for customer service and mail 

processing

Stamps sold through automatic 

teller machines

Flats barcoded for automation 

Self-adhesive stamps introduced 

nationwide

Postal Service began national 

environmental program

1993 New corporate logo introduced 

Postal Service began selling First 

Day Covers

National Postal Museum opened 

in Washington, D.C.

Elvis stamp issued (best-selling 

commemorative)

1994 Postal Service launched public 

Internet site

1996 Classification reform enacted

Standard Mail category created

Inspector General appointed

Postal Service released automated 

postage software via Internet

Self-adhesive coil stamps sold

Flat sorters introduced

1997 Robotic containerization systems 

deployed

Linerless self-adhesive coil stamps 

offered

StampsOnline instituted

1998 U.S. semipostal stamp issued

Confirm service tested

1999 Delivery Confirmation launched

PC Postage introduced

POS (Point of Service) ONE 

began

AFSM 100 installed

Lance Armstrong of the USPS 

Pro Cycling Team won his first 

Tour de France

2000 External First Class (EXFC) scores 

reached record high of

94 percent for the first time

2001 Business alliance with FedEx 

formed

Mail irradiated due to anthrax 

threat

Signature Confirmation launched

Internet change of address 

instituted

2002 Transformation Plan released

President’s Commission on the 

United States Postal Service 

established

Record levels of service 

performance posted for 

First-Class Mail and Priority Mail

Confirm service became 

permanent

2003 Civil Service Retirement System 

funding reform legislation passed

Repositional notes authorized on 

advertising mail

First negotiated service agreement

Parcel Return Services pilot 

program began

2004 Biohazard detection equipment 

deployed

Pay for Performance implemented

Customized Postage tested

2005 Standard Mail volume outpaces 

First-Class Mail volume

Strategic Transformation Plan, 2006–

2010 issued

2006 Postal Accountability and 

Enhancement Act signed into law

“Forever” stamp proposed

Intelligent Mail devices with 

signature capture deployed

New barcode instituted (later 

called Intelligent Mail barcode)

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 73
Collection Vehicles

Horse-drawn wagons originally were used to transport mail in large cities. 

Automobiles were first tested for mail collection in cities in 1899; they were able to 

cover the same distance as horse-drawn wagons in less than half the time. The first 

contract for mail collection by automobile was for service in Baltimore in 1906. In 

1911, "motor wagons" were used in seven cities; by 1933 only two percent of postal 

vehicles in cities were horse-drawn.

The Post Office Department originally painted its motor vehicles red, white, 

and blue but changed the color to vermilion red beginning in February 1913, then 

switched to green, red, and black in October of that year. By 1915 the Department 

returned to a red, white, and blue color scheme for its vehicles.

Beginning in 1921, when most of the postal fleet consisted of trucks transferred 

from the War Department, postal vehicles were painted olive drab. The color 

scheme reverted to red, white, and blue in 1954, and then to white in 1979.

Delivery in Cities: A Visual Timeline

Collection Vehicles

Delivery Vehicles

City Letter Carriers

1888 Circa 1894 1926 Circa 1940

Willys Jeep, 1953 Cushing mailster, 1958

Screen wagon, 

circa 1900

Columbia automobile, 

circa 1906

Screen truck, 1914

74 The United States Postal Service
Delivery Vehicles

Although some enterprising letter carriers in Los Angeles used their own autos to 

deliver mail as early as 1912 — cutting their eight-hour workday down to four — the 

Post Office Department did not motorize city delivery routes until the 1950s, in 

response to unprecedented suburban growth. The Department had motorized more 

than half of its residential routes by 1969 with Jeeps, three-wheeled mailsters, and 

sit-stand trucks. Jeeps were in general use in the 1970s and 1980s. Long-life vehicles 

— longer lasting, lighter, and roomier than Jeeps — were introduced in 1987. 

City Letter Carriers

City letter carriers were first required to wear a uniform in 1868; the uniform was 

blue-gray with black trim. Carriers’ uniforms have changed over time to provide 

greater comfort, especially in hot weather. For a detailed history of the letter carrier 

uniform, go to www.usps.com/postalhistory.

Circa 1953 1967 1973 2001

Sit-stand vehicle, 1961 Long-life vehicle (LLV), 1996

Ford Model A truck, 

circa 1930

Chevrolet 3/4 ton truck, 

1958

2 ton truck, 1997

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 75
How A Letter Travels

Collection

After a customer has deposited a letter destined for a distant address in a collection box, a 

postal carrier removes all of the mail from the box and takes it to the Post Office where he or 

she works. That letter and mail collected by other carriers of that Post Office are placed on a 

truck and taken to a mail processing plant.

Culling and Postmarking

Postal workers send the letter through a machine that rapidly separates mail by shape, separating letters from large envelopes and packages (the culling operation). The machine orients 

letters so that all addresses face the same way and are right side up. It then applies a postmark with the date and place where the letter was sorted and cancellation lines so the stamp 

cannot be reused, in order to protect postal revenue.

Scanning and Lifting Images

Every letter gets identified by a code consisting of a series of florescent bars imprinted on the 

back. The address on the front of each letter is scanned by an optical character reader. Images of 

letters that could not be successfully read are transmitted to a remote encoding center for further 

processing. All letters are placed in trays and moved to the next piece of automated equipment 

for barcode application. 

Applying a Barcode and Sorting

Linked with the identification code, a barcode is sprayed on the front of the letter. Representing 

the specific delivery address, the barcode consists of tall and short bars used for all further sorting. The barcode sends a letter into a bin on the machine for a particular range of ZIP Codes; 

these identify the next processing plant.

76 The United States Postal Service
Transportation to Processing Plant

The letter is placed in a tray with other mail for the ZIP Code range it falls into, and this 

tray is taken to the airport to fly across the country. After the plane lands at its destination, 

postal workers take the tray containing the letter to the mail processing plant that serves the 

Post Office, station, or branch that will deliver the letter.

Sorting into Delivery Order

At the plant, the letters in the tray are fed through a barcode sorter, which separates letters 

for a specific ZIP Code from other letters in that ZIP Code range. After this, the letter will 

receive its final sortation. A delivery barcode sorter sorts the letter to the particular carrier 

who will deliver it. The delivery barcode sorter also arranges that carrier’s letters into the 

order of delivery. 

Transportation to Delivery Post Office

Next, all the mail for this carrier is taken by truck to the Post Office, station, or branch in 

which the carrier works. The carrier loads trays of mail, including the letter, into a motor 

vehicle. 

Delivery to Addressee

The carrier drives to the street where the letter is to be delivered, safely parks, then loads his or 

her satchel with the mail to be carried to each house or business. Within minutes of leaving 

the truck, the carrier delivers the letter to the addressee.

More than 700 million pieces of mail are sorted and delivered by the Postal Service each 

delivery day.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 77
See also U.S. Postal Service, Sources 

of Historical Information on Post Offices, 

Postal Employees, Mail Routes, and Mail 

Contractors, Publication 119, listed in 

the bibliography and available online at 

www.usps.com.

American Philatelic Research 

Library

100 Match Factory Place

Bellefonte PA 16823-1367

www.stamplibrary.org

The American Philatelic Research 

Library, the library of the American 

Philatelic Society, is the largest public 

philatelic library in the United States. 

The library publishes a quarterly journal, Philatelic Literature Review.

Corporate Library

United States Postal Service 

475 L’Enfant Plaza SW 

Washington DC 20260-1540

The Postal Service’s Corporate Library 

has a collection of historical material, including the Annual Report of the 

Postmaster General since 1789, Postal 

Laws and Regulations since 1794, the 

United States Official Postal Guide from 

1874 to 1954, and the Postal Bulletin

since 1880. (Exact titles vary.) While 

the library does not lend out its historical material, its collection is open to 

the general public during regular business hours. The library also has secondary sources on postal history, including 

many listed in the bibliography of this 

publication.

Historian

United States Postal Service 

475 L’Enfant Plaza SW 

Washington DC 20260-0012

www.usps.com/postalhistory

The historian maintains Postmaster 

Finder, the Postal Service’s national

historic record of postmasters by Post 

Office, online at www.usps.com/

postmasterfinder. The historian’s staff 

can provide guidance in researching 

specific aspects of postal history. Upon 

request, the historian’s staff can 

provide the names and appointment 

Research Sources

dates of postmasters who have served 

at particular Post Offices, Post Office 

establishment and discontinuance 

dates, and the dates of any Post Office 

name changes. Response time varies 

with the number of requests received. 

Library of Congress

101 Independence Avenue SE

Washington DC 20540-0002

www.loc.gov

The Library’s Geography and Map 

Division has early post route, railroad, 

and other historical maps. Some of 

these maps have been digitized and can 

be viewed or downloaded from their 

Web site. From www.loc.gov, search for 

“map collections.”

National Archives and Records 

Administration

700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington DC 20408-0001

www.archives.gov

The National Archives houses postal 

records prior to 1971. Some of the 

records most useful in researching local 

postal history have been reproduced on 

microfilm, including National Archives 

Microfilm Publication M1131, Record 

of Appointment of Postmasters, October 

1789–1832; Publication M841, Record 

of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–

September 30, 1971; and Publication 

M1126, Post Office Department Reports 

of Site Locations, 1837–1950. For more 

information on these and other records, 

write to the National Archives or visit 

its Web site.

National Personnel Records 

Center

Civilian Records Facility

111 Winnebago Street

St. Louis MO 63118-4126 

The Civilian Records Facility has personnel records for many postal employees whose service ended after 1910. 

Researchers should provide as much 

identifying information as possible 

about the former employee and his/her 

place and dates of employment. The 

Civilian Records Facility also houses 

78 The United States Postal Service
Pony Express Resources

Lexington Historical Museum

112 South 13th Street

Lexington MO 64067-1402

Pony Express Museum

914 Penn Street

St. Joseph, MO 64503-2544

www.ponyexpress.org

Patee House Museum

1202 Penn Street

P.O. Box 1022

St. Joseph MO 64502-1022 

St. Joseph Museum Library

3406 Frederick Avenue

P.O. Box 8096

St. Joseph MO 64508-8096

www.stjosephmuseum.org

The Huntington Library

1151 Oxford Road

San Marino CA 91108-1218 

www.huntington.org

The Wells Fargo Bank History 

Museum

420 Montgomery Street

San Francisco CA 94104-1205 

www.wellsfargo.com, then search for 

“museum”

rural route cards, filed by Post Office, 

which provide details on rural routes 

and carriers.

National Postal Museum

Smithsonian Institution

2 Massachusetts Avenue NE

Washington DC 20002-9997

www.postalmuseum.si.edu

The National Postal Museum offers 

exhibits tracing the history of the postal 

system in the United States. It houses 

nearly six million postal-related items — 

mostly stamps, but also postal stationery, greeting cards, covers and letters, 

mailboxes, postal vehicles, handstamps, 

metering machines, patent models, 

uniforms, badges, and other objects 

related to postal history and philately. 

The museum’s library, with more than 

40,000 volumes and manuscripts, is 

open to the public by appointment.

Railway Mail Service Library

117 East Main Street

Boyce VA 22620-9639

www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org 

The Railway Mail Service Library has 

artifacts, mail route schedules, schemes 

of mail distribution, and publications 

relating to the railway mail service/postal transportation service. The library is 

open by appointment but handles most 

requests by mail. ■

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 79
Beecher, Henry W., and Anthony S. Wawrukiewicz. U.S. Domestic Postal Rates, 1872-1999, Revised Second 

Edition. Portland, OR: CAMA Publishing Company, 1999. 338 pp.

Bowyer, Mathew J. They Carried the Mail: A Survey of Postal History and Hobbies. New York, NY: Robert B. 

Luce, Inc., 1972. 223 pp.

Bradley, Glenn D. The Story of the Pony Express. Chicago, IL: A. C. McClurg & Co, 1913. 175 pp.

Bruns, James H. Great American Post Offices. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998. 274 pp. 

———Mail on the Move. Polo, IL: Transportation Trails, 1992. 224 pp.

———Motorized Mail. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1997. 253 pp.

Butler, Ruth Lapham. Doctor Franklin, Postmaster General. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & 

Company, Inc., 1928. 200 pp.

Chapman, Arthur. The Pony Express: The Record of a Romantic Adventure in Business. New York, NY: G. P. 

Putnam’s Sons, 1932. 319 pp.

Cullinan, Gerald. The United States Postal Service. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1973. 271 pp.

Cushing, Marshall Henry. The Story of Our Post Office. Boston, MA: A. M. Thayer & Co., 1893. 1,034 pp.

Dietz, August. The Postal Service of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, VA: Press of The Dietz 

Printing Co., 1929. 439 pp.

The Expressmen. New York, NY: Time-Life Books, 1974. 240 pp.

Finlay, Hugh. Journal Kept by Hugh Finlay, Surveyor of the Post Roads on the Continent of North America.

Brooklyn, NY: F. H. Norton, 1867. 94 pp.

Fleishman, Joel L., editor. The Future of the Postal Service. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1983. 310 pp.

Fowler, Dorothy Ganfield. The Cabinet Politician: The Postmasters General, 1829-1909. New York, NY: 

Columbia University Press, 1943. 344 pp.

———Unmailable: Congress and the Post Office. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1977. 266 pp.

Fuller, Wayne E. The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago 

Press, 1972. 378 pp.

———Morality and the Mail in Nineteenth-Century America. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois 

Press, 2003. 264 pp.

———RFD, The Changing Face of Rural America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1964. 361 pp.

Graham, Richard B. United States Postal History Sampler. Sidney, OH: Linn’s Stamp News, 1992. 186 pp.

Hafen, Le Roy R. The Overland Mail, 1849-1869. Cleveland, OH: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1926. 

361 pp.

Henkin, David M. The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America. 

Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. 221 pp.

Harlow, Alvin Fay. Old Post Bags. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Company, 1928. 500 pp.

Holmes, Donald B. Airmail: An Illustrated History, 1793-1981. New York, NY: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 

1981. 226 pp.

Ingram, Jane H. Post Office Lockbox Doors: Illustrated Guide, Second Edition. Greenville, SC: Jane H. Ingram, 

1999. 257 pp.

Jackson, Donald Dale. Flying the Mail. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1982. 176 pp.

John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press, 1995. 369 pp.

———“Taking Sabbatarianism Seriously: The Postal System, the Sabbath, and the Transformation of 

American Political Culture.” Journal of the Early Republic, 10 (Winter 1990), 517-567.

Kahn, E. J., Jr. Fraud. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1973. 321 pp.

Kelly, Clyde. United States Postal Policy. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1931. 321 pp.

Kielbowicz, Richard B. News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s. Westport, 

CT: Greenwood Press, 1989. 209 pp.

Konwiser, Harry Myron. Colonial and Revolutionary Posts. Richmond, VA: Press of The Dietz Printing Co., 

1931. 81 pp.

Leary, William M. Aerial Pioneers: The U.S. Air Mail Service, 1918-1927. Washington, DC: Smithsonian 

Institution Press, 1985. 309 pp.

Leech, D. D. T. The Post Office Department of the United States of America. Washington, DC: Judd and 

Detweiler, Publishers, 1879. 109 pp.

Linn’s U.S. Stamp Yearbook: A Comprehensive Record of Technical Data, Background, and Stories behind All of the 

Stamps. Sidney, OH: Linn’s Stamp News. Published annually.

Long, Bryant Alden and William Jefferson Dennis. Mail by Rail: The Story of the Postal Transportation Service.

New York, NY: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp., 1951. 414 pp.

Mackay, James A. The Guinness Book of Stamps: Facts & Feats. Enfield, Middlesex, England: Guinness 

Superlatives Limited, 1982. 225 pp.

Margolis, Richard J. At the Crossroads: An Inquiry into Rural Post Offices and the Communities They Serve.

Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1980. 55 pp.

McReynolds, Ross Allan. History of the United States Post Office, 1607-1931. Chicago, IL: University of 

Chicago, 1935. 559 pp.

Melius, Louis. The American Postal Service, Second Edition. Washington, DC: National Capital Press, Inc., 

1917. 112 pp.

Bibliography

80 The United States Postal Service
Miner, Ward L. William Goddard, Newspaperman. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1962. 223 pp.

(Moroney, Rita L.) Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General, 1861-1864. Washington, DC: United States Postal 

Service, reissued 1989. 44 pp.

Moroney, Rita L. A Study of the Intent of Legislation on Second-Class Rates. Washington, DC: United States 

Postal Service, 1977. 49 pp.

National Association of Letter Carriers. Carriers in a Common Cause: A History of Letter Carriers and the 

NALC. Washington, DC: National Association of Letter Carriers (AFL-CIO), 1989. 103 pp.

National Association of Postal Supervisors. Back to Our Birthplace: National Association of Postal Supervisors, 

1908-1992. Washington, DC: National Association of Postal Supervisors, undated. 36 pp.

National Association of Postmasters of the United States. Postmark America: The Story of the National 

Association of Postmasters of the United States. Alexandria, VA: Martin Communications, Inc., 1988. 97 pp.

Park, Marlene and Gerald E. Markowitz. Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal.

Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984. 247 pp.

Rich, Wesley Everett. The History of the United States Post Office to the Year 1829. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 

University Press, 1924. 190 pp.

Robinson, Howard. The British Post Office: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1948. 467 pp.

Roper, Daniel C. The United States Post Office. New York, NY: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1917. 382 pp.

Scheele, Carl H. A Short History of the Mail Service. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970. 

250 pp.

———The Story of the United States Mails. Northbrook, IL: Whitehall Company, 1972. 102 pp.

Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps. Sidney, OH: Scott Publishing Co. Published annually.

Smith, William. The History of the Post Office in British North America, 1639-1870. Cambridge, England: 

University Press, 1920. 356 pp.

Smithsonian Institution, Owney, Mascot of the Railway Mail Service. Washington, DC, revised 1992. 20 pp.

Stets, Robert J. Postmasters & Postoffices of the United States, 1782-1811. Lake Oswego, OR: La Posta 

Publications, 1994. 290 pp.

The Story of the Post Office. Burlington, VT: Wells, Richardson & Co., 1889. 160 pp.

Summerfield, Arthur E. U.S. Mail: The Story of the United States Postal Service. New York, NY: Holt, 

Rinehart & Winston, 1960. 256 pp.

Tierney, John T. Postal Reorganization: Managing the Public’s Business. Boston, MA: Auburn House 

Publishing Company, 1981. 191 pp.

———The U.S. Postal Service: Status and Prospects of a Public Enterprise. Dover, MA: Auburn House Publishing 

Company, 1988. 238 pp.

Towards Postal Excellence: The Report of the President’s Commission on Postal Organization. Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 1968. 212 pp.

U.S. Post Office Department. A Brief History of the United States Postal Service. Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 1933. 11 pp.

U.S. Postal Service. An American Postal Portrait: A Photographic Legacy. New York, NY: HarperCollins 

Publishers Inc., 2000. 172 pp. 

———Annual Report. Washington, DC, published annually.

———Glossary of Postal Terms, Publication 32. Washington, DC, 1997. 142 pp.

———History of the Postal Inspection Service, Publication 259. Washington, DC, 1982. 24 pp.

———The Postal Service Guide to U.S. Stamps. Washington, DC, published annually.

———Sources of Historical Information on Post Offices, Postal Employees, Mail Routes, and Mail Contractors, 

Publication 119. Washington, DC, 2006. 31 pp.

———Strategic Transformation Plan, 2006-2010. Washington, DC, 2005. 66 pp. plus appendices.

———Transformation Plan. Washington, DC, 2002. 76 pp. plus appendices.

van der Linden, F. Robert. Airlines and Air Mail: The Post Office and the Birth of the Commercial Aviation 

Industry. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2002. 349 pp.

Walsh, John and Garth Mangum. Labor Struggle in the Post Office: From Selective Lobbying to Collective 

Bargaining. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992. 271 pp.

Wawrukiewicz, Anthony S. and Henry W. Beecher. U.S. International Postal Rates, 1872-1996. Portland, 

OR: CAMA Publishing Company, 1996. 402 pp.

White, James E. A Life Span and Reminiscences of Railway Mail Service. Philadelphia, PA: Deemer & Jaisohn, 

1910. 274 pp.

Woolley, Mary E. The Early History of the Colonial Post-Office. Providence, RI: Rhode Island Historical 

Society, 1894. 33 pp.

Related Interest

Gannett, Henry. American Names: A Guide to the Origin of Place Names in the United States. Washington, DC: 

Public Affairs Press, 1947. 334 pp.

Harder, Kelsie B., editor. Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names: United States and Canada. New York, NY: Van 

Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976. 631 pp.

Stewart, George R. American Place-Names: A Concise and Selective Dictionary for the Continental United States of 

America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1970. 550 pp.

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 81
Notes

1 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

1905), 2:208.

2 The year of Neale’s grant is given according to the current, Gregorian calendar. Neale’s grant was 

dated February 17, 1691, under the old, Julian calendar.

3 William Goddard’s petition to the Continental Congress, September 29, 1774, in the collection of 

the National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

4 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774­­–1789 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

1905), 2:57.

5 George Washington. George Washington to John Jay, July 18, 1788. Letter. From Library of Congress, 

The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741–1799, Series 2: Letterbooks 1754–1799. 

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html (accessed February 25, 2003).

6 Ebenezer Hazard to Jeremy Belknap, September 27, 1789, in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical 

Society, Vol. III, Fifth Series (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1877), 192.

7 Ebenezer Hazard to the Continental Congress, November 14, 1776, in American Archives, Series 

5, Volume 3, 681 (New York, NY: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972) (originally by Peter Force, 

Washington, DC, 1853).

8 Ebenezer Hazard to Rev. John Witherspoon, November 14, 1776, in Ibid., 681–682.

9 Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, according to the current, Gregorian calendar. He 

was born on January 6, 1705, under the old, Julian calendar.

10 Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, NY: The Viking Press, 1957), 782.

11 Benjamin P. Thomas, “Lincoln the Postmaster,” Bulletin of the Abraham Lincoln Association

(Springfield, IL), No. 31, June 1933, 7–8. 

12 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, The Henry Reeve Text as Revised by Francis Bowen, Now 

Further Corrected and Edited with Introduction, Editorial Notes, and Bibliographies by Phillips Bradley (New 

York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 1:317. 

13 U.S. Post Office Department, History of the Railway Mail Service; A Chapter in the History of Postal 

Affairs in the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1885), 28.

14 Ibid., 41.

15 Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to 

March 3, 1845, Volume V (Boston, MA: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850), 738. 

16 U.S. Post Office Department, Proposals for Carrying the Mail in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut (Washington, DC: C. Alexander, Printer, 1853), 164-166.

17 Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1859, 16.

18 Ibid., 1860, 2.

19 Circa 1930 U.S. Post Office Department memorandum, files, USPS Historian.

20 Marshall Cushing, The Story of Our Post Office (Boston, MA: A.M. Thayer & Co., Publishers, 1893), 

40–41.

	21 Congressional Record -- House (80th Congress, 2nd Session), June 3, 1948, Vol. 94, Part 6, 7104.

22 Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1862, 32.

23 U.S. Post Office Department, Supervision of City Delivery Service (Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Office, 1930), 8. 

24 Committee Chairman Edwin A. Neiss to Postmaster General Will H. Hays, Aug. 24, 1921, vertical 

files, USPS Corporate Library. 

25 Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1891, 84.

26 Ibid., 86.

27 Ibid., 1892, 11–12.

28 Ibid., 1902, 129.

29 Ibid., 1897, 112–114.

30 Ibid., 1901, 122. Locks on rural mailboxes have always been optional; initially carriers used master keys to open locked boxes. Since May 28, 1981, rural carriers have delivered mail into locked 

boxes through slots.

31 Ibid., 1902, 101.

32 Ibid., 1929, 26. 

33 Ibid., 1873, XXVI–XXVII. 

34 The weight limit for parcels going to nearby addresses was increased to 20 pounds on August 15, 

1913, and on January 1, 1914, the weight limits were increased to 50 pounds for parcels to nearby 

addresses and 20 pounds for parcels traveling further. On July 1, 1915, the size limit was increased 

to 84 inches. Beginning on March 15, 1918, weight limits were increased to 70 pounds for parcels 

to nearby addresses and 50 pounds for parcels traveling further. The weight and size limits of all 

parcels, regardless of destination, were raised to 70 pounds and 100 inches on August 1, 1931. 

35 Rita Lloyd Moroney, “Above and Beyond,” The Encyclopedia of Aviation and Space Sciences (Chicago: 

New Horizons Publishers, Inc., 1967), 77.

36 William C. Hopson to Second Assistant Postmaster General, April 11, 1921, Air Mail Service 

Personnel Files, Record Group 28, National Archives and Records Administration.

37 Hopson to Duard B. Colyer, Air Mail Service, September 4, 1920, Air Mail Service Personnel Files, 

Record Group 28, National Archives and Records Administration. 

82 The United States Postal Service
38 D. B. Colyer, News Letter. Week Ending September 26, 1925, Air Mail Service, Omaha, Nebraska, 

September 26, 1925, Record Group 28, National Archives and Records Administration.

39 Hopson to Colyer, May 1, 1925, Air Mail Service Personnel Files, Record Group 28, National 

Archives and Records Administration. 

40 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Freedom of the Human Spirit Shall Go On,” Address at the 

Dedication of National Gallery of Art, March 17, 1941. From University of California, American 

Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16091 (accessed February 5, 

2007). 

41 National Archives Microfilm Publication M1126, Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, 

1837–1950, Roll # 264, application to establish the Keyser’s Ridge Post Office in Allegany County, 

Maryland, dated February 23, 1850, on form printed in 1840s. The same language also appears on 

the application to establish the Pipe Creek, Bandera County, Texas, Post Office, dated August 26, 

1873 (Ibid., Roll # 565). 

42 Ibid., Roll # 580, application to establish the Burleson, Johnson County, Texas, Post Office, dated 

November 21, 1881. 

43 Ibid., application to establish the Donald, Johnson County, Texas, Post Office, dated July 21, 1892. 

44 First Report of the United States Board on Geographic Names, 1890-1891 (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 1892), 2.

45 U.S. House. Hearings, Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Departments of Treasury 

and Post Office and Executive Office of the President. 90th Congress, 1st session, 27 February 

1967 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), 5.

46 Ibid., 27.

47 Murray Comarow, “Truly Reforming the Postal Service,” Mail: The Journal of Communication 

Distribution 9 (March 1997), 33.

48 United States Postal Service, Comprehensive Statement on Postal Operations, 1995, 28.

49 Postmaster General John E. Potter announced on November 15, 2006, that the Postal Service 

would reduce the time it takes a person to become eligible to appear on a stamp following death 

from ten years to five years, effective January 1, 2007.

50 David M. Walker, U.S. Postal Service: Financial Outlook and Transformation Challenges (GAO-01-733T, 

May 15, 2001), 2. Testimony. From United States General Accountability Office, Reports and 

Testimony. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01733t.pdf (accessed September 15, 2006).

51 USPS News Link, October 30, 2001, files, USPS Historian.

52 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New York, NY: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1965), 160.

53 The Hugh Finlay Journal, Colonial Postal History, 1773-1774 ([s.l.]: U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, 

Inc., c1975), 1.

54 House Report No. 103, 23rd Congress, 2nd Session, “Examination of the Post Office Department,” 

February 13, 1835, 194; letter from Postmaster General William Barry, May 5, 1830, American State 

Papers: Post Office Department, 1:256.

55 Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1843, 4. 

56 “History of the Inspection Service,” Post Office Inspection Service Survey, 1954, August, 10-11, and 

September, 9-10.

57 The five Post Offices were located at Savannah, Georgia; Old Point Comfort, Virginia; Charleston, 

South Carolina; Mobile, Alabama; and Natchez, Mississippi.

58 Congressional Globe, Senate, 38th Congress, 2nd Session, 661 (1865).

59 The Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations, of the United States of America, from December 1863, to 

December 1865 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1866), 507.

60 P. H. Woodward, Guarding the Mails; Or, The Secret Service of the Post-Office Department ... (Hartford, 

CT: J. P. Fitch, 1882), 442.

61 “Mail-Bag Mysteries: How our Country Cousins are ‘Taken in and Done for’ — Some Ingenious 

Swindles,” The New-York Times, June 11, 1871, 6.

62 Ibid.

63 Woodward, 421-422.

64 Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1879, 17.

65 “Says Poster Snare Got De Autremonts,” The New-York Times, July 6, 1927, 16. See also Ibid., 

April 24, 1927, XX4, and The Washington Post, September 23, 1928, M6.

66 Ponzi promised a 50 percent return on investments from profits made redeeming international 

reply coupons bought cheaply in war-torn Europe for their greater value in U.S. currency. He continued seeking investors even after he learned the coupons could not be redeemed for cash. Only 

his earliest investors profited, because they were paid from funds anted up by later investors. 

67 Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1967, 65.

68 United States Postal Inspection Service Annual Report, 1972, 14.

69 United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, Five-Year Strategic Plan, FY 2004-2008. 

From Office of Inspector General. http://www.uspsoig.gov/sp_0408.pdf (accessed March 3, 2006).

	 	 An American History 1775–2006 83
Inscriptions

Contrary to popular belief, the United

States Postal Service has no official

motto. However, a number of postal

buildings contain inscriptions, the

most familiar of which appear in New

York City and Washington, D.C.

General Post Office, New York 

City, 8th Avenue and 33rd Street

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor 

gloom of night stays these couriers 

from the swift completion of their 

appointed rounds. 

From the works of Herodotus

describing the expedition of the

Greeks against the Persians under

Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians

operated a system of mounted postal

couriers who performed with great

fidelity.

Former Washington, D.C., Post 

Office, Massachusetts Avenue 

and North Capitol Street, now 

the site of the Smithsonian 

Institution’s National Postal 

Museum 

Messenger of Sympathy and 

Love

Servant of Parted Friends

Consoler of the Lonely

Bond of the Scattered Family

Enlarger of the Common Life 

Carrier of News and Knowledge

Instrument of Trade and Industry

Promoter of Mutual Acquaintance

Of Peace and of Goodwill Among 

Men and Nations

From “The Letter,” by Dr. Charles

W. Eliot, former president of Harvard

University, as revised by President

Woodrow Wilson.

Seals

Mercury, a post rider, and now the

eagle have symbolized the U.S. postal

system at various times.

In 1782, Postmaster General

Ebenezer Hazard used the figure of

Mercury, messenger of the gods, in

his official seal. Mercury’s feet, helmet, and staff had wings, and he

was encircled by an inscription which

read, in Latin, “Seal of the Office of

the General Messenger.” By 1824 the

inscription was changed to read “Seal

of the Gen| Post-Office Department,”

Mercury’s right hand was raised, and

he was standing on top of a globe.

By 1829 “America” was written on the

globe.

Amos Kendall, in his May 1, 1837,

Order of the Postmaster General,

moved away from this classical,

divine imagery when he directed

that the official seal of the Post

Office Department portray “a Post

Horse in speed, with Mail-bags and

rider, encircled by the words ‘Post

Office Department, United States of

America.’” The energy and effort of a

human on a gallant horse served as

the seal of the Post Office Department

from 1837 through 1970.

When President Nixon signed the

Postal Reorganization Act into law

on August 12, 1970, the bald eagle

became the center of the Postal

Service seal. The eagle was poised

for flight on a white field, above red

and blue bars framing the words

“U.S. Mail,” which were in black.

The ochre border featured the words

“United States Postal Service” on

three sides and nine five-pointed

stars at the base. The stars had no

special symbolism.

On October 12, 1993, Postmaster

General Marvin Runyon unveiled a

new corporate logo, an eagle’s head

in white leaning into the wind, on a

blue background. The 1993 corporate

logo became a registered trademark

on September 12, 1995. It has not

replaced the 1970 postal seal as the

official seal of the United States Postal

Service.

Postal Seals

1837–1970

Postal Corporate Signature 

1993–Present

Postal Insignia

1829–1837

1970–Present

84 The United States Postal Service
Acknowledgments

The United States Postal Service: An American History is published by Government Relations, United States Postal Service, 

475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW, Washington, DC, 20260-3500.

Thomas G. Day Joanne B. Giordano Judith A. de Torok

Senior Vice President Vice President Manager

Government Relations Public Affairs & Communications Legislative Policy and Strategy 

Development

Thad Dilley Megaera Ausman Frank Schultz-Depalo

Manager Historian Designer

Brand Equity and Design

Jennifer M. Lynch Melody Selvage Gerald T. Merna

Research Analyst, Postal History Research Analyst, Postal History Photographer

The Postal Service thanks all who contributed to this publication, especially Daniel Afzal, Debbi Baer, Sandra M. Harding, 

Ernest E. Harris, Susan Hawes, Kristen Hudak, Carla J. Hunter, Michael M. Kubayanda, William R. Lalli, Thomas C. Potter, 

Paula E. Rabkin, and Frank R. Scheer. The contributions of Margaret C. Boardman, Ph.D., and the pioneering work of the late 

Rita Lloyd Moroney were important to this publication.

All photographs are from the United States Postal Service, except where noted.

The following are registered trademarks of the United States Postal Service: Airmail, APC, Automated Postal Center, 

Click-N-Ship, Collection Box (shape of round-top), Confirm, Express Mail, First-Class Mail, Intelligent Mail, Mr. ZIP, 

Parcel Post, PC Postage, Planet Code, PostalOne!, Priority Mail, Redress, Standard Mail, U.S. Mail and Eagle Logo, United 

States Office of Inspector General, United States Post Office, United States Postal Inspection Service, United States Postal 

Service, U.S. Postal Service, USPS, usps.com, USPS eBillPay, United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team, ZIP+4.

The following are trademarks of the United States Postal Service: Delivery Confirmation, First-Class, Pony Express, Post Office, 

Postal Service, Postmaster General, Rural Free Delivery, Signature Confirmation, Stamps Online, ZIP Code.

Cover Photos

Back, left: early 1900s, courtesy of National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Back, middle: circa 1918, courtesy of Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

Back, right: circa 1940s, courtesy of National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Front, left: circa 1890s, courtesy of National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Front, right: 2004
PSN: 7610-03-000-9247

Publication 100, May 2007