If you’ve ever sent or received a holiday card or package, you know how important the mail service is, especially during the end of the year holiday season. But did you know that the postal service is also one of the oldest, and most important, federal agencies? In fact, it is older than the United States itself. Here, btw takes a closer look at the long and proud history of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
Colonial Times
Who began the postal service? Benjamin Franklin! Franklin oversaw the British colonial mail service from 1753 to 1774. Franklin was also instrumental in developing an early system of communication between the thirteen colonies. Meanwhile, other colonists organized the Committees of Correspondence and the Constitutional Post. These were “underground” networks that allowed the colonists to share ideas and plans for the independence effort.
Later, the 1775 Continental Congress turned the Constitutional Post into the first Post Office of the United States. Ben Franklin was appointed as the first Postmaster General.
A New Nation
Communication was critical to the United States from the beginning. In 1792, James Madison and others came up with a plan to charge wealthy people a high price to mail letters. This made it possible to circulate cheap, uncensored newspapers for free. It also encouraged the spread of ideas and political debate. By 1831, the U.S. already had twice as many post offices as Great Britain and five times as many post offices as France.
The Pony Express
The Pony Express is a well-known communications methods that has its own unique American folklore. But this system only operated for about a year and a half. In the 1800s, the railroads only went as far west as Missouri. To get mail from Missouri to California, riders carried it on horseback, making the journey in an astonishing ten days! In 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed, eliminating the need for mail to be carried by horses.
But even with a well-established rail system, it was still difficult to get mail to and from some of the country’s more distant places. In the early 1900s, automobiles were used to carry mail to remote rural regions. Around the same time, dog sleds were used to deliver mail all the way to Americans in the Alaska Territory.
The Post Office in Crisis
Today the Postal Service is struggling to stay profitable due to the widespread use of electronic mail options and due to the competition of other package delivery services. But a struggling Post Office is not a uniquely modern problem.
In the 1840s, the price of carrying mail had increased to such a point that most average Americans couldn’t afford it. Sending a letter 150 miles cost 20 cents, or about $6 in today’s dollars. People began using private carriers to save money. So, Congress converted the post office into a public service, meaning that it no longer had to make money, and cut the price of sending mail in half.
The Post Office faced a similar crisis after World War II, when the volume of mail doubled and the Post Office plunged deeply into debt. In 1970, Congress remade the department as a government-business hybrid that receives no tax dollars but is still under the control of the federal government.
Most recently, the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act piled billions of dollars of debt onto the postal service by requiring the department to pay for its retirees’ health benefits.