United States Postal History Time line
source: http://www.usps.com/history/his1.htm
Information courtesy of the United States Postal Service
Compiled and Edited by Michael R.Reilly
Last Revised 03/03/2005
also see Post Offices, Postmasters, Mail Carriers and Mail Delivery History for Sussex, Lisbon, Lake Five, Colgate, Templeton and Lannon, Waukesha County, Wisconsin
1639- Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston namedrepository for overseas
mail
1775- Benjamin Franklin first Postmaster General under Continental
Congress
1789- Samuel Osgood, first Postmaster General under Constitution
1823- Navigable waters designated post roads by Congress
1825- Dead letter office
1829- Postmaster General joins Cabinet
1830- Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations established, later
Office of the Chief Postal Inspector
1838- Railroads designated post routes by Congress
At least three decades before the Pony Express galloped intopostal history, the “iron horse” made a formal appearance. In August1829, an English-built locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion completed the firstlocomotive run in the United States on the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company Road in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. One month later, the South CarolinaRailroad Company adopted the locomotive as its tractive power, and, in 1830, theBaltimore & Ohio’s Tom Thumb, America’s first steam railroad locomotive,successfully carried more than 40 persons at a speed exceeding 10 miles an hour.This beginning was considered somewhat
less than auspicious when a stage driver’s horse outran the Tom Thumb on aparallel track in a race at Ellicotts Mills, Maryland, on September 18, 1830.Later, however, a steam locomotive reached the unheard-of speed of 30 miles anhour in an 1831 competition in Baltimore, and the dray horses used to power thefirst trains were eased out.
The Post Office Department recognized the value of this newmode of transportation for mail as early as November 30, 1832, when the stagecontractors on a route from Philadelphia to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, weregranted an allowance of $400 per year “for carrying the mail on therailroad as far as West Chester (30 miles) from December 5, 1832.”
Although the Department apparently entered into a number of contracts providingfor rail transportation as a part of the stage routes in succeeding years, thePostmaster General listed only one railroad company as a contractor during thefirst six months of 1836, “Route 1036 from Philadelphia to Mauch Chunk,Pennsylvania. ”
After passage of the Act of July 7, 1838, designating allrailroads in the United States as post routes, mail service by railroadincreased rapidly. The Post Office appointed a route agent to accompany themails between Albany and Utica, New York, in 1837. The first route agent was
John Kendall, nephew of Postmaster General Amos Kendall. In June 1840, two mailagents were appointed to accompany the mail from Boston to Springfield “tomake exchanges of mails, attend to delivery, and receive and forward all unpaidway letters and packages received.” At this time, mail was sorted indistributing post offices. The only mail sent to the agents on the railroadlines was that intended for dispatch to offices along each route. The routeagents opened the pouches from the local offices, separated the mail for otherlocal
points on the line for inclusion in the pouches for those offices, and sent thebalance into the distributing post offices for further sorting. Gradually, theclerks began to make up mail for connecting lines, as well as local offices, andthe idea of distributing all transit mail on the cars slowly evolved.
The first experiment in distributing U.S. mail in so-called”post offices on wheels” was made in 1862 between Hannibal and St.Joseph, Missouri, by William A. Davis, postmaster of St. Joseph. Although thisnew procedure expedited the connection at St. Joseph with the overland
stage, it was discontinued in January 1863. On August 28, 1864, the first U.S.Railroad Post Office route was officially established when George B. Armstrong,the assistant postmaster of Chicago, Illinois, placed a postal car equipped forgeneral distribution in service between
Chicago and Clinton, Iowa, on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. Similarroutes were established between New York and Washington; Chicago and RockIsland, Illinois; Chicago and Burlington, Illinois; and New York and Erie,Pennsylvania.
When railroad mail service began, mostly letter mail wassorted on the cars, which were not equipped to distribute other kinds of mail.By about 1869, other mail, except packages, was sorted as well. In 1930, morethan 10,000 trains were used to move the mail into every city, town, and villagein the United States. Following passage of the Transportation Act of 1958,mail-carrying passenger trains declined rapidly. By 1965, only 190 trainscarried mail; by 1970, the railroads carried virtually no First-Class Mail.
On April 30, 1971, the Post Office Department terminatedseven of the eight remaining routes. The lone, surviving railroad post officeran between New York and Washington, D.C., and made its last run on June 30,1977.
1845- Star routes
1847- U. S. Postage stamps issued
1852- Stamped envelopes
1855- Registered Mail
1855- Compulsory prepayment of postage
1858- Street letter boxes
1860- Pony Express
1861 – Confederate Postal Service
The Post Office Department of the Confederate States of America was establishedon February 21, 1861, by an Act of the Provisional Congress
of the Confederate States. On March 6, 1861, the day after Montgomery Blair’sappointment by President Abraham Lincoln as Postmaster General of the UnitedStates, John Henninger Reagan, a former U. S. Congressman, was appointedPostmaster General of the Confederate States of America by Jefferson Davis,President of the Confederate States.
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texasalready had seceded from the Nation. In the following months, Virginia,Arkansas, North Carolina, and most of Tennessee followed suit. Reagan instructedsouthern postmasters to continue to render their accounts to the United Statesas before until the Confederate postal
system was organized. Meanwhile, he sent job offers to southern men in the PostOffice Department in Washington. Many accepted and brought along theirexpertise, as well as copies of postal reports, forms in use, postal maps, etc.
In May 1861, Reagan issued a proclamation stating that hewould officially assume control of the postal service of the Confederate Stateson June 1, 1861. Postmaster General Blair responded by ordering the cessation ofUnited States mail service throughout the South on May 31, 1861.
Although an able administrator headed the Confederate PostOffice Department, its mail service was continuously interrupted. Through acombination of pay and personnel cuts, postage rate increases, and thestreamlining of mail routes, Reagan eliminated the deficit that existed in thepostal service in the South. But blockades and the invading army from the North,as well as a growing scarcity of postage stamps, severely hampered postaloperations. The resumption of federal mail service in the southern states tookplace gradually as the war came to an end. By November 15, 1865, 241 mail routeshad been restored in southern states; by November 1, 1866, 3,234 post officesout of 8,902 were returned to federal control in the South.
Postmaster General Reagan was arrested at the end of the warbut later was pardoned and eventually made it back to Congress, where he becamechairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads.
1862- Railway mail service, experimental
1863- Free city delivery
In the early part of the 19th century, envelopes were notused. Instead, a letter was folded and the address placed on the outside of thesheet. The customer had to take a letter to the post office to mail it, and theaddressee had to pick up the letter at the post office, unless he or she
lived in one of about 40 big cities where a carrier would deliver it to the homeaddress for an extra penny or two. Although postage stamps became available in1847, mailers had the option of sending their letters and having the recipientspay the postage until 1855, when prepayment became compulsory. Previously, ifthe addressees refused to accept the letter — and they often did — the PostOffice’s labor and delivery costs were never recovered. Street boxes for mailcollection began to appear in large cities by 1858. In 1863, free city deliverywas instituted in 49 of the country’s largest cities. By 1890, 454 post officeswere delivering mail to residents of United States cities. It was not until theturn of the century, however, that free delivery came to farmers and other ruralresidents.
1863- Uniform postage rates, regardless of distance
1863- Domestic mail divided into three classes
1864- Post offices categorized by classes
1864- Railroad post offices
1864- Domestic money orders
1869- Foreign or international money orders
1872- Congress enacts Mail Fraud Statute
1873- Penny postal card
1874- General Postal Union (later Universal Postal Union)
1879- Domestic mail divided into four classes
1880- Congress establishes title of Chief Post Office Inspector
1885- Special Delivery
1887- International parcel post
1893- First commemorative stamps
1896- Rural free delivery, experimental
Today it is difficult to envision the isolation that was thelot of farm families in early America. In the days before telephones, radios, ortelevisions were common, the farmer’s main links to the outside world were themail and the newspapers that came by mail to the nearest post office. Since themail had to be picked up, this meant a trip to the post office, often involvinga day’s travel, round-trip. The farmer might delay picking up mail for days,weeks, or even months until the trip could be coupled with one for supplies,food, or equipment.
John Wanamaker of Pennsylvania was the first PostmasterGeneral to advocate rural free delivery (RFD). Although funds were appropriateda month before he left office in 1893, subsequent Postmasters General draggedtheir feet on inaugurating the new service so that it was 1896 before the firstexperimental rural delivery routes began in West Virginia, with carriers workingout of post offices in Charlestown, Halltown, and Uvilla.
Many transportation events in postal history were marked bygreat demonstrations: the Pony Express for example, and scheduled airmailservice in 1918. The West Virginia experiment with rural free delivery, however,was launched in relative obscurity and in an atmosphere of hostility. Critics ofthe plan claimed it was impractical and too
expensive to have a postal carrier trudge over rutted roads and through foreststrying to deliver mail in all kinds of weather. However, the farmers, withoutexception, were delighted with the new service and the new world open to them.After receiving free delivery
for a few months, one observed that it would take away part of life to give itup. A Missouri farmer looked back on his life and calculated that, in 15 years,he had traveled 12,000 miles going to and from his post office to get the mail.
A byproduct of rural free delivery was the stimulation itprovided to the development of the great American system of roads and highways.A prerequisite for rural delivery was good roads. After hundreds of petitionsfor rural delivery were turned down by the Post Office because of unserviceableand inaccessible roads, responsible local governments began to extend andimprove existing highways. Between 1897 and 1908, these local governments spentan estimated $72 million on bridges, culverts, and other improvements. In onecounty in Indiana, farmers themselves paid over $2,600 to grade and gravel aroad in order to qualify for RFD. The impact of RFD as a cultural and socialagent for millions of Americans was even more striking, and, in this respect,rural delivery still is a vital link between industrial and rural America.
1898- Private postcards authorized
1902- Rural free delivery, permanent
1911- Postal savings system
An Act of Congress on June 25, 1910, established a postalsavings system in post offices, effective January 1, 1911. The legislation aimedto get money out of hiding, attract the savings of immigrants accustomed tosaving at post offices in their native countries, provide safe depositories forpeople who had lost confidence in private banks, and furnish more convenientdepositories for working people, since post offices were open from 8 a.m. to 6p.m., six days a week. The system paid two percent interest per year. Theminimum deposit was
$1, the maximum, $2,500. Deposits were slow at first, but, by 1929, $153 millionwas on deposit. Savings spurted to $1.2 billion during the 1930s and jumpedagain during World War II, peaking in 1947 at almost $3.4 billion.
After the war, banks raised their interest rates and offeredthe same governmental guarantee as the postal savings system, and savings bondsgave higher interest rates. Deposits in the postal savings system declined. By1964, they dropped to $416 million, and they continued to
decline by $5 million per month.
On April 27, 1966, the Post Office Department stoppedaccepting deposits in existing accounts, refused to open new accounts, and, asthe yearly anniversary date of existing accounts came up, cut off interestpayments. When the system ended officially on July 1, 1967, about $60 million inunclaimed deposits of more than 600,000 depositors was turned over to theTreasury Department to be held in trust, without a time limitation.
Eventually, under a law of August 13, 1971, the Treasury wasauthorized to turn over the money still on deposit to various states andjurisdictions, each sharing proportionately. Some money was kept on deposit forfuture claims, but under the Postal Savings System Statute
of Limitations Act of July 13, 1984 (Public Law 98-359), no claims could bebrought more than one year after enactment. Thus, no claims made after July 13,1985, have been honored.
1911- Carriage of mail by airplane sanctioned between Garden City and Mineola,NY; Earle H. Ovington, first U. S. mail pilot
1912- Village delivery
1913- Parcel post
The establishment of rural delivery was a heady taste of lifefor rural Americans and soon increased their demand for delivery of smallpackages containing foodstuffs, tobacco, dry goods, drugs, and other commoditiesnot easily available to farmers. Private express companies and country retailmerchants fought long and hard against parcel post, but rural residentsrepresented 54 percent of the country’s population, and they were equallyvociferous. While the question was still being hotly debated in Congress, one ofthe express
companies declared a large dividend to stockholders, and public indignation atso-called exorbitant profits helped decide the issue for Congress.
Parcel post became law in 1912, and service began January 1,1913. It was an instant success. In all parts of the country, enthusiasticadvocates of the service celebrated by mailing thousands of parcels in the firstfew days. The effect on the national economy was electric.
Marketing and merchandising through parcel post gave rise to great mail-orderhouses.
Montgomery Ward, the first mail-order house, started with aone-page catalog in 1872. After parcel post began, the mail order catalog becamethe most important book in the farmhouse next to the Bible; it was, in fact,often called – “The Homesteader’s Bible” or “The Wish Book.”
Sears, Roebuck and Company followed Montgomery Ward in 1893. In 1897, after oneyear of rural delivery, Sears boasted it was selling four suits and a watchevery minute, a revolver every two minutes, and a buggy every 10 minutes. Afterfive years of parcel post delivery, Sears had tripled its revenues.
Assembling Bricks for a Home
Bricks to be used in building a brick home at the Coliseum,Chicago, during the clay products exposition which is being held from Feb. 26 toMar. 8, were sent by manufacturers – three from each – by parcels post.Twenty-five thousand were sent from brick plants in the United States to be usedin the construction of this house, which will be given away and
re-erected after the exposition.
The idea was originated to test the merits of the parcel postsystem and it is certainly a novel one. A record will be kept of bricks from thetime they are mailed until delivered in Chicago in order to see how speedilyUncle Sam can deliver a brick house by mail.
Source:Waukesha Freeman, March 6, 1913
1913- Insurance
1913- Collect-on-delivery
A staggering variety of goods went by parcel post through theyears. Farm fresh eggs, a mainstay of the early service, were among the firstitems sent. Baby chicks–not a favorite among carriers due to their noise,smell, and tendency to expire en route–also traveled by parcel post inspecially constructed boxes.
In the pre-World War I days, before the practice was banned,even children were sent parcel post. A mother involved in an acrimonious divorcein 1914 shipped a baby from Stillwell to South Bend, Indiana, where its father,who had won custody, resided. For 17 cents, the child
traveled in a container marked “Live Baby.” Postal workers saw to itssafe arrival.
That same year, the parents of a blonde four-year-old namedMay Pierstroff sent her from Grangeville, Idaho, to her grandparents in anotherpart of the state for 53 cents, the going rate for mailing chickens. May, whorode in the mail car with postage stamps attached to her coat, was safelydelivered by a mail clerk. Word of her excursion soon prompted the Post OfficeDepartment to forbid sending any human being by mail.
In 1916, an entire bank–probably the largest object eversent by parcel post–was dismantled and shipped from Salt Lake City, Utah, toVernal, California. Its 80,000 bricks were shipped in 50-pound lots, one ton ata time. While the shipments saved the cost of wagon freight, they caused untoldheadaches and back strain for local postmasters and railroad workers. Too lateto stop that shipment, the postmaster general decreed that henceforth a singleshipper could post no more than 200 pounds a day.
Some postal customers have entrusted treasured belongings tothe Post Office. The world-famous Hope diamond arrived safely at the SmithsonianInstitution in Washington, D.C., after being sent from New York City by HarryWinston, its owner, in an ordinary brown package, insured for $1 million.
If RFD and parcel post were slow in coming to the Post OfficeDepartment, so also was its use of the airplane to carry mail. In 1910,Congressman Morris Sheppard of Texas introduced a bill in the House ofRepresentatives instructing the postmaster general to study the
feasibility of using airplanes to ferry mail between the nation’s capital andanother city. Sheppard’s bill died in committee, but aviation had alreadycaptured the interest of Frank H. Hitchcock, the postmaster general at the time.
In September 1911, Hitchcock authorized the first officialmail flight by airplane within the United States to take place during anaviation meet on New York’s Long Island. On that occasion, Earle Ovington flewhis cargo of letters and postcards from Garden City Estates five and a halfmiles to the neighboring community of Mineola. Although Hitchcock continued topromote the use of aviation for delivering the mail by authorizing similarflights during other meets, it was several more years before Congress authorizedfunds for air postal service.
In 1918, Congress appropriated $200,000 over two years forthe establishment of experimental, scheduled airmail service between theDistrict of Columbia and New York or Philadelphia. The Post Office called forbids to build five planes, but their production was put on hold when the ArmySignal Corps offered the services of its pilots to fly the mail in militaryaircraft as a way to provide the aviators experience in cross-country flying.
Early pilots were a daring if not reckless lot. They flewwithout instruments, radios, or navigational tools, and safe landing sites werefew and far between. Run-ins with houses, chimneys, and trees were common. Oneflier who crashed into a tree reported that he had delivered the mail to a”branch” office.
Due to the pilots’ need for visual references on the ground,planes carried mail only in the daytime. In order to make night flying possible,the Department installed radio stations at flying fields. In February 1921, mailwas flown for the first time by day and night from
San Francisco to New York.
With this accomplishment, Congress finally recognized thepotential of air postal routes and appropriated $1.25 million to expand the airservice by installing more landing fields, towers, beacons, searchlights, andboundary markers across the country. The Post Office
also began fitting airplanes with luminescent instruments, parachute flares, andnavigational lights. During the 1920s, the Post Office received special awardsfor its contribution to the development of aeronautics and aviation.
Commercial airlines began to carry the mail in 1926, and soonthe Post Office initiated the transfer of its lights, radio service, and airwaysto the Commerce Department. Terminal airports, except for Chicago, Omaha, andSan Francisco, were transferred to local municipalities. By 1927, all airmailwas carried under contract.
The introduction of regular airmail service in 1918 renderedthe U.S. Post Office system complete. The task of accommodating the nation’svast geographical area and a growing population during an era of significantdevelopments in transportation had been accomplished, leaving the departmentwith the job of improving and refining the existing structure. However, asAmericans gained greater access to the world around them through the telephone,radio, and then television, they tended to worry less about the quality of theirpostal service. Since congressmen did not hear complaints from theirconstituents about the postal system, they focused their attention on otherissues.
One persistent area of complaint, however, involved the PostOffice Department’s use of patronage in hiring and promotion. The Pendleton Act,passed in 1883 following the assassination of President James A. Garfield by adisappointed job-seeker, established the Civil Service Commission and laid downrules for gaining government employment. But the Post Office seemed unable toseparate itself from the patronage system entirely. Other labor problemsmanifested themselves as well. Postal workers earned considerably lower wagesthan other government employees. And as the volume of mail increased, workersworried that they would lose their jobs to machines that could more quickly andefficiently handle the greater load.
In October 1966, concerned workers caused a virtual shut-downof Chicago’s post office, the world’s largest postal facility. Service wasparalyzed, management authority broke down, and millions of cross-countryletters and parcels were delayed for weeks. The emergency led Postmaster GeneralLawrence F. O’Brien to urge publicly that the postal service be removed from thepresident’s cabinet and converted into a non-government corporation. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson appointed a commission to determine if the current postalsystem was “capable of meeting the demands of our growing economy and anexpanding population.”
The commission’s four-volume report on its findings predicteda deficit of $15 billion within the next 10 years if action were not taken. ThePost Office today, the commissioners said, was a business and should operate bythe revenue it generates. President Richard M. Nixon and his postmaster general,Winton M. Blount, were also committed to postal reorganization and incorporatedtheir reforms into the Postal Service Act of 1969. Congress took no action on
the proposed legislation, although it had a spirited debate on the idea ofseparating the Post Office from the executive branch, with those representingrural areas most inclined to keep the department under governmental control.
Finally, in August 1970, Congress sent the PostalReorganization Act to President Nixon for his signature. Under this legislation,the Post Office Department became an independent agency directed by anine-member board of governors. This board would appoint the postmaster generaland deputy postmaster general for day-to-day administration of the service.The new United States Postal Service received a distinctiveinsignia, a host of obligations, and a future, like the history of itspredecessor–the U.S. Post Office Department–filled with innovation and change.
The familiar quotation inscribed on the post office buildingin New York City–“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night staysthese couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”–wasnever, as many believe, the official motto of the Post Office
Department. Adapted from the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus in thefifth century B.C., the words nonetheless suggest the determination to overcomeproblems that has characterized the monumental efforts to move the mail in theUnited States since the establishment of the Post Office Department by theSecond Continental Congress in 1775.
1914- Government-owned and -operated vehicle service
1916- Postal Inspectors solve last known stagecoach robbery
1918- Airmail
The Post Office Department’s most extraordinary role intransportation was probably played in the sky, a role, unfortunately, littleknown today other than to postal employees and the pioneers of Americanaviation.
The United States government had been slow to recognize thepotential of the airplane. In 1905, the War Department refused three separateoffers by the Wright brothers to share their scientific discoveries on airflights. Even after the brothers had satisfied many European nations in 1908that air flight was feasible, America owned only one dilapidated plane.
The Post Office Department, however, was intrigued with thepossibility of carrying mail through the skies and authorized its firstexperimental mail flight in 1911 at an aviation meet on Long Island in New York.Earle Ovington, sworn in as a mail carrier by Postmaster General FrankHitchcock, made daily flights between Garden City and Mineola, New York,dropping his mail bags from the plane to the ground where they were picked up bythe Mineola postmaster.
Later, in 1911 and 1912, the Department authorized 52experimental flights at fairs, carnivals, and air meets in more than 25 states.These flights convinced the Department that the airplane could carry a payloadof mail, and officials repeatedly urged Congress after 1912 to appropriate moneyto launch airmail service. Congress finally authorized use of $50,000 fromsteam-and-powerboat service appropriations for airmail experiments in 1916. TheDepartment advertised for bids in Massachusetts and Alaska but received noresponse in the absence of suitable planes.
In 1918, however, Congress appropriated $100,000 to establishexperimental airmail routes, and the Post Office Department urged the ArmySignal Corps to lend its planes and pilots to the Post Office to start anairmail service. Carrying the mail, the Department argued,
would provide invaluable cross-country experience to student flyers. TheSecretary of War agreed.
On May 15, 1918, the Post Office Department began scheduledairmail service between New York and Washington, D.C., an important date notonly for the Post Office but for all commercial aviation. Simultaneous takeoffswere 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 used Army pilots and six Jenny training planes of the Army(JN-4Hs) . On August 12, 1918, the Post Office took over all phases of theairmail service,
using newly hired civilian pilots and mechanics and six specially built mailplanes from the Standard Aircraft Corporation.
These early mail planes had no instruments, radios, or othernavigational aids. Pilots flew by dead reckoning or “by the seat of theirpants.” Forced landings occurred frequently because of bad weather, butfatalities in those early months were rare, largely because of the small size,maneuverability, and slow landing speed of the planes. Congress authorizedairmail postage of 24 cents, including special delivery. The public wasreluctant to use this more expensive service, and, during the first year,airmail bags contained as much regular mail as airmail.
The Department’s long-range plans called for an eventualtranscontinental air route from New York to San Francisco to better its deliverytime on long hauls and to lure the public into using airmail. The first legs ofthis transcontinental route — from Cleveland to Chicago, with a stop at Bryan,Ohio, and from New York to Cleveland with a stop at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania –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. Thelast transcontinental segment from Omaha to San Francisco, via North Platte,Cheyenne, Rawlins, Rock Springs, Salt Lake City, Elko, and Reno opened onSeptember 8, 1920. At this time, mail was still carried on trains at night andflown by day, but, even so, the new service bettered cross-country all-rail timeby 22 hours.
To provide pilots with up-to-date weather information neededto fly the mail all the way from New York to San Francisco, the Department beganto install radio stations at each flying field in August 1920. By November, tenstations were operating, including two Navy stations. When airmail trafficpermitted, other government departments used the radios instead
of the telegraph for special messages, and the Department of Agriculturetransmitted weather forecasts and stock market reports over the radios.
On February 22,1921, mail was flown both day and night forthe first time over the entire distance from San Francisco to New York. Congresswas impressed. It appropriated $1,250,000 for the expansion of airmail service,especially ground facilities, and the Post Office Department went on to installadditional landing fields, as well as towers, beacons, searchlights, andboundary markers across the country. It also equipped the planes withluminescent instruments, navigational lights, and parachute flares.
In 1922 and 1923, the Department was awarded the CollierTrophy for important contributions to the development of aeronautics, especiallyits safety record, and for demonstrating the feasibility of night flying. In1926, an airmail pilot received the first Harmon Trophy for advancing aviation.
On February 2,1925, Congress passed a law “to encouragecommercial aviation and to authorize the Postmaster General to contract for mailservice.” The Post Office immediately invited bids for its routes bycommercial aviation. By the end of 1926, 11 out of 12 contracted airmail routeswere operating.
The first commercial airmail flight in the United Statesoccurred on February 15, 1926. As commercial airlines took over, the Post OfficeDepartment transferred its lights, airways, and radio service to the Departmentof Commerce, including 17 fully equipped stations, 89
emergency landing fields, and 405 beacons. Terminal airports, except those inChicago, Omaha, and San Francisco, which were government properties, weretransferred to the municipalities in which they were located. Some planes weresold to airmail contractors; others were transferred to interested governmentdepartments. By September 1, 1927,
all airmail was carried under contract. Charles I. Stanton, an early airmailpilot who later headed the Civil Aeronautics Administration, said about thoseearly days of scheduled
airmail service: “We planted four seeds . . . . They were airways,communications, navigation aids, and multi-engined aircraft. Not all of thesecame full blown into the transportation scene; in fact, the last one witheredand died and had to be planted over again nearly a decade
later. But they are the cornerstones on which our present world-wide transportstructure is built, and they came, one by one, out of our experience in daily,uninterrupted flying of the mail.”
1920- Metered postage
1920- First transcontinental airmail
1924- Regular transcontinental airmail service
1925- Special handling
1927- International airmail
1935- Trans-Pacific airmail
1939- Trans-Atlantic airmail
1939- Autogiro service, experimental
1941- Highway post offices
1942- V-mail
1943- Postal zoning system in 124 major post offices
1948- Parcel post international air service
1948- Parcel post domestic air service
1950- Residential deliveries cut from two to one a day
1953- Piggy-back mail service by trailers or railroad flatcars
1953- Airlift
1955- Certified mail
1957- Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee
1959- Missile mail dispatched from submarine to mainland Florida
Throughout its history, the Postal Service enthusiasticallyhas explored faster, more efficient forms of mail transportation. Technologiesnow commonplace — railroads, automobiles, and airplanes — were embraced by thePost Office Department at their radical birth, when they were considerednew-fangled, unworkable contraptions by many.
One such technology, however, remains only a footnote in thehistory of mail delivery. On June 8, 1959, in a move a postal official heraldedas “of historic significance to the peoples of the entire world,” theNavy submarine U.S.S. Barbero fired a guided missile carrying 3,000 letters atthe Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. “Before man reachesthe moon,” the official was quoted as saying, “mail will be deliveredwithin hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia byguided missiles – missile mail.”
History proved differently, but this experiment with missilemail exemplifies the pioneering spirit of the Post Office Department when itcame to developing faster, better ways of moving the mail.
1960- Facsimile mail
1963- ZIP Code and sectional center plan
The change in character of the mail, the tremendous increasein mail volume, and the revolution in transportation, coupled with the steeprise in manpower costs, made adoption of modern technology imperative and helpedproduce the ZIP Code or Zoning Improvement Plan.
Despite the growing transport accessibility offered by theairlines, the Post Office Department in 1930 still moved the bulk of itsdomestic mail by rail, massing, re-sorting, and redistributing it for longdistance hauling through the major railroad hubs of the nation. More than 10,000mail-carrying trains crisscrossed the country, moving round the clock intovirtually every village and metropolitan area. The railroads’ peak year may havebeen 1930. By 1963, fewer trains, making fewer stops,carried the mail. In these same years, 1930-1963, the United States underwentmany changes. It suffered through a prolonged and paralyzing depression, foughtits second World War of the 20th century, and moved from an agricultural economyto a highly industrial one of international preeminence. The character, volume,and
transportation of mail also changed.
The social correspondence of the earlier century gave way,gradually at first, and then explosively, to business mail. By 1963, businessmail constituted 80 percent of the total volume. The single greatest impetus inthis great outpouring of business mail was the computer, which broughtcentralization of accounts and a growing mass of utility bills
and payments, bank deposits and receipts, advertisements, magazines, insurancepremiums, credit card transactions, department store and mortgage billings, andpayments, dividends, and Social Security checks traveling through the mail.
In June 1962, the Presidentially appointed Advisory Board ofthe Post Office Department, after a study of its overall mechanization problems,made several primary recommendations. One was that the Department give priorityto the development of a coding system, an idea that had been under considerationin the Department for a decade or more. Over the years, a number of potentialcoding programs had been examined and discarded. Finally, in 1963, theDepartment selected a system advanced by department officials, and, on April 30,1963, Postmaster General John A. Gronouski announced that the ZIP Code wouldbegin on
July 1, 1963.
Preparing for the new system was a major task involvingrealignment of the mail system. The Post Office had recognized some years backthat new avenues of transportation would open to the Department and began toestablish focal points for air, highway, and rail transportation. Called theMetro System, these transportation centers were set up around 85 of
the country’s larger cities to deflect mail from congested, heavily traveledcity streets. The Metro concept was expanded and eventually became the core of552 sectional centers, each serving between 40 and 150 surrounding post offices.Once these sectional centers were delineated, the next step in establishing theZIP Code was to assign codes to the centers and the postal addresses theyserved. The existence of postal zones in the larger cities, set in motion in1943, helped to some extent, but, in cases where the old zones failed to fitwithin the delivery areas, new numbers had to be assigned.
By July 1963, a five-digit code had been assigned to everyaddress throughout the country. The first digit designated a broad geographicalarea of the United States, ranging from zero for the Northeast to nine for thefar West. This was followed by two digits that more closely pinpointedpopulation concentrations and those sectional centers accessible to commontransportation networks. The final two digits designated small post offices orpostal zones in larger zoned cities. ZIP Code began on July 1, 1963, asscheduled. Use of the new code was not mandatory at first for anyone, but, in1967, the Post Office required mailers of second- and third-class bulk mail topresort by ZIP Code. Although the public and mailers alike adapted well to itsuse, it was not enough.
1964- Self-service post offices
1964- Simplified postmark
1965- Optical scanner (ZIP Code reader tested)
1966- Postal savings system terminated
1967- Mandatory presorting by ZIP Code for second- and third-class mailers
1968- Priority Mail, a subclass of First-Class Mail
1969- Patronage no longer a factor in postmaster and rural carrier appointments
1969- First die proof of a postage stamp canceled on moon by Apollo 11 mission
1970- MAILGRAM
1970- Postal Reorganization Act
1970- Express Mail, experimental
1971- United States Postal Service began operation; Postmaster General no longerin Cabinet
1971- Labor contract achieved through collective bargaining for the first timein history of federal government
1971- Star routes changed to highway contract routes
1971- National service standards established: overnight delivery of 95% ofairmail within 600 miles and 95% of First-Class Mail within local areas
1972- Stamps by mail
1972- Passport applications accepted in post offices
1973- National service standards expanded to include second-day delivery ofparcel post traveling up to 150 miles, with one-day delivery time added for eachadditional 400 miles
1974- Highway post offices terminated
1974- First satellite transmission of MAILGRAMs
– Self-adhesive stampsintroduced
1976- Post office class categories eliminated
1976- Discount for presorted First-Class Mail
1977- Airmail abolished as a separate rate category
1977- Express Mail, permanent new class of service
1977- Final run of railroad post office on June 30
1978- Discount for presorted second-class mail
1978- Postage stamps and other philatelic items copyrighted
1979- Discount for presorted bulk third-class mail
1979- Postal Career Executive Service (PCES)
1980- New standards require envelopes and postcards to be at least 3 1/2″high and 5″ long to be mailable
1980- INTELPOST (high-speed international electronic message service)
1981- Controlled circulation classification discontinued
1981- Discount for First-Class Mail presorted to carrier routes
1982- Automation begins with installation of optical character readers
1982- E-COM (Electronic Computer-Originated Mail, electronic message servicewith hard copy delivery)
– Last year Postal Serviceaccepted public service subsidy
1983- ZIP + 4
Introduced in 1983, the ZIP+4 code added ahyphen and four digits to the existing five digit ZIP Code. The first fivenumbers continued to identify an area of the country and delivery office towhich mail is directed. The sixth and seventh numbers denote 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 apartmentbuilding, or a small geographic area. The last two numbers denote a deliverysegment, which might be one floor of an office building, one side of a streetbetween intersecting streets, specific departments in a firm, or a group of postoffice boxes. On October 1, 1983, the Governors of the Postal Service approvedprice incentives for First-Class Mail bearing the ZIP+4 code. By the end of1984, 252 OCRs were installed in 118 major mail processing centers across thecountry and were processing 24,000 pieces of mail per hour (an averageproductivity rate of 6,200 pieces per work hour) — a
substantial increase compared to the 1,750 pieces per work hour processed byMPLSMs.
1983- Ended public service subsidy from federal government
1984- Integrated retail terminals automate postal windows
1985- Jackie Strange, first female Deputy Postmaster General
1985- E-COM terminated
1986- International Priority Airmail
1986- Postal Service realigned; field divisions created
1987- Small parcel and bundle sorters
1987- Stamps by phone
1987- Multiline optical character readers ordered
1988- Inspector General’s Act extends duties of Chief Postal Inspector
1989- Universal Postal Union Congress in Washington, DC
1990- Wide area barcode readers
1990- Easy Stamp, allowing purchase of stamps through computers
1990- International business reply service
1991- Independent measurement of First-Class Mail service
1992- Remote barcoding system
1992- Reorganization: regions, divisions and management sectional centersreplaced by area and district offices for customer service and mail processing
1992- Stamps sold through automatic teller machines
1993 – National Postal Museum opened, a Smithsonian Institution museum, islocated in the old Post Office building next to Union Station in Washington,D.C. The Museum was created by an agreement between the Smithsonian Institutionand the United States Postal Service in 1990 and opened to the public in 1993.
http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/1_museum.html
The National Postal Museum celebrates the beauty and lore ofstamps,
showcasing rare stamps and covers from the Museum’s renowned collection.
A stamp is much more than the physical evidence that postage has been paid.Stamps can be miniature works of art, treasured keepsakes, and
rare collectibles.
http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/stamp/5_stamp.html
1997 – Postal Service launched public internet site
1998 – First U.S. semi-postal issued
2002 – President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service established
Sources of Historical Information on Post Offices, PostalEmployees, Mail Routes, and Mail Contractors Publication 119 July 2001
Sources of historical information on Post Offices, Postalemployees, mail routes, and mail contractors are listed chronologically and thendiscussed by subject.
http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub119.htm
Note: Certain Material on this web page is the copyrightedproperty of the United States Postal Service® (Postal Service). All rights reserved.