How the Post Office Created America: A History

The post office may not have actually “created” America, but journalist Gallagher (New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change) makes a strong case for its historical importance in this brisk history. Forging early links among the colonies and then uniting the nation and its frontier as settlers moved west, the post office has by necessity survived by modernizing and developing in parallel with the nation. The institution single-mindedly pursued more efficient systems of delivery for generations, though it struggled with the demands of independent contractors—whether stagecoach operators or airlines—and opportunistic competitors that were able to adapt faster than the federal bureaucracy. The 1970 transformation of the Post Office Department into the U.S. Postal Service, a business run by the government, was meant to ameliorate these problems. But, as Gallagher explains, this shift in emphasis from innovation to the bottom line may have doomed the post office as it entered the digital age. Despite its waning relevance, Gallagher still sees the post office as a pride-inducing institution. Socially progressive since its inception, the post office represents one of the purest distillations of America and takes on one of modern democracy’s most necessary (and tedious) tasks: the convenient distribution of information and ideas to every American with a mailbox. Agent: Kristine Dahl, ICM. (July)