Download or read book How the Post Office Created America written by Winifred Gallagher and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterful history of a long underappreciated institution, How the Post Office Created America examines the surprising role of the postal service in our nation’s political, social, economic, and physical development. The founders established the post office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time, it was the U.S. government’s largest and most important endeavor—indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind thirteen quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen—a radical idea that appalled Europe’s great powers. America’s uniquely democratic post powerfully shaped its lively, argumentative culture of uncensored ideas and opinions and made it the world’s information and communications superpower with astonishing speed. Winifred Gallagher presents the history of the post office as America’s own story, told from a fresh perspective over more than two centuries. The mandate to deliver the mail—then “the media”—imposed the federal footprint on vast, often contested parts of the continent and transformed a wilderness into a social landscape of post roads and villages centered on post offices. The post was the catalyst of the nation’s transportation grid, from the stagecoach lines to the airlines, and the lifeline of the great migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It enabled America to shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy and to develop the publishing industry, the consumer culture, and the political party system. Still one of the country’s two major civilian employers, the post was the first to hire women, African Americans, and other minorities for positions in public life. Starved by two world wars and the Great Depression, confronted with the country’s increasingly anti-institutional mind-set, and struggling with its doubled mail volume, the post stumbled badly in the turbulent 1960s. Distracted by the ensuing modernization of its traditional services, however, it failed to transition from paper mail to email, which prescient observers saw as its logical next step. Now the post office is at a crossroads. Before deciding its future, Americans should understand what this grand yet overlooked institution has accomplished since 1775 and consider what it should and could contribute in the twenty-first century. Gallagher argues that now, more than ever before, the imperiled post office deserves this effort, because just as the founders anticipated, it created forward-looking, communication-oriented, idea-driven America.

Download or read book Financing the Cost of Reduced Rates of Postage written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. Subcommittee on Postal Service and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Neither Snow Nor Rain written by Devin Leonard and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[The] book makes you care what happens to its main protagonist, the U.S. Postal Service itself. And, as such, it leaves you at the end in suspense.” —USA Today Founded by Benjamin Franklin, the United States Postal Service was the information network that bound far-flung Americans together, and yet, it is slowly vanishing. Critics say it is slow and archaic. Mail volume is down. The workforce is shrinking. Post offices are closing. In Neither Snow Nor Rain, journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over seventy percent of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology, from mobile post offices on railroads and airmail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers. Neither Snow Nor Rain is a rich, multifaceted history, full of remarkable characters, from the stamp-collecting FDR, to the revolutionaries who challenged USPS’s monopoly on mail, to the renegade union members who brought the system—and the country—to a halt in the 1970s. “Delectably readable . . . Leonard’s account offers surprises on almost every other page . . . [and] delivers both the triumphs and travails with clarity, wit and heart.” —Chicago Tribune

Download or read book Reduce Postage Rates on Parcels to Certain Foreign Countries written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Civil Service and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Determination of Nonprofit Organizations Eligibility for Reduced Postage Rates Should be Improved written by United States. General Accounting Office and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reduce Postage Rates on Parcels to Certain Foreign Countries Hearings on S 1760 S 1761 S 1772 S 1776 and S 1813 Nov 25 28 Dec 2 1947 written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Civil Service and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reduced Postal Rates for Certain Mailings of Educational and Nonprofit Organizations 87 1 written by United States. Congress. House. Post Office and Civil Service and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reduced Postal Rates for Certain Mailings of Educational and Nonprofit Organizations written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Post Office and Civil Service and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Financing the Cost of Reduced Rates of Postage Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Postal Service 93 1 March 27 and 28 1973 written by United States. Congress. House. Post Office and Civil Service and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Liberalization of the Postal and Delivery Sector written by Michael A. Crew and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent and forthcoming changes in the regulation of postal and delivery services throughout the world will have a major impact on this important sector. The contributors to this timely book, a combination of academics and industry insiders, address the trends toward privatization and competition and illuminate the evolving economics of the sector.

Download or read book Post Office Reform written by Sir Rowland Hill and published by . This book was released on 1837 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Postal Laws and Regulations of the United States of America written by United States and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book United States Official Postal Guide written by and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Postal Laws and Regulations Applicable to Post Office Clerks and Carriers written by United States. Post Office Department and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Postal Communication written by Great Britain. India Office and published by . This book was released on 1852 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Parliamentary Debates written by and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 1074 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Union Postal Clerk written by and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: