In this special 250th anniversary episode, we are joined by Jim Bruns, President of the National Navy Museum Foundation and former Director of the National Postal Museum, to learn how USPS has shaped the nation from the very beginning. We discuss how mail collection evolved from horse drawn deliveries and tavern drop offs to the blue collection boxes, self-service kiosks, and e-commerce tools we use today. Discover how the Postal Service built America’s first communication network, changing the way we live, work, and stay in touch.
To kickoff celebrating the Postal Service’s 250th anniversary, Karla Kirby and Jeff Marino are joined by Jim Bruns, expert in postal history and former Director of the National Postal Museum. Together they explore the Postal Service’s founding during the American Revolution, the rise of letter collection, the introduction of stamps, home delivery, and how the Postal Service continues to innovate today. Whether you’ve dropped a letter in a blue box or tracked a package online, this episode will show you how the mail has been connecting America since before its founding.
Karla Kirby:
Hello, and welcome to Mailing It, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby.
Jeff Marino:
And I'm Jeff Marino. You know, Karla, this week officially marks the 250th anniversary of the US Postal Service that makes us older than the United States itself.
Karla Kirby:
Well hopefully by us you mean the Postal service rather than our combined age
Jeff Marino:
Of course not. No, I meant the postal service. And I only feel that old sometimes.
Karla Kirby:
So the postal service turns 250 on July 26th, almost a full year before the US reaches that ripe old age. It's a good time to talk about how we got here and what this organization has meant to the United States as it developed from a colonial outpost into a world power.
Jeff Marino:
That's a good point, Karla. If you think about it, the postal service is America's original communications network, and a lot of the growth this country experienced, especially early on, wouldn't even have been possible without a reliable way to send and receive information. Looking back, you can see the postal service did more than just deliver the mail. It helped strengthen the US as a whole by spreading news and commerce to even the most remote parts of the country.
Karla Kirby:
Absolutely. Now, we know that tackling our two and a half centuries of history is a tall order, but we think this episode's guest is the perfect person to help us get there. Joining us today is Jim Bruns, president of the National Navy Muse Foundation, and a former director of the National Postal Museum. Jim, welcome to mailing it.
Jim Bruns:
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Jeff Marino:
So, Jim, if you had to boil down what the postal services meant to the United States throughout its history, I know it's a tall order, but how would you describe it?
Jim Bruns:
Simply put, the postal service and the communication by mail has connected every facet of American life since the founding of our republic. In fact, for the earliest Americans, the only way to communicate was by letter or by voice if you happen to be the traveler. But for anybody who was a distance away, the departed family, the people that were migrating, the people that had come to the United States from other places, mail was the only way to communicate.
Karla Kirby:
So before we get into the details, Jim, let's set up the backstory by traveling back to 1775. Why did the colonies feel the need to set up a postal service even before they declared their independence from Great Britain?
Jim Bruns:
They had to set up a postal service so they could communicate with the people back home. You remember, we were in such a rush, a rough frontier with very little resources on our own, that most of the communications that was done from the colonies was to people back in Europe, asking for support, for materials, for product , for advice. We had very little communication between ourselves, in this country because there was only one principal route that the mail traveled. And that was what became US Route One today. We traveled down US Route One. We're traveling down our first post road that went as far as Petersburg, Virginia at that time.
Karla Kirby:
And correct me if I'm wrong, Jim, Ben Franklin, he was our first Postmaster General, correct?
Jim Bruns:
That's correct. He had been the deputy Postmaster General for the Crown before that. But when the United States needed someone to manage the American Postal System, they turned to Benjamin Franklin because of his expertise, his past experience and his knowledge of the American frontier. He had actually previously done a survey of post roads. So he knew all of the post offices down the major post road in the United States Route one, he had traveled the route of the length of it in a coach. And it was a cute story that one time it was cold, it was shivering in his coach and he arrived at a tavern. And the tavern people were all clustered around the fireplace. And Franklin, you know, was shivering. He was damp, he was cold, he was getting on in years. And so he yelled oysters, oysters for my horse, a quarter oysters for my horse. And that so shook up everybody in the tavern. Nobody had ever seen a horse eat oysters, so they all ran outside to see this horse eat oysters. And when they came back in disappointed because the horse would have none of it, Franklin had readjusted all the chairs so that he was the closest theater to the fireplace, warming himself nicely.
Jeff Marino:
So correct me if I'm wrong, Jim, but I understand the development of a, of a post in the, in the colonies or before the, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, that this was really a strategic decision that was meant to serve Congress in the military. Is that right? And if so, why those two groups?
Jim Bruns:
It was true. The first employee of the United States Postal Service Ebenezer Hazard had to walk along with the Continental Army to keep communications between the Army and the continental Congress connected and insured because the fate of the army determined the fate of the members of the continental Congress. You know, we all hang together or we all hang alone and Congress would not appropriate a horse for hazard. So we had to trudge along carrying all the equipment of his office with him over his shoulder. And that was the priority for maintaining communications during the Revolutionary War era. A civilian correspondence, although it was considered important, was not the priority that became the priority after we won the revolution and became a nation.
Jeff Marino:
And what was the priority for the Congress?
Jim Bruns:
Well, it wanted to know the status of our military campaigns and whether or not they should all flee and get out of town quickly. What the changes in the battles were the outcomes of battles and they wanted to know the condition of the army because the fate of our country depended upon the men and women who were fighting at that time.
Jeff Marino:
As much as the postal system was key to winning independence from Britain, it was also an important part of what would come next. So how did the transition to the US Post Office department come about, and what role did that play in helping the country get up and running?
Jim Bruns:
Once the revolution had been won the American population began to migrate moving westward and that migration caused the American people to rely totally upon written communications and newspapers that might be carried by mail to inform them of what was going on. And in the words of our first President, George Washington, the mail system would become a link that would bind the nation together in a chain of communication that would never be broken. Washington really relied upon the post office department to create an informed electorate that was vital to the maintenance and preservation of a democracy. And that's the role it has always played and continues to play. Even today with our mail-in voting and other kinds of political mails and things that inform an electorate about the outcomes of elections and the prospects of particular candidates.
Karla Kirby:
And after 250 years we're still here, it would take us several episodes to really explore all of the areas that you've touched on. So for now, let's focus on collecting the mail. That's where it all begins after all, what did that look like right after the American Revolution?
Jim Bruns:
Well collecting the mail for our earliest Americans meant they went to their post office to deliver their letters to the local postmaster. There was no collection at your home. There were no letter boxes at the curb site. collecting meant getting it from the recipient at the post office where in those days you could send it one of two ways. You could pay the postage, which was based upon weight and distance that the letter would travel or you could send it sort of collect on delivery. You didn't have to pay for it. And the unfortunate thing of course, is that once you deposited your letter, the post office department carried the letter to the designated post office where the recipient would pick it up and unfortunately the recipient could decline to accept it and decline to pay for it after service was already rendered and so the post office department really learned a lesson that the collect on delivery idea was really not something that was favorable to the United States Post Office. And most of our post offices back then were in print shops, so that the printer as Ben Franklin's case could get other newspapers and sort of prolonging the news from other newspapers, adding it into their newspapers to inform their, their readers of what was going on in the colonies, or learn from other people who opened their mail at the print shop, what was going on and what news might be print worthy or they also were in taverns or coffee shops where in some cases tavern keeper, keeper would spread the letters out on a table. And if you had the money you'd just pay for it. Even though mine might be for you, I could pick up your letter, pay for it and you know the hope that I'd get it to you. But that didn't necessarily have to be the case. So there were problems in the early post office and the way we communicated and collected mail.
Jeff Marino:
So, Jim, who decided where these post offices were gonna be located and the roots that connected them?
Jim Bruns:
Early on, it was once we had a constitutional government, it was Congress, it determined where the post offices would be. They would determine that a route should be set up. For example, between Philadelphia and Baltimore, they would vote on the creation of the route Philadelphia to Baltimore, but they would not choose the actual roads that would be selected to carry the mail, they would leave that up to the post office department and postal surveyors and they would have to base the set selection of the actual road that was followed on the three Cs. The three Cs were the citizenry, the number of people that lived on that roadway, the commerce that was located along that route. The number of industries , small shopkeepers and that kind of thing, and the number of courts that were located and could be served along that particular road.
A lot of historians have focused on, on the population and the commerce along post roads, but they've forgotten the importance of courts, which were extremely important because we were a nation now creating new laws. Congress was passing new legislation that had to be communicated. Courts were making decisions that had to be communicated. And all this impacted the courts and rulings that states may have in terms of federal requirements, legal requirements. So the courts were extremely important, but they would leave, the Congress would leave the choice of the specific route to the post office department and they inevitably made some very very wise choices.
Karla Kirby:
So, if I'm not mistaken, this particular process was in place for several decades. What was the first big change in how the post office department operated?
Jim Bruns:
A real first major change that significantly altered the entire frame of postal communications was the highway act during the high, during the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s, which created the interstate highway system that we have today. , it got away from having all these little minor roads into creating major thoroughfares that could serve major cities and major population centers with off shooting roads leading off of the interstate highway system that could serve smaller communities and smaller towns. And it really led to the creation of bulk mailing centers, mass mailing centers that didn't need to be associated with major railroad hubs or railroad lines. Has that been previously the case or little distributing post offices, which dotted the countryside that would get mail and distributed to other smaller post offices? It created the bulk mailing industry centers that we know today, which made it possible for us to actually mechanize and automate most of the mail system. We couldn't do that when we had a system that was reliant more on mail manual sortation and movement of mail to small distribution centers.
Karla Kirby:
So when we think about, I guess, the major changes in addition to the Highway Act, how did trains and Steamboats add to our efficiency?
Jim Bruns:
Steamboats were considered as post roads beginning in the early 1800s and they were a very vital way of communicating and moving mail because they weren't prone to being post roads that were full of stumps and potholes and ravines and washouts and gumbo like roads in the wintertime or the, you know, dusty roads in the summertime. They were relatively flat, easy to transport, and unless you hit a sawyer or a snag, your steamboat could carry mail anywhere up and down a major river and tie up wherever anybody wanted to communicate by mail. Typically, they would hang a lantern out at their docking site to indicate to the steamer that they needed to have mail picked up. And this created the rise of packet, steamboats Steamboats, specifically, that were designated as mail carriers, as well as passenger and freight carriers as well and Steamboats were highly reliable and after that, of course, we went to stage coaches for Overland Communications. The first stage coaches, the best of them were Troy coaches made in Troy in Albany, New York. And they were beautifully painted, but they were terrible as far as the convenience of and comfort of the passenger. And you think about the space, it was basically about four foot by seven foot that size of a good size bathtub, and you put nine people in there plus the mail.
Jeff Marino:
So Jim it sounds like you've got the steamboats and trains and stage coaches, and then later on the highway systems are creating this spider web network across the country. Since we're focusing on mail collection in this episode, tell me how mail collection changed during this time of rapidly expanding networks.
Jim Bruns:
Well, one of the biggest changes came in 1863 at the height of the Civil War. It was a bad time for our nation. We were at war with ourselves, and many of the young wives and sweethearts and daughters of Union servicemen would go to the local post office to mail a letter to their son or their husband in federal service, only to be told that they should wait for a minute. And the clerk would come back with a package of their previously written letters unopened tied with a string with a note from the adjutant or the chaplain of the company, where the young man or husband was serving, saying he's dead and that was the worst possible news that a young wife or mother could receive in a public building because she had to go to mail or litter at the post office that she was now a widow or she would never become the wife of this young man. And the Cleveland postmaster and postal clerks really said the scenes were just unbelievable the agony of these women. And so they wrote to the postmaster General, Montgomery Blair at the time and said there must be something we could do to relieve this kind of suffering in our buildings to let these women, if they must suffer, suffer with their family. So Blair came up with the idea of okay, let's take union veterans and we'll turn them into letter carriers, and we will take the letters to the houses so that if the women have to suffer, they will suffer with their family. And so on July 3rd, 1863 he chose 49 federal cities and 449 Union veteran letter carriers to begin the city delivery service for free. and it was a monumental success. And that city delivery service is still what we've used today. It began for a very sympathetic reason created by the post office department to alleviate suffering and it became a monumental success.
Jeff Marino:
So Jim, at what point did our iconic collection boxes come into play?
Jim Bruns:
About the same time as we began, city delivery service collection boxes became common to be placed along lampposts letter boxes. So they were placed in lampposts as built-in pieces. The first one was developed by Albert Pots, a lamppost maker in 1858 and they were specifically for letter mail. And they'd be collected periodically by the same letter carrier who would walk the route delivering the letters to the individual homes along their particular route. In addition to collecting the mail, they would knock on the door twice every house the postman always knocked twice, and to keep them from wrapping their knuckles repeatedly, the post office department gave its letter carriers little knockers to use to knock on the door twice. And that was a signal for someone to come and collect the mail from the letter carrier. It actually required letter carriers to add two hours to their routes in the collection process and if no one came to the door, the letter carrier had to keep the letter and come back later, even adding more time to the delivery schedule. But lamppost letter boxes were a major, major innovation. The first ones were very small later, later ones became larger and larger. And it wasn't until the early 1900s that the curbside letter box that we know and love today, that blue box that can accept packages and letters was introduced in the United States.
Karla Kirby:
So in parallel with those changes, stamps were thrown into the mix. What significance did the introduction of postage stamps have on the collection of mail in the United States?
Jim Bruns:
Postage stamps changed everything. They were first introduced in Great Britain in 1840, and we copied them a few years later officially in 1847, they basically covered the prepayment of postage so that the sender was always the one who paid for the postage. And there was no longer this idea of collecting on delivery of letters. It was a revolutionary innovation for the United States. First postage stamps showed Benjamin Franklin is the father of the United States Postal System, and George Washington is our father of our country. And, you know, the size of the postage stamp was odd. It was basically one square inch, and that was determined by what could be licked by the human tongue in one fell swoop. So it was you know, sort of a tongue gauge of sticking these adhesives onto letters. The first post-it stamps weren't perforated. The first postage stamps, if you went to the post office to buy them, they would be cut out with a pair of scissors out of a sheet and you would get the number that you paid for and they could be cut out with a pen knife or pair of scissors, as I said, and you take them home, and then you'd cut the ones you needed based on the weight of the letter and the distance it was going.
Karla Kirby:
With the decentralized network of mail carriers into the city neighborhoods. It sounds like there were some big benefits, like more business for the post office and even influencing commerce by letting people order stuff through the mail. How did requiring mailboxes or mail slots in 1923 play into all of this boost and efficiency?
Jim Bruns:
Well, the idea that with city delivery service, not only was it a boost to commerce, it was a boost to the community. To have service, you had to have street names for every street and house, numbers for every house. Odd numbers on one side, even numbers on the other and so that was a major innovation for cities, because if they didn't have street names and house numbers, that couldn't be served. The second thing is, with the rise of mail order houses in the 1870s, now the letter carrier became your conduit for mail order business. He would bring it, or she would bring it in World War II or World War I directly to your house. So you could order from a catalog, Sears, Spiegel, Montgomery Awards, all those things, all of the luxuries that you want, and they would be delivered right to your door.
Commerce actually took a major boost when city delivery began. And as you said the problem, of course, was that letter boxes and, you know, in your house door slots weren't required until 1923. It was a little late, but the postal service did the best it could by, you know, knocking on the door and waiting for someone to come and accept the product that they had. With the introduction of parcel post in 1913, poor letter carriers became like pack animals, because by then the weight limit on parcels was lifted, and everything came through the mail by parcel post. In the first month of service, the United States Postal Service and letter carriers were carrying 4 million parcels a month.
Jeff Marino:
So, as the amount of mail started skyrocketing, how did the postal service manage moving all of that mail efficiently, both locally and out into the rural areas?
Jim Bruns:
It had to begin to buy vehicles for itself. In addition to having vehicles that were used by star route contractors, these were contractors that since the 1840s had been carrying mail in any kind of vehicle that would keep the male safe, secure, dry, and protected. They could choose any kind of vehicle they wanted. Well, up until 1913, by the time 1913 and parcel post was introduced, they had to get bigger vehicles, more van-likevehicles, better secured trucks and that kind of thing. And so did the post office department. It really went into the business of buying automobiles, and it became one of the largest fleets ofvehicles in the entire nation. It really actually field tested a lot of new vehicles, Fords and Gar Fords and other kinds of Pippa Mobiles and Wittenautomobiles , vehicles that we don't know exist today because they're long out of business. But the post office department tried them all to make sure that they, in the end, got the best possible vehicles, and they really now have the biggest fleet in the country.
Karla Kirby:
So, Jim, in wrapping up our conversation, let's talk about some of the ways that collection has been modernized in recent times. What stands out for you in terms of innovation in that area?
Jim Bruns:
There are a lot of collections, innovations that have taken place over the course of years. One of the biggest that happened in the 1960s with the idea of creating these mail mailing facilities at malls where you could go to the mall, do your shopping and go to a self-service curb side post office center, and do every kind of mailing operation possible except postal banking. , and these were really innovative in that you didn't even have to take the product home to mail it. You didn't even have to take a letter to the, you know, put it in the mailbox. You could take it with you and mail it right from the shopping mall. These kinds of innovations were really major. The postal service also innovated with the idea of fax transmission. A lot of people don't know the innovation of fax transmission by mail. , those are also the kinds of things that we've begun to forget. Express mail is another innovation where, you know, overnight mail service or priority mail service is something that our service servicemen and women in the armed forces rely on very very much to communicate back home wherever they're deployed. So the postal service has kept pace with every kind of innovation that's come available.
Jeff Marino:
Well, thanks, Jim. And I should point out that the postal services modernization work is constantly ongoing. For example, informed delivery has been a huge success with postal service customers who wanna know in advance what mail is coming into their home every day. And we're continuing to invest and improve our self-service kiosks, optimize our retail spaces as well.
Karla Kirby:
Given that we've dedicated this episode to the 250th anniversary, I think now's a good time to also point out that we've launched a new stamp in honor of the occasion, and there's a new website we set up where you can get even more information about our history and the anniversary.
The site is usps.com/250.
Jeff Marino:
Jim, thanks for joining us today. It was a great conversation, learned a lot, and we'll look forward to talking to you in the near future.
Jim Bruns:
Thank you. I would look forward to it too.
Karla Kirby:
It is time for another, did you know the segment when we each share an interesting fact about the postal service. I'll get us started. I'm going to go with a topic that served us well in the past, stamps. We've already talked on Mailin’ It about how the US Post Office Department didn't introduce stamps until 1847. That's 72 years after the postal service was first created. But did you know that for the first couple of decades after the postal service started issuing stamps, every one of them featured an image of either a president or a founding father?
Jeff Marino:
Well, I didn't realize that, but it does make sense. The stamps were coming from the federal government after all. Of course, we have all kinds of stamp artwork on display today. What changed?
Karla Kirby:
Well, in 1869, the postal service broke with tradition and released a new series of stamps that looked at American life through a wider lens. There were the usual Ben Franklin and George Washington stamps, but the series also included a steam locomotive, a postal service carrier on horseback, a steamship, and the landing of Christopher Columbus. In addition, these stamps were special because they were the first series to be printed in more than one color. It was a breakthrough in creativity for the postal service, and it set the stage for the colorful creative stamps we use today. The new direction, however, wasn't without controversy. A lot of people complained about the new designs. Many collectors and politicians at the time thought they were too unconventional and not patriotic enough. Within a year, the postal service retired the series and replaced it with more traditional designs.
Jeff Marino:
Well, that is a shame, but at least they eventually came around seeing stamps as more than just the cost of postage. So thanks for that, Karla. My did, you know, builds on yours. You pointed out the new directions. The postal surface was trying to take stamps in 1869, but maybe the most memorable part of that collection happened by accident because the postal service was experimenting with more than complicated designs. They ended up printing some of the pictures on the stamps upside down, and that was because of the color process, which had the printers feeding the stamp sheets through the press twice. The good news is they caught those errors pretty quickly. As a result, most of the stamps turned out fine, but a small number of stamps ended up being some of the most sought after stamps in history.
Karla Kirby:
So Jeff, I think there was a lot of great history that Jim shared with us today, some of which I knew, some of which I didn't. It's amazing to see how far we've come in 250 years and more than 167 million homes later.
Jeff Marino:
Yeah, the amount of knowledge Jim has about postal history is absolutely staggering, and I feel like we've just scratched the surface of his knowledge. So maybe we'll get him back in the future and dig on some more topics. So great conversation. And that's all for this episode of Mailing It. Don't forget to subscribe to mailing it wherever you get your podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next episode and follow along on Instagram @US Postal Service, X @usps, Facebook and youtube.com/@USPS.