Delivering the Mail. Your Name Keyboarding II xx Period Mr. Behling. Current Date

Transcription

1 Delivering the Mail Your Name Keyboarding II xx Period Mr. Behling Current Date

2 Table of Contents Steamboats... 1 Railroads... 1 Pony Express... 1 Automobiles... 2 Airplanes... 2 Electronic Mail... 2 Summary... 2

3 Last Name 1 DELIVERING THE MAIL For years, people have used written communication as one of their primary means of exchanging information. Those using this form of communicating have depended on the U.S. mail to transport their messages from one place to another. For much of American history, the mail was our main form of organized communication. Americans wanting to know the state of the world, the health of a friend, or the fate of their business anxiously awaited the mail. To advise a distant relative, to order goods, to pay a bill, to express views to their congressman or love to their fiancée, they used the mail. No American institution has been more intimately involved in daily hopes and fears. i The history of the U.S. mail is not only interesting but also reflective of the changes in American society, specifically transportation. A variety of modes of transporting mail have been used over the years. Speed, of course, was the driving force behind most of the changes. Steamboats Congress used inventions to move the mail from place to place. In 1813, five years after Robert Fulton s first experiments on the Hudson River, Congress authorized the Post Office to transport mail by steamboat. ii Transporting mail to river cities worked very well. However, the efficiency of using steamboats to transport mail between New York and San Francisco was questionable. The distance was 19,000 miles and the trip could take as long as six to seven months. iii Railroads Although mail was carried by railroads as early as 1834, it was not until 1838 that Congress declared railroads to be post roads. iv Trains eventually revolutionized mail delivery. The cost of sending a letter decreased substantially, making it more affordable to the public. No aspect of American life was untouched by the revolution that the trains brought in bringing mail service almost to the level of a free good. (For many years ironically enough, until the Depression called for an increase in the cost of a first-class letter to v three cents an ordinary first-class letter went for two cents.) Pony Express The Pony express was one of the most colorful means of transporting mail. This method of delivery was used to take mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, westward.

4 Last Name 2 April 3, 1860, remains a memorable day in the history of the frontier, for that was the day on which the Pony Express began its operations westward from St. Joseph and eastward from San Francisco. Even in those days San Francisco had already become the most important city in California. vi With the East Coast being connected to the West Coast by railroad in 1869, the Pony Express had a relatively short life span. Automobiles The invention of the automobile in the late 1800s brought a new means of delivering the mail in the United States. An automobile was used experimentally for rural deliver as early as 1902 at Adrian, Michigan, and in 1906 the Department gave permission for rural carriers to use their automobiles. The change from horse and wagon to the motor car paralleled improvements in highways and the development of more reliable automotive equipment.... vii Airplanes The next major mode of transporting used by the Postal Service was airplanes. Speed was the driving force behind using airplanes.... so closely has speed been associated with the mails that much of the world s postal history can be written around the attempts to send mail faster each day than it went the day before. viii Electronic Mail People have always wanted to correspond with each other in the fastest way possible... ix A new way of communicating via the written word became available with the creation of the Internet. The creation of the Internet provides a way of transporting the written word almost instantaneously. Electronic Mail ( ) messages generally arrive at their destination within seconds of when they were sent. More and more written messages are being delivered via e- mail. Summary The Post Office (now the U.S. Postal Service) has been the primary means for transporting written messages for many years. As the Information Age continues to emerge, technologies will play a significant role in getting written messages from the sender to the receiver. Again, this change is directly attributable to speed. Instead of talking in terms of months required for delivering a message from the East Coast to the West Coast, we now talk in terms of seconds. Today, and faxes are just as important to a successful business operation as the Post Office.

5 Last Name 3 i Wayne E. Fuller, The American Mail (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. ix ii William M. Leary, Aerial Pioneers (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), p. iii Richard Wormser, The Iron Horse: How Railroads Changed America (New York: Walker Publishing Company, Inc., 1993), p. 26. iv Leary, p v Albro Martin, Railroads Triumphant (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 94. vi Fred Reinfeld, Pony Express (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), p. 55. vii Carl H. Sheele, A Short History of the Mail Service (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970), p viii Fuller, p. 9. ix Zen and the Art of the Internet, (accessed February 8, 2004)