[On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the United States postal system. So this week for the 250th anniversary I’ll AmericanStudy that moment and other histories and stories of the USPS, leading up to a weekend tribute to these vital federal workers!]
On innovations
from three stages in the career of the first
Postmaster General of the US.
1)
Postmaster
of Philadelphia: In 1737, when Franklin was only 30 years old, he was
appointed postmaster of his adopted home city of Philadelphia. In his Autobiography
he freely admitted that he took the job largely to support his own
newspaper, the Gazette, writing, “tho’ the salary was small, it
facilitated the correspondence that improv’d my newspaper, increased the number
demanded, as well as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to
afford me a considerable income.” But even if Franklin was mercenary about this
new role, he was too much of an inventor not to innovate in it as well,
and his most lasting such innovation was printing in the newspaper lists of
people who had letters waiting for them at the post office, a practice that
many other papers would take up for decades to come.
2)
Joint Postmaster General for the Crown: After
a decade and a half in this role, Franklin was apparently ready to move up, and
when Postmaster General for the Crown Elliott
Benger became ill in 1753, Franklin lobbied for the role. Eventually he and
Virginia’s William
Hunter were chosen as Joint
Postmasters for the Crown, a role that Franklin would hold for the next two
decades. He would bring a number of his Philly innovations to that national
role, including the aforementioned printed newspaper lists (which he instructed
postmasters around the country to do); but would also add new ones, such as
implementing nighttime service that led to far faster mail delivery. Ever the
successful businessman, Franklin had the British Crown Post registering
its first profit by 1760.
3)
Postmaster General of the US: In 1774, the British
government dismissed Franklin from his role for being too sympathetic to the colonies;
but as they so often did, things worked out fine for Ben, as just a year afterward
he was part
of the Second Continental Congress and, on July 26th, 1775, was appointed
by that body to be the first Postmaster General of the newly created United
States Postal Service. In that role, overseeing
all post offices “from Falmouth in New England to Savannah in Georgia,” Franklin
truly nationalized the postal service for the first time, building on these
prior experiences with both a city’s and a royal postal system but helping
create the federally organized institution that has endured to this day (and
hopefully will continue, on which see the weekend post).
Next
USPStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Postal histories or stories you’d share?
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