Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse by Richard R. John

Abstract

512 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE gant study of the medieval economy and its complex legacy; hers is an impressive achievement. Elaine Clark Dr. Clark teaches in the Department of History at the University of Michigan— Dearborn. Spreading the News: The American Postal Systemfrom Franklin to Morse. By Richard R. John. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. Pp. xiii+369; notes, index. $49.95 (cloth). Innovative applications ofold technologies created a communica­ tions revolution in the United States long before the commercial use of electric telegraphy. RichardJohn has built a convincing case that the postal system achieved that and operated as “an agent of change” from its inception in 1792 through the 1840s (p. 24). By placing the postal system on center stage,John brings to light events and processes that will challenge historians of technology and poli­ tics alike to think differently about their fields and the links between them. A communications revolution entails at least a dramatic change in the flow of information, and John demonstrates how federal pol­ icy, as executed prior to 1829, “created a communications infra­ structure” (p. 110) that conveyed vast amounts ofwritten (primarily printed) material. His explication of how postal officers accom­ plished this revolution with “few mechanical contrivances that would have been unfamiliar to the ancients” (p. 110) clearly shows the importance of the systems within which technologies are ap­ plied. Organizing and supervising the rapid and reliable transporta­ tion of political and business matter transformed “the character of American public life” by hastening “the establishment of a national market” and creating “a public sphere to link the national capital” to the rest of the nation (pp. 52-53). While many lauded the postal system’s contributions to nation building, antistatist forces gathered under theJacksonian banner to oppose its tightly centralized control over the flow of information and its vast expenditures. They feared its potential for corruption and its power to advance federal aggrandizement through the Amer­ ican system, including internal improvements. For instance, enthusi­ asm for subsidized postal routes had already led to petitions for con­ gressional support for thousands of miles of roads. John vividly details the battles that raged over this highly salient instrument of federal power. He excoriates the Jacksonians’ abuses of patronage, which they defended by their rhetoric about dangerous governmen- TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 513 tai powers. The “dismantling operation” that resulted stalled the postal system’s development and damaged its prestige. John’s disdain for theJacksonians parallels most reactions to their destruction of the Second Bank ofthe United States. Moreover, their resolute states’ rights position on abolitionists’ mailing literature into the South lent the federal government “an explicitly proslavery cast” by 1836 (p. 281). But John’s interpretations of the ramifica­ tions ofjacksonian fears, bigotries, and actions regarding postal poli­ cies exceed his evidence. By keeping the postal system at center stage, John neglects the importance of decades of other disputes, such as the Nullification Crisis, where states’ rights rhetoric also dis­ guised proslavery interests, but in which Jackson supported the Union. Certainly the postal system was both a conduit for debate and a subject ofthat debate, contributing to polarizing attitudes over slavery. Yet we need evidence for the intervening years to substanti­ ate John’s claim that “the Jacksonians who forged the fateful link between proslavery and the Union” initially over postal issues made “a sectional clash inevitable and [set] the country on a collision course . . .” (p. 280). John’s contrast ofJohn McLean’s tenure as postmaster general (1823-28) with that of the Jacksonians’ does persuade me that they seriously set back the postal system. Perhaps the central government would have “played a more prominent role in the history of electric telegraphy, as had been the earnest hope of Samuel F. B. Morse” (p. 256). YetJohn notes in another context that “a bitter financial squabble between Morse and his business partners” had deterred Congress from extending the line built in 1844 under the aegis of the post office (p. 88). The earlier loss of prestige and public trust may have cost the post office this prize, but John advances no evi­ dence for that conclusion. John correctly argues for the importance of...