Spreading the news: the American postal system from Franklin to Morse

Abstract

Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse, by Richard R. John, (Harvard University Press, 1995, 369 pp. Works cited, index; $51.95 hardbound; $18.95 softbound.) One might gather from reading recent business news that the impact of information technology on the culture and economy of the United States is unique in the nation's history. But Richard R. John's evocative Spreading the News authoritatively suggests it has, in many ways, happened before. Spreading the News is really the story of the Post Office Act of 1792. John contends the act greatly aided the expansion of the nation, especially in the decades following the War of 1812 during the settlement and development of the Old Northwest. Congress' appropriation of the power to establish post offices and post routes, forbidding government inspection of the mails, establishing the symbiotic relationship between the post office and stagecoach companies, and mandating the inclusion of all newspapers in the official mail were major innovations of the act. Combined, they assured the astonishing success of the government's first venture into information technology - efficiently delivering the private and business communications and news the mails contained. The post office, strange as it may seem today, was once admired as the most efficient arm of the federal government. During the 1830s, it was also the largest government agency John reports the startling fact that in 1831, the postal service's 8,700 postmasters far out-numbered the 6,332 soldiers in the U.S. Army In 1831, French traveler and commentator Alexis de Tocqueville expressed surprise at how well informed even backwoodsmen in the wilds of Michigan and Illinois were about national politics. For that he credited the U.S. Post Office, which he praised as being far in advance of anything in Europe. John shows de Tocqueville's impression was correct. At the time, and with far less population, the U.S. had several times as many post offices as England and France combined. The postal system was successful, John sugBests, because of its unparalleled ability to quickly and securely transmit everything from cash to letters to newspapers. Vital to this effort was the system's reliance on private stagecoach contractors to carry the mails. John shows the relationship between the post office and these firms was so close the companies were in all but name post office subsidiaries. In fact, until 1840, stage contractors who lost their mail contracts were required to sell their rolling stock, teams and other equipment to the successful bidders. Passengers were carried by stagecoach as well, of course. The presence of the mail meant passengers were carried along with the mail on regular schedules. Because one-third or more of stagecoach company revenues were derived through mail contracts, the firms became, John contends, the first federally subsidized mass transit system in the nation's history. Since colonial times, publishers had relied on the postal service to circulate exchange papers - editions traded with other publishers in an embryonic version of what eventually became wire services. But not until the Post Office Act of 1792 was the practice codified in both law and postal regulations by requiring free carriage of exchanges. In addition, the act required all newspapers to be considered part of the official mail, something previously left up to the whims of individual postmasters. Finally, the act set low newspaper postage rates. As a result, small country weeklies were assured large metropolitan papers could not use their greater wealth to flood rural markets, something that had a profoundly beneficial impact on the independence and vigor of the American press. …