Published: July 20, 2012
These days, what we find in the mailbox tends to fall into one of two categories: junk mail or quaint hand-written reminders of times past. While the mail may now vacillate between irritating or antiquated, for the more than two hundred years the U.S. Post Office played a central role in American life. It was not only the institution that allowed us to communicate with each other across state lines and beyond, but it played a vital part in our country’s political organization and hierarchies.
The History Guys explore the rise – and fall – of our postal system. We consider the how the Post Office stitched together a disparate country in the nation’s early days and look at the ways the USPS has been on the cutting edge of technology. We also poke some holes in the myth of the Pony Express.
Alec
Just listened to this episode – one of the best of your show or any other history based podcast.
Matt R
Hello, I recently heard this episode again and thought of an interesting event that wasn’t covered – I read that during the Great Depression that the post office was under-funded so the military tried to take over the mail delivery, but the scope of the operations was such that there were many accidents and plane crashes and the program had to be stopped. It would be interesting to hear more about this topic.