Learning About the Mail System

During the EOTO presentations, I learned a lot about the creation of the mail system from Quinn Bailey’s presentation. The mail system is so old and so prevalent throughout the world and human history that I have never even bothered to consider researching the history of the mail system. According to one of Quinn’s sources, Britannica, its earliest references in historical documents actually date back to ancient Egypt around 2000 BC as well as in China about a thousand years later under the Zhou Dynasty, which was the longest lasting dynasty in Chinese history and lasted nearly eight hundred years. That means the mail system is only roughly 500 years younger than the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

After talking briefly about the inception of the mail system, Quinn focused the scope of her presentation on specifically the creation of the United States’ mail system, which has much more well documented history since it is much more recent. Massachusetts was the first colony to have a mail system in 1633, but it was not until nearly a century and a half later that the country had its first postmaster general in 1775, who was Benjamin Franklin.

From there, Quinn gave an overview of the history of the US postal service. A couple of the events that stuck out to me as particularly interesting were when the Constitution declared that Congress has the power to set up post offices and roads for mail delivery in 1788, when the first mail stamps were made in 1847, when charging rates were changed from distance to weight in 1863, and when zip codes were created in 1963. I find it incredibly interesting to see how all of these small details that define our modern day mail system were added one by one over the years to create the system we are so familiar with now.