Post #4: EOTO Research

The Impact of The United States Postal Service

By Davis Trax

Overtime, technology has been a huge impact on society. It changes our lives every single day. We use technology to get us places, to see what others are doing, to check the time and the weather, to see what messages we are receiving. Messages that we receive. We've had so many forms of communication throughout the history of our planet but even in the history of our country. There is a form of communication and message delivery that has existed as long as our country that, in this century, has been taken for granted and is, in fact, a separate government agency. That is the United States Postal Service.

The beginnings of the USPS can be traced all the way back to 1775, so before the Declaration of Independence was written, during the Second Continental Congress. It was decided that Founding Father Benjamin Franklin would be named the first postmaster general. In the beginning of its time, the transportation of the letters would be dependent upon where in the country these letters were being sent from. If you were sending a letter from the northern states, there were most likely stagecoaches that would come around and take the letters and would deliver them that way, which is extremely close to what we have today. If you were living in the southern states, if you were able to afford sending out letters, you were also a slave owner so your slaves would deliver the letters. Of course, as time went on, the transportation in the world modified and advanced technologically, so the USPS did so accordingly.

In 1792, the Postal Service Act was passed, creating the Post Office Department, which was a cabinet-level department in 1872. In March of 1970, there was a workers strike in the Post Office Department that went up against the US Government. This strike was due to poor wages and working conditions. What started in New York City ended up gathering around 210,000 postal workers and ended up allowing former President Richard Nixon to sign the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, turning the Post Office Department into the United States Postal Service and the cabinet-level department was turn into its own independent government agency.

The impact of the USPS cannot be overstated. It has been serving consistently reliable mail. I, personally, have had no issues with the post service. They have delivered everything I've needed to be delivered and I have received everything I needed to receive. This post service has done exactly what the founding fathers intended. The point of the postal service was to connect people who are far away from each other, and it most certainly did that. Before email, and social media, even if you wanted to send a message to somebody in the town over, you had to send a letter otherwise you would have to bike or drive or walk there. Even though times have changed, the USPS still exists and there are many postal service spots around the country. You can take passport photos there and send packages, which is the main thing the post service does. All in all, our country would not have survived before email and texting if it weren't for the United States Postal Service.