How the Post Office Created America, Winifred Gallagher
How the Post Office Created America, Winifred Gallagher
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How the Post Office Created America
A History

Author: Winifred Gallagher

Narrator: Tavia Gilbert

Unabridged: 10 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 07/01/2016


Synopsis

A masterful history of a long underappreciated institution, How the Post Office Created America examines the surprising role of the postal service in our nation’s political, social, economic, and physical development.

The founders established the post office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time, it was the U.S. government’s largest and most important endeavor—indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind thirteen quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen—a radical idea that appalled Europe’s great powers. America’s uniquely democratic post powerfully shaped its lively, argumentative culture of uncensored ideas and opinions and made it the world’s information and communications superpower with astonishing speed.

Winifred Gallagher presents the history of the post office as America’s own story, told from a fresh perspective over more than two centuries. The mandate to deliver the mail—then “the media”—imposed the federal footprint on vast, often contested parts of the continent and transformed a wilderness into a social landscape of post roads and villages centered on post offices. The post was the catalyst of the nation’s transportation grid, from the stagecoach lines to the airlines, and the lifeline of the great migration from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It enabled America to shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy and to develop the publishing industry, the consumer culture, and the political party system. Still one of the country’s two major civilian employers, the post was the first to hire women, African Americans, and other minorities for positions in public life.

Starved by two world wars and the Great Depression, confronted with the country’s increasingly anti-institutional mind-set, and struggling with its doubled mail volume, the post stumbled badly in the turbulent 1960s. Distracted by the ensuing modernization of its traditional services, however, it failed to transition from paper mail to email, which prescient observers saw as its logical next step. Now the post office is at a crossroads. Before deciding its future, Americans should understand what this grand yet overlooked institution has accomplished since 1775 and consider what it should and could contribute in the twenty-first century.

Gallagher argues that now, more than ever before, the imperiled post office deserves this effort, because just as the founders anticipated, it created forward-looking, communication-oriented, idea-driven America.

About Winifred Gallagher

Winifred Gallagher’s books include House Thinking, Just the Way You Are (a New York Times Notable Book), Working on God, and The Power of Place. She has written for numerous publications, such as Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. She lives in Manhattan and Dubois, Wyoming.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Caroline Germond on 2020-09-30 12:02:46

The narration of this fascinating history is unfortunate. Tavia Gilbert’s sing-song, breathless reading does no justice to Winifred Gallagher’s serious work, sounding more like the announcement of models at a fashion show than of the two hundred plus year history of the Post. I listened start to finish, but was often distracted by Gilbert’s tone-deaf sound. I’m really sorry for the author and for other listeners like myself.

Goodreads review by Andie

The much maligned US Postal Service is a $68.9B per year enterprise that handles 40% of the world's mail and charges the world's lowest rates. Despite it's /efficiency(and if you doubt that fact, try getting a package delivered in France), the American public persists in in thinking of it as a lumbe......more

Goodreads review by Mark

The second history of the US Postal Service published in 2016. Gallagher presents a lot of interesting facts about how the expansion of the United States was tied to the existence of a centralized post that expanded to meet the needs of the country. While I agree with her premise, the writing style......more

Goodreads review by Porter

This was a fun little book. The book traces American History through the Post Office. Unlike many books that force a theme to overlay the subject, the history of the United States and the Post Office to mirror each other. Thus, this book works really well in presenting its story. It was a bit simplis......more