Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse

by Richard R. John

Book Overview

In the seven decades from its establishment in 1775 to the commercialization of the electric telegraph in 1844, the American postal system spurred a communications revolution no less far-reaching than the subsequent revolutions associated with the telegraph, telephone, and computer. This book tells the story of that revolution and the challenge it posed for American business, politics, and cultural life. During the early republic, the postal system...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674833384
• ISBN13: 9780674833388
• Release Date: November 1995
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 369 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Parallel btwn govt & early post office are remarkable

This book gives an inside view of how US government and indeed, the nation's first nationwide corporate entity, struggled with the combined pressures of politics & business 200 years ago. The problems USPS managers faced were remarkably "modern" as were the solutions remarkably "modern." Since I work with an agency that is similar in many respects to USPS, it was fascinating to see them crafting unique solutions in 1835 that we think are innovative in 1998. The book is "dry" in a way, but also very revealing to the persistent reader.