Our mail service does indeed have a long history beginning in 1775 with its establishment by the Second Continental Congress with Benjamin Franklin as postmaster general. In 1787 the U.S. Constitution empowered Congress to establish Post Offices and Post Roads, and the Post Office Act of 1792 made the postal services an official part of the Federal Government. I remember that my father driving on the Boston Post road a mail route from New York City to Boston. It evolved into a major highway system now with names like Route 1.
The Pony Express was established in 1860 and started in St. Joseph, Missouri and could reach Sacramento, California, covering nearly 2,000 miles using a relay system of riders and horses in approximately 10 days. Wells Fargo managed the Pony Express for just 6 months during 1861 and issued their own postage stamp. Celebrating the Centennial of the Pony Express the USPS issued a 4¢ stamp that is in the same spirit.
Things change for better and for worse. According to the USPS in 2024 it takes 2.5 days for mail to arrive from one destination to another across this country. That has not been our experience. Last year we ordered tickets to a show in Santa Fe. They were mailed a week before the show, a distance of 2.2 miles, and arrived a week after the performance. Happily, the theater had a record of the tickets, and we did not miss it.
More than once, I have said to my wife that I remember when we got two mail deliveries a day in New York. I was a little boy then who was so excited to run to the door at 9 am and 4 pm every day in our apartment building to pick up the mail in front of the door. This was in the second half of the 1940s. At that time if you mailed a letter on one day in a city it arrived across the city by the next day. In 1950 the USPS eliminated two mail deliveries a day, so it depended on what time of day you mailed your letter. Since email started the contents of our mailbox is a good deal less exciting as they are most often advertising catalogs or solicitations for donations!
Rate increases are so frequent that the Forever stamp has become popular. It was only in 1959 that the cost of first-class mail within the U.S. began to climb from the 3 cents rate established in 1932. A 3¢ stamp with 4 different images of Washington D.C. was issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Washington, D.C. as the capital of the United States.
My wife recalls during her research of Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764)the thrill of finding at the Morgan Library letters Pompadour sent to her brother during his travels in Italy. The missives were limited to one side of a single sheet which was then folded and addressed like an Aerogram and the enthusiastic sister continued writing up the margins to finish her thoughts.
The delivery of mail, postage stamps and their history around the world is a fascinating subject that I have barely touched upon.