Neither Snow Nor Rain · Episode 2 of 10 · 24 min
Every American, Same Price
A letter costs the same across the street or across the continent, and that was a political choice, not economics. The episode follows four fights that built universal service: free city delivery, Rural Free Delivery, Parcel Post, and airmail. Each met opposition from express companies, merchants, or bankers, and each changed American life in unexpected ways, from rural roads to the Sears catalog to commercial aviation.
Who's who
- Montgomery BlairLincoln's Postmaster General during the 1863 reforms
- John WanamakerDepartment-store magnate and Postmaster General who championed rural delivery and parcel post
- Tom WatsonGeorgia Populist who secured the first Rural Free Delivery appropriation in 1893
- Charlotte May PierstorffIdaho girl famously mailed to her grandparents in 1914
- W. H. ColtharpBuilder who shipped a bank's bricks by parcel post in 1916
- Otto PraegerSecond Assistant Postmaster General behind scheduled airmail from 1918
- Walter Folger BrownHoover's Postmaster General tied to the 1934 airmail scandal
Where it happens
- Charles Town, West Virginia+1 more episodeOne of the towns where Rural Free Delivery began in 1896
- Vernal, UtahBank built from bricks sent by parcel post
- Grangeville to Lewiston, IdahoRoute of the child mailed by parcel post in 1914
Timeline
- 1863Free city delivery begins and letter postage becomes uniform nationwide
- October 1, 1896Rural Free Delivery experiments begin in West Virginia
- 1911Postal Savings System opens
- January 1, 1913Parcel Post begins, collapsing the express companies' pricing power
- May 15, 1918Scheduled airmail begins between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York
- 1934Airmail scandal; contracts canceled and the Army briefly flies the mail
Still debated
Several towns claim earlier rural delivery experiments, though 1896 is the official start. Historians also debate whether Wanamaker acted as reformer or self-interested retailer, how corrupt the 1934 airmail contracts were, and whether these services killed the country store.
