2017-02-20 Mon

The United States Postal Service (USPS) or the US Post Office Department (1792 - 1971) is an independent US government agency which handles postal service. It is one of the few government agencies that have been explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.

The USPS is the operator of the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world! But do you know its history? How was it established?
Here’s the story in short:

In the early years of the North American colonies, many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These informal attempts were restricted to inter-colonies postal services only. A central postal organization came to the colonies in 1691, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service. The patent included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds.

And hence the first postal service in America commenced in February 1692. However, William Goddard, a Patriot printer was frustrated that the royal postal service as it was unable to reliably deliver his Pennsylvania Chronicle to its readers or deliver critical news for the paper. Goddard laid out a plan for the Constitutional Post before the Continental Congress on October 5, 1774. Benjamin Franklin promoted Goddard’s plan and the U.S. Mail was established during the Second Continental Congress by a decree on July 26, 1775. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general.

After going through a lot of changes, the United States Post Office Department was formally established by the Postal Service Act which was a part of United States federal legislation. It was signed into law by President George Washington on February 20, 1792.

The Post Office Department which was official created on 20th February 1792, got elevated to a cabinet-level department in 1872, and transformed in 1971 into the U.S. Postal Service as an agency of the U.S. government.

The first stamp issues were authorized by an act of Congress and approved on March 3, 1847. These 5 cents and 10 cents stamps portrayed Benjamin Franklin and George Washington on them respectively.

Since its conception, the USPS has evolved into one of the world’s largest post services and issues a lot many interesting and attractive stamps.

To view some of the beautiful stamps click here.