Editorial Content for Neither Snow Nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, and I was stretched out on the couch, reading NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN. My wife asked me if I was going to write a review, and I said that I would. She then asked me if I’d been assigned to read it, because why would I choose to read a history of the post office? I explained that I wanted to read it, and she shook her head.
The United States Postal Service is, I suppose, an odd thing to be reading about, and probably an odder thing to be writing about. It is an institution that we all intersect with at least six days a week. But the interaction is not always that positive, or at least it seems that way. There certainly isn’t much positive on days when half the mail is bills to pay, and the other half is junk that goes straight to the recycling bin. Certainly most of us have stood in long lines in dispiriting post offices, or dealt with rude and dismissive clerks. But at the same time, for the cost of a stamp, the USPS, without any sort of fuss, will deliver a card or a letter to anyone you like, anywhere in the country.
"...a lively, engaging narrative history... Leonard combines snappy prose and a deft personal touch to keep the story moving and the reader engaged."
That this is so is the result of a number of different historical vectors, all of which Devin Leonard retells in a lively, engaging narrative history. Leonard makes the wise decision to focus on both the personalities of the people who put their (ahem) stamp on the post office and the advances in technology and society that have resulted in changes to postal operations. The characters --- including the indispensable Benjamin Franklin, the indefatigable but misguided Anthony Comstock, and the glad-handing James Farley --- are a huge part of the story, and their influence on the Postal Service has been considerable. But it is the way that the Postal Service has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to change and reform that moves the story forward.
The Postal Service started out as a modest enterprise, with mail traveling by horseback up and down the dirt roads of the eastern seaboard. As the nation’s transportation network expanded, so did the mail service. When the railroads started extending across the country, the Postal Service began using rail cars to sort the mail in transit. And when the Wright Brothers showed the world that powered flight was possible, the Postal Service started to experiment with airmail.
Although the Postal Service was largely able to adapt to different ways of moving the mail around, it has had difficulties adapting in other ways. Leonard details the decades-long fight to get the mail delivered to rural households. The now-ubiquitous ZIP codes were very difficult to implement. Changing the Postal Service from a patronage machine to a professional (and unionized) workforce was particularly different.
Leonard combines snappy prose and a deft personal touch to keep the story moving and the reader engaged. NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN is, perhaps, not everyone’s first choice, even for fans of narrative history. But if you have the time and inclination, and a lazy Saturday afternoon ahead of you, I certainly encourage you to pick it up and give it a good read, and then go out to the mailbox and think about what you’ve read as you pick up your mail. Hopefully it’s not full of bills this time.
Audiobook available, read by L. J. Ganser
Teaser
Journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Benjamin Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over 70% of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology --- from mobile post offices on railroads and air mail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers.
Promo
Journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Benjamin Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over 70% of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology --- from mobile post offices on railroads and air mail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers.
About the Book
The United States Postal Service is a wondrous American creation. Seven days a week, its army of 300,000 letter carriers delivers 513 million pieces of mail, forty percent of the world’s volume. It is far more efficient than any other mail service --- more than twice as efficient as the Japanese and easily outpacing the Germans and British. And the USPS has a storied history. Founded by Benjamin Franklin, it was the information network that bound far-flung Americans together, fostered a common culture, and helped American business to prosper. A first class stamp remains one of the greatest bargains of all time, and yet, the USPS is slowly vanishing. Critics say it is slow and archaic. Mail volume is down. The workforce is shrinking. Post offices are closing.
In NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN, journalist Devin Leonard tackles the fascinating, centuries-long history of the USPS, from the first letter carriers through Franklin’s days, when postmasters worked out of their homes and post roads cut new paths through the wilderness. Under Andrew Jackson, the post office was molded into a vast patronage machine, and by the 1870s, over seventy percent of federal employees were postal workers. As the country boomed, USPS aggressively developed new technology, from mobile post offices on railroads and air mail service to mechanical sorting machines and optical character readers.
NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN is a rich, multifaceted history, full of remarkable characters, from the stamp-collecting FDR, to the revolutionaries who challenged USPS’s monopoly on mail, to the renegade union members who brought the system --- and the country --- to a halt in the 1970s. An exciting and engrossing read, NEITHER SNOW NOR RAIN is the first major history of the USPS in over 50 years.
