Snail-mail delivery: A colonial relic postmarked 2018

I recently received my regular insurance premium in the mail, which included on the return envelope: “If sending payment through the U.S. Mail, please allow 7 to 10 business days mail time.”

“Whoa!” I shrieked. This mail is going from the nation’s capital area to Pittsburgh. Even at my age, I could walk it in less time referenced on the envelope. Gimme a break.

To be sure, the insurance company keeps track of postmarks and the dates checks are received, so it knows what it’s talking about. And there’s no doubt the mail is slow. If I mail a firstclass letter from northern Virginia to nearby Washington, D.C., it takes two days to get there, no matter that it’s just a few miles. Worse, the U.S. Postal Service suffered a $2.7 billion deficit for fiscal 2017, and its money outlook is gloomy.

All this is reminiscent of American colonial history when mail took a lengthy time for delivery, but it paid for itself. Moreover, in colonial times, postage was determined by distance. It cost 12 cents to send a letter from New York City to Boston, and it could take a day’s pay to send one to England. By the early 19th century, when American states to the west of the original 13 came into play, mailing costs were still determined by distance, but were getting cheaper relative to personal incomes. A letter moving 39 miles could cost six cents, one in excess of 400 miles 25 cents.

Then came a period of declines in postal rates, which hit an alltime low of two pennies in 1883. But operating in the black was subservient to service throughout this formative period of postal history. From 1851 to 1968, the post office balanced its budget only 13 times. During that same time, however, came the money order, rural free delivery and an extensive parcel-post system that well-served businesses and customers that depended so much on the mails.

And for a time (1913-1920), the postal service even delivered babies and children. I’m serious. Most times the journey was short, as, for example, a babe delivered to an address a mile or so from home. But some kids went a few hundred miles, tended to by mail clerks in the baggage car. And it was cheaper (much less than buying a train ticket), usually less than a buck, but the youngster had to weigh less than 50 pounds.

The Great Depression of the 1930s saw a decline in mail volume. But then came the boom times of post-World War II America, and although authorities were still concerned about a balanced budget, innovations proliferated.

By January 1950, for instance, first-class mail cost just three cents, airmail, six cents. Mail deposited in outside collection boxes were picked up every single day, even Sundays. And there was twice-a-day delivery to homes. But three months later, the twice-aday delivery came to an end. And Congress, witnessing the threefold increase in the mails from 1945 to 1970 and hoping for a respite from management, turned both the postal and rail service over to independent corporations of the federal government.

Perhaps the worst defeat of the new USPS came after 1973, when it announced but could not meet one-night delivery on airmail between major cities and 48-hour service within the continental United States. The secondworst setback was the decision in 1978 that new homes subsequently no longer would have the luxury of mail service delivered to their doors. Instead, there was a throwback to farm America, with side-of-the-road mailboxes required to be constructed.

Still, there’s some good and bad news about delivery service. First, the good news, as illustrated by the following pronouncement:

“... We hope in the spring to expedite the communication between Boston and New York, as we have already between New York and Philadelphia . ... It passes now between Philadelphia and New York so quick that a letter can be sent from one place to another, and an answer received the day following, which before took a week.”

The bad news is that the pronouncement came from Deputy Postmaster Benjamin Franklin in January 1764.

From 1851 to 1968, the post office balanced its budget only 13 times.