20 February 1792: First US postal service begins

In 1691, Thomas Neale was given a21-year concession to develop a national postal service for colonial America, named the North American Postal Service. He established a few offices, but the organisation was taken over by the British government when his monopoly expired, and the focus was then put on international mail.

To remedy this, the Continental Congress (which met to discuss grievances with the Crown) passed a decree in 1775 creating the United States Postal Office. However, the disruption of the War of Independence meant that it was 1792 before a law was passed to fund the network fully.

The new service was overseen by the postmaster general, a post that was a popular target for political patronage up until civil service reform in 1869. Despite this, the Postal Office was relatively efficient.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

The use of railways from the late 1830s, and the introduction of stamps from 1847 helped cut delivery times, even during the period of territorial expansion and rapid population growth. While users initially had to collect their mail from boxes in postal offices, direct city delivery began in 1863, and was extended to rural areas in 1896.

The network was renamed the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 1971. The amount of mail handled peaked in 2001, as the growth of email began to cut into letter deliveries. Competition from private delivery services such as FedEx and UPS has further damaged revenue and USPS lost $5.5bn in 2014.

In an attempt to reduce losses, it has closed a large number of offices and restricted overnight deliveries, but still employs 627,000 staff.