The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America

by David M. Henkin

Americans commonly recognize television, e-mail, and instant messaging as agents of pervasive cultural change. But many of us may not realize that what we now call snail mail was once just as revolutionary. As David M. Henkin argues in The Postal Age , a burgeoning postal network initiated major cultural shifts during the nineteenth century, laying the foundation for the interconnectedness that now defines our ever-evolving world of telecommunications. 

This fascinating history traces these shifts from their beginnings in the mid-1800s, when cheaper postage, mass literacy, and migration combined to make the long-established postal service a more integral and viable part of everyday life. With such dramatic events as the Civil War and the gold rush underscoring the importance and necessity of the post, a surprisingly broad range of Americans—male and female, black and white, native-born and immigrant—joined this postal network, regularly interacting with distant locales before the existence of telephones or even the widespread use of telegraphy. Drawing on original letters and diaries from the period, as well as public discussions of the expanding postal system, Henkin tells the story of how these Americans adjusted to a new world of long-distance correspondence, crowded post offices, junk mail, valentines, and dead letters.

The Postal Age paints a vibrant picture of a society where possibilities proliferated for the kinds of personal and impersonal communications that we often associate with more recent historical periods. In doing so, it significantly increases our understanding of both antebellum America and our own chapter in the history of communications.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

238 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2006

About the author

David M. Henkin is Margaret Byrne Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His previous books include The Postal Age, City Reading, and (with Rebecca McLennan) Becoming America: A History for the 21st Century. He lives in San Francisco, CA, and Bozeman, MT.

Reviews

[Jim Gulley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a social and cultural history of the posted letter and a forensic analysis of the letter as a primary source for historians. Henkin argues that letters reflected and reinforced emerging beliefs about the possibility and meaning of interacting with absent parties. He covers a period in American history from the 1830s through the 1870s. He homes in on the introduction of cheap mail in 1845 and 1851, dramatically accelerating the volume of personal letters. Until that time, the primary purpose of the postal system was to distribute newspapers. The founders' purposefully prioritized disseminating political speech as essential to the nascent republic.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tad more academic than I expected but once I got into it, I enjoyed the author's writing and the exposition of how early America interacted with and changed the Postal Service over time. I thought it was a great way to read about early America from a different perspective than just battles, leaders and expansion.

[Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henkin's approach to the post is an important one for histories of communication and cultures of letters (...in the broad, not epistolary, sense): the aim of this book is to outline its cultural impression. The greatest limitation to this book, honestly, is its brevity. Essentially ending, aside from a few references, with 1865, one wonders why more time wasn't spend on the years immediately after the War, during which the post was implicated in the overhauls experienced by the reunited nation. But even within its own time period, one wishes for a few more than 175 pages to help expand the rich field Henkin develops -- what about the postcard, for example? Or more on the urban-rural tension? Or the role of the post in "settling" the West, both for settlers and for Eastern imaginations (the California Gold Rush gets attention, of course, but this San Fran-filtered channel was of course unique)?