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Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West
A groundbreaking history of how the US Post made the nineteenth-century American West.
There were five times as many post offices in the United States in 1899 than there are McDonald's restaurants today. During an era of supposedly limited federal government, the United States operated the most expansive national postal system in the world.
In this cutting-edge interpretation of the late nineteenth-century United States, Cameron Blevins argues that the US Post wove together two of the era's defining projects: western expansion and the growth of state power. Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, the western United States underwent a truly dramatic reorganization of people, land, capital, and resources. It had taken Anglo-Americans the better part of two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of the continent, yet they occupied the West within a single generation. As millions of settlers moved into the region, they relied on letters and newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, petitions and money orders to stay connected to the wider world.
Paper Trails maps the spread of the US Post using a dataset of more than 100,000 post offices, revealing a new picture of the federal government in the West. The western postal network bore little resemblance to the civil service bureaucracies typically associated with government institutions. Instead, the US Post grafted public mail service onto private businesses, contracting with stagecoach companies to carry the mail and paying local merchants to distribute letters from their stores. These arrangements allowed the US Post to rapidly spin out a vast and ephemeral web of postal infrastructure to thousands of distant places.
The postal network's sprawling geography and localized operations forces a reconsideration of the American state, its history, and the ways in which it exercised power.
There were five times as many post offices in the United States in 1899 than there are McDonald's restaurants today. During an era of supposedly limited federal government, the United States operated the most expansive national postal system in the world.
In this cutting-edge interpretation of the late nineteenth-century United States, Cameron Blevins argues that the US Post wove together two of the era's defining projects: western expansion and the growth of state power. Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, the western United States underwent a truly dramatic reorganization of people, land, capital, and resources. It had taken Anglo-Americans the better part of two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of the continent, yet they occupied the West within a single generation. As millions of settlers moved into the region, they relied on letters and newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, petitions and money orders to stay connected to the wider world.
Paper Trails maps the spread of the US Post using a dataset of more than 100,000 post offices, revealing a new picture of the federal government in the West. The western postal network bore little resemblance to the civil service bureaucracies typically associated with government institutions. Instead, the US Post grafted public mail service onto private businesses, contracting with stagecoach companies to carry the mail and paying local merchants to distribute letters from their stores. These arrangements allowed the US Post to rapidly spin out a vast and ephemeral web of postal infrastructure to thousands of distant places.
The postal network's sprawling geography and localized operations forces a reconsideration of the American state, its history, and the ways in which it exercised power.
248 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2021
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336 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
did-not-finish
December 20, 2021DNF @ 10% on audio 12/19/21. I think this is not a good fit for audio, as maps are a key piece of the story. I was interested in the public policy aspect, but not interested enough to keep reading this book.
May 24, 2021
A surprisingly compelling history of the postal service, because Blevins is a genius with digital mapping techniques and weaves “a gossamer web” of post office stories across America. In every chapter, he illustrates his archival research results with engrossing maps, charts, and graphics. What a refreshing way to use a dense data set! There were 59,000 post offices and 400,000 miles of mail routes in 19th century America and there are records of all of it. “Large scale networks, organizations, and institutions have a tendency to hide in plain sight, camouflaged by their own routine, ubiquitous presence. This book is an attempt to bring one of those networks into view.” Brilliant!
Blevins sometimes tells the individual story of a letter traveling from a Hamilton, Nevada mining camp to New York City and other times he tells the story of the Postal Service as an arm of the modern American state. It is my style of history. He made me think about so many more questions – how did Rural Free Delivery change the fabric of small towns? How is ordering from an 1889 Sears Roebuck on the Montana prairie similar to ordering from Amazon today? What does it do to democracy when you charge only one flat rate to send a letter, no matter how far it travels? How in the world was the delivery time across the west shorter in the 1800s than it is today? People wrote each other daily letters (I have my grandparents love letters from 1910 to prove it) and they received them within a couple of days. What did they know then about “the last mile” problem? I could go on and on. It turns out that the American mail system influenced all the other elements of the American west in which I am interested.
I thought about my great-grandpa, John Day, the local postmaster of Enterprise, Utah in the year 1900, fifty miles from nowhere, and my great-great grandma, Lorine Higbee, the local postmistress of Toquerville, Utah in the year 1903, population 130. I have a great postal heritage. Small rural post offices were the center of the world in one sense, sending missiles to all parts of the country and delivering some of the world’s greatest newspapers to the tiniest towns. ”The clattering arrival of the mail stagecoach drew neighbors together at regular intervals to a central location in order to pick up their mail, read newspapers, trade gossip, buy stamps, and send letters. Arguably no other institution was so embedded in the everyday lives of so many different people.”
Blevins sometimes tells the individual story of a letter traveling from a Hamilton, Nevada mining camp to New York City and other times he tells the story of the Postal Service as an arm of the modern American state. It is my style of history. He made me think about so many more questions – how did Rural Free Delivery change the fabric of small towns? How is ordering from an 1889 Sears Roebuck on the Montana prairie similar to ordering from Amazon today? What does it do to democracy when you charge only one flat rate to send a letter, no matter how far it travels? How in the world was the delivery time across the west shorter in the 1800s than it is today? People wrote each other daily letters (I have my grandparents love letters from 1910 to prove it) and they received them within a couple of days. What did they know then about “the last mile” problem? I could go on and on. It turns out that the American mail system influenced all the other elements of the American west in which I am interested.
I thought about my great-grandpa, John Day, the local postmaster of Enterprise, Utah in the year 1900, fifty miles from nowhere, and my great-great grandma, Lorine Higbee, the local postmistress of Toquerville, Utah in the year 1903, population 130. I have a great postal heritage. Small rural post offices were the center of the world in one sense, sending missiles to all parts of the country and delivering some of the world’s greatest newspapers to the tiniest towns. ”The clattering arrival of the mail stagecoach drew neighbors together at regular intervals to a central location in order to pick up their mail, read newspapers, trade gossip, buy stamps, and send letters. Arguably no other institution was so embedded in the everyday lives of so many different people.”
June 7, 2021
Very tough one to rate. As an in depth assessment of the role the postal system played in the expansion of development in The Western US from 1850-1900 it is quite good. As a compellingly written, fast moving narrative that could sell a lot of books - not really. But it is clear the author is more academic than spinster and he stays true to his domain.
Isn’t a book about the US Postal system guaranteed to be boring and largely irrelevant? Quite the contrary - this book will have you well prepped for your next cocktail party. I found it interesting that the entire business model of the USPS initially was basically what we know today as Uber - let private citizens provide the assets, capital and the time to deliver the service.
The development of the postal money order product was essentially Venmo for the 1870s. Rather than mail actual currency around, these postal money orders were merely scraps of paper until they were “unlocked” by e recipient on the other end. And lastly, the money order system promoted the growth of “e-commerce”..... basically Sears and Montgomery Ward were the Amazons of their era. Pretty interesting stuff indeed.
Isn’t a book about the US Postal system guaranteed to be boring and largely irrelevant? Quite the contrary - this book will have you well prepped for your next cocktail party. I found it interesting that the entire business model of the USPS initially was basically what we know today as Uber - let private citizens provide the assets, capital and the time to deliver the service.
The development of the postal money order product was essentially Venmo for the 1870s. Rather than mail actual currency around, these postal money orders were merely scraps of paper until they were “unlocked” by e recipient on the other end. And lastly, the money order system promoted the growth of “e-commerce”..... basically Sears and Montgomery Ward were the Amazons of their era. Pretty interesting stuff indeed.
August 9, 2021
What currently afflicts the Post Office is also what partially troubles this book. The government institution is in a transition adapting to the digital age with people sending fewer mail yet also also being a lifeline to those, usually older generation, who need to feel and read stories from family and friends. The book can't figure out whether it is using the field of digital history mining an impressive array of datasets or telling stories like those of Benjamin Curtis in the 1880s. It's as if the book tries to straddle both when it should stick with one or the other.
As a huge fan of the postal service, having signed up for the docent program at the National Postal Museum in Washington DC in 1994 before having to move away, the aspect of making history come alive with letters is what always fascinated me. Letters takes history from just names and dates, and transports them to feelings and emotions.
The item that surprised me most is something I took for granted. I always thought mail was always delivered to each person's home. But delivery was only enacted permanently by Congress in 1902, via the RFD (Rural Free Delivery) which hired mail carriers to drop off mail to rural and urban homes. Before that, people would have to travel to a designated post office to pick up mail. That meant a lot of traveling for those in rural areas.
I wonder if in this day and age with nearly instant Amazon package delivery, if regular mail will be relegated for pickup only at Post Offices. Thereby going to a time before RFD.
Either way, nothing beats the physical touch of paper and feeling the ink and impressions left by the pen of a loved one.
Long live snail mail!
As a huge fan of the postal service, having signed up for the docent program at the National Postal Museum in Washington DC in 1994 before having to move away, the aspect of making history come alive with letters is what always fascinated me. Letters takes history from just names and dates, and transports them to feelings and emotions.
The item that surprised me most is something I took for granted. I always thought mail was always delivered to each person's home. But delivery was only enacted permanently by Congress in 1902, via the RFD (Rural Free Delivery) which hired mail carriers to drop off mail to rural and urban homes. Before that, people would have to travel to a designated post office to pick up mail. That meant a lot of traveling for those in rural areas.
I wonder if in this day and age with nearly instant Amazon package delivery, if regular mail will be relegated for pickup only at Post Offices. Thereby going to a time before RFD.
Either way, nothing beats the physical touch of paper and feeling the ink and impressions left by the pen of a loved one.
Long live snail mail!
June 2, 2021
I can’t say enough good things about this book. PAPER TRAILS might be my new favorite academic monograph. this books makes me proud to be a historian & especially to be a postal historian. PAPER TRAILS is really a must-read for any scholar of the American state, westward expansion, American imperialism, postal history, and/or digital history. highly recommended for all nonfiction readers, too. my favorite chapter is likely the one about postal windows because it’ll help me contextualize archival source work in my final dissertation chapter. his conclusion historicizes more contemporary postal policy. my more formal review is forthcoming in print for Annals of Iowa, but first I wanted to congratulate Cameron Blevins on invaluable scholarship.
December 6, 2021
A Pomona College graduate offers insight through technical skills and historical document inspection. Seldom does closer inspection provide kudos to large organizations either in or out of the governmental arena, or to the Post Office in any of its various guises. Paper Trails reveals spirit, ingenuity, flexibility, and the novelty of the 1800s United States Postal Service both for physical transport and the effectiveness of small money transfers (quality service filling a need paid by minimal fees). Perhaps labeling its acts as part of the instrument of government oppression is a little tough to swallow, but as an author in trying to get published and to get a tenured position in today's educational environment it would seem to be de rigueur.
June 15, 2022
I am really a sucker for information about logistics, and this book seemed very well-researched and had a ton of interesting bits of information and interludes. It was probably a bit more booster-ish for the US postal system than I might care for, but it didn't exactly shy away from the bad aspects as well.
Super interesting to learn more about the details of the extremely difficult logistical problem of maintaining a massive network of post offices to connect a huge country in the mid 19th century. I might read this again at some point and take better notes.
Super interesting to learn more about the details of the extremely difficult logistical problem of maintaining a massive network of post offices to connect a huge country in the mid 19th century. I might read this again at some point and take better notes.
July 31, 2022
3.5 rounded up because the website that accompanies this book is dope
This was interesting and educational, if occasionally repetitive. The chapters had a bit of a tendency to read like papers for a class.
This was interesting and educational, if occasionally repetitive. The chapters had a bit of a tendency to read like papers for a class.
February 26, 2025
An informative history of the postal service and its role in westward expansion in the latter half of the 19th century. If you are into the history of the expansion of the American West and the growth of the Federal government, then this book is for you.
May 21, 2021
Interesting. Great maps. Transparent about data sources and collection. Very enjoyable.
June 6, 2021
Covers the topic nicely. I would have preferred more detail and fewer anecdotes.
Read
August 1, 2021DNF'd 8%
October 25, 2021
Interesting, but a little dry.
February 15, 2023
Great book! You wouldn’t think a history of the Post Office in the American West would be so interesting, but this one is. I highly recommend this book!!
May 28, 2023
A really interesting history of the US postal service and the American West. Enjoyed the illustrations and charts as well as the text.
September 11, 2023
Wonderfully researched. Looks at aspects of western settlement normally overlooked
October 4, 2023
Reminded me to respond to my pile of letters
May 17, 2025
3.5, but rounding up to 4 because I'm so impressed by the exhaustive research
August 6, 2024
Cameron Blevins has created a masterpiece with this blend of niche history and spatial analysis. The use of spatial data to drive an investigation into the functions of the early post office allows for a top-down perspective on how the institution was able to operate so effectively. Paper Trails also provides an excellent insight into the day-to-day lives of settlers and how their interactions were shaped by this institution. I appreciated the nuanced look at how this system effectively encouraged settler colonialism and the destruction of indigenous peoples. This is an essential book on human geography in my library and a wonderful introduction to the field of spatial analysis.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews