What is the Postal Service?
The postal service is the medium that makes it possible for any person to send a letter, packet, or parcel to any addressee–in the same country or abroad–in the expectation that it will be conveyed according to certain established standards of regularity, speed, and security. The government controls it, or it is a government agency, and is usually funded through taxes or some sort of federal funding.
A Brief History of the Postal Service
The history of the postal service is long-winded, so here is a shortened version of the beginning of the postal system. One of the earliest recorded postal systems came from Persia in 550 BCE during the reign of King Cyrus the Great. The system they set up would work with stations that they had built. A message carrier, called Chapar, would ride from post to post, and at each post, they would swap their horse for a new one. This swap would ensure that the delivery was speedy and the horses were at maximum performance. While this system was the one that most resembled the postal system that we know today, there were reports of other postal-like systems in earlier years, around 700 to 1700 BCE. This was the Assyrian postal system, but it is not exactly like ours because it had nothing to do with ‘mail’ and was more about gathering intelligence.
The other claim to the first postal system was in China, and this date is different depending on what you read. The best-described source I found says it was around the Chou Dynasty, around 1000 BCE. This is where the posthouse relay system that would be copied by most other civilizations. Though the system was developed in 1000 BCE, it did not go into a high state of development until the time of the Mongolian Empire. Under the reign of Genghis Khan, the idea of Örtöö was created. Örtöö is a messenger and postal system that was used in the Mongolian Empire. This system is also referred to as the Yam because that was the name of the route that system was built. The postal system that was created was a route of post stations that were set up, and riders would ride from post to post; each station was filled with food, shelter, and spare horses. These riders could cover 120 to 190 miles per day which were amazing for the time. Another big development in the postal system happened in India during the Mauryan Empire (322 -185 BCE). They developed chariots called Dagana that were used as mail chariots sometimes. They were used mostly by kings and local rulers to deliver information and sometimes personal letter as well.
In Europe, there were also developments in the postal system. The first was in Rome with the creation of Publicus. It was organized by the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar (62 B.C.E. to 14 A.D.). This system uses light carriages with fast horses connected to deliver mail to stations that would distribute the mail. The name of these stations was posta, which comes from the word posata, meaning 'place of rest,' and this is most likely where the name postal came from. There was another system running in Rome, but it was much slower, and it was a heavy carriage pulled by oxen. The other big development was the creation of the Thurn and Taxis postal system during the Holy Roman Empire. The Thurn and Taxis system was created during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I and was run by Franz von Thurn und Taxis. It ran from 1209 and onwards. It was a system that the Emperor created to run through the Italian states. Even after the empire's abolition, the Thurn and Taxis system would still be used until it was absorbed into the Postal system of the new German Empire.
The last big country to develop its own large-scale postal system was the United States; it was started in colonial times when they had to start getting mail back and forth from England. Then they created a route for the postal system, which would come to be known as Route 1. The first centralized postal system was created in 1693 and would continue to develop as new deputy postmaster generals came into the system. Then following the Revolutionary War, the postal system was established under the Constitution in 1789.
The Impact of the Postal System
There are three big impacts of the postal system, which are connecting the world and making a more well-informed world, it fosters democracy, and being a big part of the economy. The first thing is that it connects the world and makes everyone more informed. Sending and receiving letters from anywhere in the world helped to begin to make the world feel more connected. The other big impact is that it fosters democracy in the way that all news can now be transported anywhere in the world, so people are able to pick their sides and have their own opinions. The last impact is probably the biggest one, and that is that it is a big part of the economy. One article that I read brought up the terms natural monopoly, economies of scale, external benefit, and economies of scope as the economic principles to see the unique assets of the postal system. The natural monopoly helps to keep the service of developing mail at as low a price as possible. The economies of scale are the fact that all postage is the same amount, no matter the distance. The external benefit is the fact that the postal service helps the economy expand without directing doing anything. The last principle is that of the economies of scope combine two similar goods or services to help save cost.
Overall I think the postal service has benefited the world over the years. The creation of the postal system was a crucial step in the communication field. It would lead to many other inventions being made, and without it, who knows what the world would look like today.
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