Though the Postal Service might not come to mind as a great factor in the long march toward social equity in the United States, its policies have had a serious impact on the rights of marginalized Americans since its inception in 1775. Activism, civil rights, and politics are ingrained—at least implicitly—in postal history.
Benjamin Franklin worked for the colonial postal service, controlled by the British, for years before he helped establish the independent American Post Office. Back in 1737, he ran the Philadelphia Post Office where he was focused more on the logistics of such a large operation than on how the institution might affect different demographic groups. Still, his work left a legacy of social transformation.
“Franklin’s methods for organizing the movement of letters provided him with a model for the transformation of colonial subjects into national citizens,” writes Christy L. Pottroff in the edited volume Intermediate Horizons: Book History and Digital Humanities. Franklin observed communications trends, noting, for instance, which cities Philadelphians wrote to most often and in turn increased the frequency of inter-city deliveries to encourage their correspondence. He had invaluable insight into how to help would-be citizens of a budding nation connect with one another.