Transcripts For CSPAN2 The 20240704 : vimarsana.com

Here at smu. Let me start by thanking the many people. Well at least a few of them who at least a few video who have helped make this evening possible starting with our friends at the center for president ial history with whom we are cosponsoring this event tonight. Particularly jeffreyrt engel, Brian Franklin and rhonda spinster elected thank ruth ann elmore who coordinates things on our end for the clements center. So was my pleasure to introduce Cameron Blevins who braved last night whether to fly in from denver where he teaches u. S. History and digital humanity at the university of colorado campus in the mile high city. Before moving to the front right she was assistant professor of history at Northeastern University in boston and a core faculty member at the schools in the lab for text maps and networks. I learned last that cameron is a native of nutmeg state your for thoses of you who dont know but the nutmeg state, a number of you, so there is going to enable to invite you. Although he bolted for the palm trees and sunny skies in Southern California when he studied at college as an undergraduate. He liked the west so much that he moved up interstate five to stanford where he completed his phd in history in 2015. He already boasts an impressive publication record at tonight hes here to discuss with us his most significant accomplishment to date, paper trails the u. S. Post and the making of the American West. Published earlier this year by Oxford University press. Following his lecture cameron will be happy to take your questions, and afterwards to sign books which are available for purchase just outside. I think the drill is to buy them outside and then to bring them back here so m that cameron consigned them here so please join me in welcoming Cameron Blevins. [applause] all right. I think all sethe to appear and even when hear me all right . Good. Okay. Just want to make sure. Thank you so much for coming here tonight and also want to start by just thinking andy obviously and the Climate Center for inviting me along with Brian Franklin in the center for president ial b history peer ruth ann elmore also has been fabulous organizing this somewhat toothache that and think all of you for coming. Before i get started, get a show of hands here, how many folks have sent or . Received a handwritten letter in the last two weeks . Okay. How many folks have been to the post office in the last two weeks . Okay. How many folks collect stamps . Oh, im in trouble, okay peer i like to get a sense for where everyone is coming from what their interests are here so just want to see what that was like. Okay. So were actually going to start in a slightly different place, and that is the Salt River Valley in Central Arizona about 100 miles east of presentday phoenix, and were going back in time to september of 1886. Now obviously its arizona in september so it is actually hot, about 100 degrees out, septembe. And were going to zoom down to the house of t benjamin and mary curtis living in the middle of the Salt River Valley on a ranch, and Benjamin Curtis is sitting there. Mary is napping, and benjamin sits down to write a letter. Now, benjamins life at this point had involved this kind of nomadic existence, actually born in ohio,iv the youngest of four siblings peer he and his three siblings were orphans at a very young age, kind of scattered to live with relatives across the country briefly served in the civil war under age at the time, was in the navy. After the war started moving west across the railroad, eventually settled in Northern California to work as a store clerk, spent some time can open up his own store, made in orange grove in Southern California and eventually relocated again to the middle of arizona to start a ranch, in the 1880s but this is where he met mary come his 21 year old neighbor actually and got married after a very short courtship, and a year later she gave birth. And this is when he sat down to write a letter here now, his letter was written to his two older sisters who lived in san diego, california, at the time. And he was basically sharing the newsel saying your little nieces sleeping nicely in the mother is doing well also. Last sunday we were made happy by a successful arrival. He went on to report, it was a trying time for any mother but mary stood upe bravely and although it is 100 degrees here now inot this room, she does not complain but it is just as sweet as ever. And my personal favorite part, we think it is just the nicest baby ever bored, only t take after his father because it has plenty of air on the top of its head. As you can see, benjamin had a prettynk severe receding hairli. Fidelity closed the h what i think is the most touching part. Okay. Try that again. There we go. Now for its name. Mary says she thinks dalia henrietta would do nice and said weichert this letter was addressed to his older sisters, delia and henrietta curtis. Telling them their naming their baby after her aunts. It is especially poignant, right quite easy, or fenster theyve lost their own parents come the last remaining generation and this is the first member of the next generation. Nextgeneration. And in this connection across arizona over tohe Southern California connecting these family members together. This particular pieces of paper here are part of the collection of dozens and dozens of letters between the curtis siblings, and they are housed at the Huntington Library in pasadena peer i read every single one of these letters and basically they span from the 1840s when the orphaned all the way to the 1890s, so a remarkable collection. These letters are in many ways the paper trails of the past. And as historians we come across thesee paper trails all the tim, everywhere. Often in archives like the Huntington Library. And we are trained to read, analyze these pieces of paper, write, squeeze right, squeeze each and every one for every last bit of information. Every piece of insight into the past. And we are rewarded with the richness of detail right, letters like this one offering the intimate glimpses into past lives, experiences of longal ded people peer a new parent sitting down in 100 degrees heat to write a letter, cracking jokes about his hairline but also sherry a deeply meaningful moment with the people he loved. But we historians arere not necessarily as good at recognizing how these paper trails were generated. In then case of letters in particular, that bread and butter of the historical archives peer in understanding the simple fact that these pieces of paper had to travel from point a to point b. That without this journey, without this paper physically traveling from benjamins table in the Salt River Valley to the letterbox in san diego about 400 miles away, for scrap of paper is just a scrap of paper that is what gives it meaning. And i noticed in reading all of these pieces of paper written by the curtis siblings, they kept mentioning other stuff, other stuff thats passing between them, traveling through the mail. Mary and Benjamin Living on the ranch subscribed to half a dozen newspapers and magazines from across they. Country. In places likeik san francisco, chicago, new york, a nearby city in globe. Benjamin subscribed to the american agriculturalists, a farming magazine. Mary subscribed to a womans magazine. All of this stuff, and those letters image and other things asking them to send fiction but good. Send by mail benjamin asked for mother and fathers photo. Mentioned incendiary silk kerchief, flannel pants, napkin rings 21, a suitable breast pain, laces ribbons bibs, a bundle of san diego paper. All of this material traveling across that distance. And that provide all of these connections to benjamin and mary. And importance of these grows even more remarkable when you stop a second to zoom out and think about where they are living at the time. I cannot drive home to you how remote the Salt River Valley is. This is the record western backcountry that you see in hollywood films, right . When he moved there two years ago he was a bachelorette he wrote a letter he complained l he had for company were his cows and his horses the nearest doctor was a 30 my horse right away in the city of globe. He was utterly alone. Except that he wasnt. The male connected him to the family that he left behind in the wider world. He was able to use the mail to stay connected. He wrote this letter on september 8, 3 days later september 11th he walked out his front door and walked about 15 minutes to the nearest post office less than a mile away, dropped it off, again september 11, 4 days later on september 15, it showed up in the san diego post office. Four days toon go from the midde of nowhere arizona toro san die, right . Traveling againec 400 miles acrs mesa and scotland and desert and mountains and ends up in the hands of hiss sisters. All of this means that that had to travel across our network of post offices andnd railroads tht connected these two places appear at a travel across a network that wasit arguably the most expensivee Communication Network on the planet at the time, the u. S. Post. So what id like to argue today and this is the core subject of my book is that you cannot understand the United States in the late 19th century and in particular you cant understand this process of western expansion that defined this era as millions of americans poured westward in all these remote places like the Salt River Valley without understanding the role of the u. S. Post in this process. Little context for you three years later the postmaster general the United States John Wanamaker. Is basically the head of the entire us postal system. Reported that in his annual report to congress the visible form of the federal government to every community. Every citizen its talking about the us post. Its the only one that touches the local life the social interests and Business Concern of every neighborhood. And went on to share that there are 58,99 post offices. And 669,766 kilometers of male routes operating the United States. But what are those numbers mean . Right we can dismiss this as kind of hyperbole of a bureaucrat trying to advertise what his department is doing. And im willing to bet if i said 28,000 or if i said 88,000 it probably wouldnt have made that much of a difference to you. Were not that good understanding some of these numbers when theyre operating at this scale. And so in part what my research has done is try to understand what some of these numbers mean. And to do that ive turned to a method. Broadly known as digital history. This is a kind of lucy goosey umbrella term about using computers and technology to study teach or communicate about the past in some way. Now i think at this point if the last year and a half has taught us anything in many ways. I think were all digital historians, right . We are all interacting with the past learning about the past large part through screens. But in my case of this project. I was specifically using data using quantitative data to try to conduct Research Look for patterns and then visualize those patterns. About the past in this topic. So you can start to understand what the size of the us post actually was in 1889. This is showing on the xaxis here. The number of excuse me, the lengths of mail routes in kilometers and on the yaxis the number of post offices operated by Different Countries across the world. United states is a complete outlier. It has several times the number of post offices several times the length of mayor roots operating in 1889. But i was also able to use a different data set. The reason why i asked if anyone was a stamp collector, is that much of this book basically is due to this man right here richard hellbach. He is a prolific was a prolific stamp collector and also postal historian. And he actually passed away in 2011 before i had a chance to actually discover a lot of his work, but he spent decades of his life collecting information about nearly every post office that operated in the United States. Throughout its history. And he created a data set of about 166,000 post offices. And i stumbled upon his work when i was a graduate student i sent about excuse me sent eighty dollars to his widow at the time who mailed me a cd. And then i was able to basically receive all of the data for my entire research agenda. So, thank you richard. At best 80 bucks ive ever spent and i obviously owe him quite a bit. So what he did was he went back into the archives looked at microfilmed reels the us postal system captured a lot of information at the time they recorded basically information about every post office and he transcribed this. Into a spreadsheet of data right having the name of the post office the state and county where it operated and the years when it was opened and then closed. Incredibly rich data set now. His goal was to provide a kind of standardized list of post offices for stamp collectors to try to evaluate. How rare a particular letter or cover as theyre known was if it originated at a particular post office. I am less interested in stamp collecting i have to admit but this is an incredible Historical Data set. And so what i do is i took this data and then im not going to go into the details, but basically had to use kind of Computer Programming to try to figure out where those 166,000 post offices were located and again, im not going to go into all this. I was 70 just walk through 300o0 lines of computer code, but ill spare you that that torture. The end result though is what 166,000 post offices looks like on a map . Again, roughly speaking not complete but most post offices that operate in the United States. Over its entire history and what we can do to also now that we have these post offices is start to drill down into specific years to see what it looked like at different points in time. So this is what 58,999 post offices operating in 1889. Looks like so in postmaster general John Wanamaker said basically, its the only entity that touches the Business Concern and social life of every neighborhood every community. It wasnt really exaggerating with some exceptions. There was a post office in nearly every community in the United States. And so you can start to understand how this individual post office that was serving in this case Benjamin Curtis connected at him into these National System of information spread across the country gave him access. All of these different places so again continent spanning information network. It was huge. It was expansive. But we can also use this data to look and study how this network got to this point. Because if benjamin had moved to the Salt River Valley even 10 years before he would not have been able to send letters to his sisters. That connectivity that depended on the us posts ability to expand into distant places in lockstep with american settlers like Benjamin Curtis. And youre about to see that with really finegrained detail. This is the expansion of the us postal system starting on the east coast. Obviously a kind of narrow band. And then again moving in conjunction with americans. And in the 1840s you start to see this kind of explosion of post offices in the far west lining up with a seizure of territory violence easier of territory from mexico during the mexicanamerican war and the eventual occupation of that land by settlers. So this system is able to move incredibly quickly across this vast territory and again into these distant distant corners of the west. But also what i started to notice, which was even more remarkable to me. Was that it wasnt just expanding. It was also contracting from those same areas almost simultaneously. This is showing a map of post offices in gray and then on top of them in Red Post Office that either change names or locations or in discontinued entirely in 1884. And if you go through each year, youre seeing hundreds and hundreds of post offices shutting down. Across the western United States and really the entire country. In fact if you compare just in a 25 year quarter century leading up to 1889. Post offices that were newly opened versus post offices that were shut down it almost looks like a kind of ghostly skeleton of the other one, right . So this process of expansion is also extremely unstable or its opening up in all these thousands of places, but also withdrawing from many of those places almost simultaneously so over 25 years 48,000 us post offices either closed. Change names or moved locations across that time period roughly 1,900 post offices every year. If you look at some of these offices it is remarkable how quickly they shut down. This is an example from arizona. Esperanzas open on february 26th october 9th shut down. What is going on . Well, if you also look at the people who are running these post offices. Its just as unstable. In the late 19th century during this period about one out of every six postmasters across the country was either removed. Resigned or died in office every single year one out of six. But this followed particular patterns in this case. Im just showing post office. Excuse me postmasters who were removed from office by the administration. What youre seeing . Is that the post Office Department is operated by the executive branch the presidency . So whenever the presidency changes Brian Franklin<\/a> and rhonda spinster elected thank ruth ann elmore who coordinates things on our end for the clements center. So was my pleasure to introduce Cameron Blevins<\/a> who braved last night whether to fly in from denver where he teaches u. S. History and digital humanity at the university of colorado campus in the mile high city. Before moving to the front right she was assistant professor of history at Northeastern University<\/a> in boston and a core faculty member at the schools in the lab for text maps and networks. I learned last that cameron is a native of nutmeg state your for thoses of you who dont know but the nutmeg state, a number of you, so there is going to enable to invite you. Although he bolted for the palm trees and sunny skies in Southern California<\/a> when he studied at college as an undergraduate. He liked the west so much that he moved up interstate five to stanford where he completed his phd in history in 2015. He already boasts an impressive publication record at tonight hes here to discuss with us his most significant accomplishment to date, paper trails the u. S. Post and the making of the American West<\/a>. Published earlier this year by Oxford University<\/a> press. Following his lecture cameron will be happy to take your questions, and afterwards to sign books which are available for purchase just outside. I think the drill is to buy them outside and then to bring them back here so m that cameron consigned them here so please join me in welcoming Cameron Blevins<\/a>. [applause] all right. I think all sethe to appear and even when hear me all right . Good. Okay. Just want to make sure. Thank you so much for coming here tonight and also want to start by just thinking andy obviously and the Climate Center<\/a> for inviting me along with Brian Franklin<\/a> in the center for president ial b history peer ruth ann elmore also has been fabulous organizing this somewhat toothache that and think all of you for coming. Before i get started, get a show of hands here, how many folks have sent or . Received a handwritten letter in the last two weeks . Okay. How many folks have been to the post office in the last two weeks . Okay. How many folks collect stamps . Oh, im in trouble, okay peer i like to get a sense for where everyone is coming from what their interests are here so just want to see what that was like. Okay. So were actually going to start in a slightly different place, and that is the Salt River Valley<\/a> in Central Arizona<\/a> about 100 miles east of presentday phoenix, and were going back in time to september of 1886. Now obviously its arizona in september so it is actually hot, about 100 degrees out, septembe. And were going to zoom down to the house of t benjamin and mary curtis living in the middle of the Salt River Valley<\/a> on a ranch, and Benjamin Curtis<\/a> is sitting there. Mary is napping, and benjamin sits down to write a letter. Now, benjamins life at this point had involved this kind of nomadic existence, actually born in ohio,iv the youngest of four siblings peer he and his three siblings were orphans at a very young age, kind of scattered to live with relatives across the country briefly served in the civil war under age at the time, was in the navy. After the war started moving west across the railroad, eventually settled in Northern California<\/a> to work as a store clerk, spent some time can open up his own store, made in orange grove in Southern California<\/a> and eventually relocated again to the middle of arizona to start a ranch, in the 1880s but this is where he met mary come his 21 year old neighbor actually and got married after a very short courtship, and a year later she gave birth. And this is when he sat down to write a letter here now, his letter was written to his two older sisters who lived in san diego, california, at the time. And he was basically sharing the newsel saying your little nieces sleeping nicely in the mother is doing well also. Last sunday we were made happy by a successful arrival. He went on to report, it was a trying time for any mother but mary stood upe bravely and although it is 100 degrees here now inot this room, she does not complain but it is just as sweet as ever. And my personal favorite part, we think it is just the nicest baby ever bored, only t take after his father because it has plenty of air on the top of its head. As you can see, benjamin had a prettynk severe receding hairli. Fidelity closed the h what i think is the most touching part. Okay. Try that again. There we go. Now for its name. Mary says she thinks dalia henrietta would do nice and said weichert this letter was addressed to his older sisters, delia and henrietta curtis. Telling them their naming their baby after her aunts. It is especially poignant, right quite easy, or fenster theyve lost their own parents come the last remaining generation and this is the first member of the next generation. Nextgeneration. And in this connection across arizona over tohe Southern California<\/a> connecting these family members together. This particular pieces of paper here are part of the collection of dozens and dozens of letters between the curtis siblings, and they are housed at the Huntington Library<\/a> in pasadena peer i read every single one of these letters and basically they span from the 1840s when the orphaned all the way to the 1890s, so a remarkable collection. These letters are in many ways the paper trails of the past. And as historians we come across thesee paper trails all the tim, everywhere. Often in archives like the Huntington Library<\/a>. And we are trained to read, analyze these pieces of paper, write, squeeze right, squeeze each and every one for every last bit of information. Every piece of insight into the past. And we are rewarded with the richness of detail right, letters like this one offering the intimate glimpses into past lives, experiences of longal ded people peer a new parent sitting down in 100 degrees heat to write a letter, cracking jokes about his hairline but also sherry a deeply meaningful moment with the people he loved. But we historians arere not necessarily as good at recognizing how these paper trails were generated. In then case of letters in particular, that bread and butter of the historical archives peer in understanding the simple fact that these pieces of paper had to travel from point a to point b. That without this journey, without this paper physically traveling from benjamins table in the Salt River Valley<\/a> to the letterbox in san diego about 400 miles away, for scrap of paper is just a scrap of paper that is what gives it meaning. And i noticed in reading all of these pieces of paper written by the curtis siblings, they kept mentioning other stuff, other stuff thats passing between them, traveling through the mail. Mary and Benjamin Living<\/a> on the ranch subscribed to half a dozen newspapers and magazines from across they. Country. In places likeik san francisco, chicago, new york, a nearby city in globe. Benjamin subscribed to the american agriculturalists, a farming magazine. Mary subscribed to a womans magazine. All of this stuff, and those letters image and other things asking them to send fiction but good. Send by mail benjamin asked for mother and fathers photo. Mentioned incendiary silk kerchief, flannel pants, napkin rings 21, a suitable breast pain, laces ribbons bibs, a bundle of san diego paper. All of this material traveling across that distance. And that provide all of these connections to benjamin and mary. And importance of these grows even more remarkable when you stop a second to zoom out and think about where they are living at the time. I cannot drive home to you how remote the Salt River Valley<\/a> is. This is the record western backcountry that you see in hollywood films, right . When he moved there two years ago he was a bachelorette he wrote a letter he complained l he had for company were his cows and his horses the nearest doctor was a 30 my horse right away in the city of globe. He was utterly alone. Except that he wasnt. The male connected him to the family that he left behind in the wider world. He was able to use the mail to stay connected. He wrote this letter on september 8, 3 days later september 11th he walked out his front door and walked about 15 minutes to the nearest post office less than a mile away, dropped it off, again september 11, 4 days later on september 15, it showed up in the san diego post office. Four days toon go from the midde of nowhere arizona toro san die, right . Traveling againec 400 miles acrs mesa and scotland and desert and mountains and ends up in the hands of hiss sisters. All of this means that that had to travel across our network of post offices andnd railroads tht connected these two places appear at a travel across a network that wasit arguably the most expensivee Communication Network<\/a> on the planet at the time, the u. S. Post. So what id like to argue today and this is the core subject of my book is that you cannot understand the United States<\/a> in the late 19th century and in particular you cant understand this process of western expansion that defined this era as millions of americans poured westward in all these remote places like the Salt River Valley<\/a> without understanding the role of the u. S. Post in this process. Little context for you three years later the postmaster general the United States<\/a> John Wanamaker<\/a>. Is basically the head of the entire us postal system. Reported that in his annual report to congress the visible form of the federal government to every community. Every citizen its talking about the us post. Its the only one that touches the local life the social interests and Business Concern<\/a> of every neighborhood. And went on to share that there are 58,99 post offices. And 669,766 kilometers of male routes operating the United States<\/a>. But what are those numbers mean . Right we can dismiss this as kind of hyperbole of a bureaucrat trying to advertise what his department is doing. And im willing to bet if i said 28,000 or if i said 88,000 it probably wouldnt have made that much of a difference to you. Were not that good understanding some of these numbers when theyre operating at this scale. And so in part what my research has done is try to understand what some of these numbers mean. And to do that ive turned to a method. Broadly known as digital history. This is a kind of lucy goosey umbrella term about using computers and technology to study teach or communicate about the past in some way. Now i think at this point if the last year and a half has taught us anything in many ways. I think were all digital historians, right . We are all interacting with the past learning about the past large part through screens. But in my case of this project. I was specifically using data using quantitative data to try to conduct Research Look<\/a> for patterns and then visualize those patterns. About the past in this topic. So you can start to understand what the size of the us post actually was in 1889. This is showing on the xaxis here. The number of excuse me, the lengths of mail routes in kilometers and on the yaxis the number of post offices operated by Different Countries<\/a> across the world. United states is a complete outlier. It has several times the number of post offices several times the length of mayor roots operating in 1889. But i was also able to use a different data set. The reason why i asked if anyone was a stamp collector, is that much of this book basically is due to this man right here richard hellbach. He is a prolific was a prolific stamp collector and also postal historian. And he actually passed away in 2011 before i had a chance to actually discover a lot of his work, but he spent decades of his life collecting information about nearly every post office that operated in the United States<\/a>. Throughout its history. And he created a data set of about 166,000 post offices. And i stumbled upon his work when i was a graduate student i sent about excuse me sent eighty dollars to his widow at the time who mailed me a cd. And then i was able to basically receive all of the data for my entire research agenda. So, thank you richard. At best 80 bucks ive ever spent and i obviously owe him quite a bit. So what he did was he went back into the archives looked at microfilmed reels the us postal system captured a lot of information at the time they recorded basically information about every post office and he transcribed this. Into a spreadsheet of data right having the name of the post office the state and county where it operated and the years when it was opened and then closed. Incredibly rich data set now. His goal was to provide a kind of standardized list of post offices for stamp collectors to try to evaluate. How rare a particular letter or cover as theyre known was if it originated at a particular post office. I am less interested in stamp collecting i have to admit but this is an incredible Historical Data<\/a> set. And so what i do is i took this data and then im not going to go into the details, but basically had to use kind of Computer Programming<\/a> to try to figure out where those 166,000 post offices were located and again, im not going to go into all this. I was 70 just walk through 300o0 lines of computer code, but ill spare you that that torture. The end result though is what 166,000 post offices looks like on a map . Again, roughly speaking not complete but most post offices that operate in the United States<\/a>. Over its entire history and what we can do to also now that we have these post offices is start to drill down into specific years to see what it looked like at different points in time. So this is what 58,999 post offices operating in 1889. Looks like so in postmaster general John Wanamaker<\/a> said basically, its the only entity that touches the Business Concern<\/a> and social life of every neighborhood every community. It wasnt really exaggerating with some exceptions. There was a post office in nearly every community in the United States<\/a>. And so you can start to understand how this individual post office that was serving in this case Benjamin Curtis<\/a> connected at him into these National System<\/a> of information spread across the country gave him access. All of these different places so again continent spanning information network. It was huge. It was expansive. But we can also use this data to look and study how this network got to this point. Because if benjamin had moved to the Salt River Valley<\/a> even 10 years before he would not have been able to send letters to his sisters. That connectivity that depended on the us posts ability to expand into distant places in lockstep with american settlers like Benjamin Curtis<\/a>. And youre about to see that with really finegrained detail. This is the expansion of the us postal system starting on the east coast. Obviously a kind of narrow band. And then again moving in conjunction with americans. And in the 1840s you start to see this kind of explosion of post offices in the far west lining up with a seizure of territory violence easier of territory from mexico during the mexicanamerican war and the eventual occupation of that land by settlers. So this system is able to move incredibly quickly across this vast territory and again into these distant distant corners of the west. But also what i started to notice, which was even more remarkable to me. Was that it wasnt just expanding. It was also contracting from those same areas almost simultaneously. This is showing a map of post offices in gray and then on top of them in Red Post Office<\/a> that either change names or locations or in discontinued entirely in 1884. And if you go through each year, youre seeing hundreds and hundreds of post offices shutting down. Across the western United States<\/a> and really the entire country. In fact if you compare just in a 25 year quarter century leading up to 1889. Post offices that were newly opened versus post offices that were shut down it almost looks like a kind of ghostly skeleton of the other one, right . So this process of expansion is also extremely unstable or its opening up in all these thousands of places, but also withdrawing from many of those places almost simultaneously so over 25 years 48,000 us post offices either closed. Change names or moved locations across that time period roughly 1,900 post offices every year. If you look at some of these offices it is remarkable how quickly they shut down. This is an example from arizona. Esperanzas open on february 26th october 9th shut down. What is going on . Well, if you also look at the people who are running these post offices. Its just as unstable. In the late 19th century during this period about one out of every six postmasters across the country was either removed. Resigned or died in office every single year one out of six. But this followed particular patterns in this case. Im just showing post office. Excuse me postmasters who were removed from office by the administration. What youre seeing . Is that the post Office Department<\/a> is operated by the executive branch the presidency . So whenever the presidency changes Political Parties<\/a> from republicans to democrats . You see a giant spike in the number of postmasters who are removed from office. Is a political machine basically theyre saying okay democrats come in. Were gonna remove a bunch of republican postmasters and install local democratic and vice versa. So this workforce is also incredibly unstable as well. All of this adds up to what ive termed a gossamer network. Its idea of a kind of ethereal ghazi web. Its able to quickly expand into different places. But then also contract. Hold back withdraw this is not what at least i tend to think of when i think of government institutions, right fastmoving nimble, but also incredibly ephemeral and unstable. So who cares right . Why do we care that the us post operated in this way . Why does this matter . What i argue is that these features actually have a series of implications for understanding several larger processes that define the 19th century United States<\/a>. One of the most important of these this is a larger process of settler colonial occupation. That unfolded across the 1800s. So settler colonialism. This is the removal of an indigenous population from a territory and its replacement. By a Settler Society<\/a> in this case the removal of native people from the American West<\/a>. And the occupation by american settlers us post did not cause settler colonial expansion, but it did facilitate it incredibly important. And really underappreciated ways. So in some ways i think the maps that ive shown so far. Are quite misleading they are intentionally lying to you. Post offices did not fill in an empty continent the American West<\/a> was very much. Not empty at the time. What we can do with digital history is layer on other kinds of data to see these types of patterns. This is showing the us postal system in 1865 overlaid onto in dark gray government reservations indian reservations and then in light gray land that had not been officially seated by native people to the United States<\/a> government. And what youre seeing . Is that in a lot of areas of the west especially the western interior . Groups of native people were blocking the expansion of both settlers and the Us Government<\/a> the lakota and the Northern Plains<\/a> the comanche and west texas the apache and arizona were benjamin would eventually end up. But these two processes settler colonial expansion native dispossession. And then postal expansion went hand in hand. And you can see the expansion of the postal system into areas that it only recently been seized often through violence from native people. In the west to zoom in to a particular place to show you what i mean by this process. This is my state of colorado where i currently live and this is an 1870 and 1870 most of the kind of western third of colorado was occupied by groups of ute people. And white settlers were forbidden from trespassing onto land. That did not last very long prospectors streamed into the southwestern corner of the state into the San Juan Mountains<\/a> in search of gold. In an 1873 government officials renegotiated with several leaders and reached the socalled bruno agreement and this seated southwestern chunk of land about 3. 7 million acres to the United States<\/a> and this is what happened next. Again, the us post is not causing this but it is oftentimes on the front lines of this occupation of plunder native territory. And i can show you similar patterns across the western United States<\/a> from this period basically, the us post is able to expand into these distant places in lockstep with settlers. So again if we return to Benjamin Curtis<\/a> living in arizona in the late 1880s hes actually living about 16 miles. West of the White Mountain<\/a> indian reservation the Us Government<\/a> reservation for groups of apaches that have been forced to live inside those borders ministered by the office of indian affairs. And there was a garrison of Us Army Troops<\/a> stationed there. Benjamin was living on recently plundered land. It was able to live there fully connected to the wider world again. Despite it being incredibly remote distant and removed. And so mapping the us post understanding how it operated as a Spatial Network<\/a> in particular some of those gossamer features. I think it forces us to reconsider. The role of the american state in this process of american colonialism this wasnt just again white people moving on to empty land. And it wasnt just white settlers occupying native land, right . This was a process that was facilitated by the american state by the Us Government<\/a>. So the second thing did this kind of research did for me was that it forced me to rethink . A lot of what . I thought i knew about the american state how it operated in its history. Something i kept coming back to when i would look at these maps. Look at this data all these patterns, right . Fast moving expansive deeply unstable i kept asking myself. How did this thing even work . Right. How do post offices open shut down a couple months later and yet still benjamin and mary curtis. Are able to sit in their living room in the middle of nowhere reading letters and newspapers and magazines from across the country. How did this system work . Now i apologize for a second because im going to get down to the scholarly weeds here, but i cant talk about the american state without mentioning this man. Max weber german sociologist and in many ways i think has defined what a lot of people and scholars for a long time thought of as the state. You define it and largely two ways first of these. A state is a Human Community<\/a> that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. This is coercion right a state being able to exercise coercion to force people citizens those living inside its borders to do things. Second bureaucracy now hes german so loves bureaucracy. And he advanced a kind of ideal type or model of bureaucracy. This is what we would associate with many government organizations today right specialized focused on particular theme or purpose hierarchical. Hierarchically organized uses written documents forms that kind of thing. Theres certain degree of expertise with people that work there. Fulltime staff and there are a set of rules that govern how bureaucracy operates. These two models of the state right coercion on the one hand bureaucracy on the other. I think really shape how at least i have thought about state power. The ability of the state to exercise power in some way either through the force or threat of force. Or through its administrative capacity. Which brings us back to the us post . How did this thing even work . Because if you look at it, it is not operating at all like max weber wanted it to right. This is not a traditional framework of state power when you start to drill down and understand how this network functioned what you see is a completely different model. This is what ive termed the agency model. This is one that is decentralized. Decentralized people are operating at the periphery with very little centralized oversight. Its also one that relies on private actors rather than Government Employees<\/a> oftentimes. Those actors are temporary parttime. And theyre not paid a full salary. What do i mean by that . Well, im guessing a lot of us at least are familiar with this image of the us post today, right your local mayor carrier wearing. Theyre kind of snappy little uniforms driving around in the trucks side note. I learned recently. These trucks have been meant to be retired for years. Now male carriers universally hate them. They do not have air conditioning or heat and theyre kind of falling apart. So just think about that every time you see one of these of course in the 19th century, this is not at all with the us post looked like this is not how you got your mail. Instead the post Office Department<\/a> would contract with private stagecoach companies to carry mail along these western routes. So a company would carry passengers freight and then they would also have a fouryear temporary contract with the us post to throw a couple bags in mail into the back and drop them off at various points along their route. Well post offices, right . This is my local post office in denver. How many people say this looks fairly familiar to post offices you are either with yeah. Okay ish. All right. Brick building right official sign on the door you walk inside again. Theyre fulltime employees that work behind there. You probably know their names if you go there a lot. This is a bureaucracy, right . This is not how things worked in the 19th century. Instead what would happen again the post Office Department<\/a> would pay a local business person oftentimes a store owner. To hand out letters across the counter of their store. Youre seeing on the left here, California Post Office<\/a> from spadra and you see under it caldwell and brothers general store. Or on the right side of the screen. This is in guerneville, California Post Office<\/a> operating inside a wells fargo and company express station and a jewelry store, right . So this is a Public Service<\/a> being grafted onto a private infrastructure. Again decentralized private actors temporary parttime and non salaried when i stopped to look at this about 95 of post offices during the 19th century. Looked like that. They did not look like these big urban post offices that we might recognize today. These postmasters and these offices were paid anywhere from 12 to a couple 100 bucks a year. Again, parttime work many of them as i already mentioned. Were either removed from office left office move to the town next door all the time. So this is constantly shifting. What this did this agency model was it allowed it to expand into distant places, but also operate by far the largest and most expansive arm of the federal government. So if you stop to actually map all the locations of the federal government. On the left side youre seeing about 5,500 post offices operating in the west. And what i did was i went through a government directory and tallied up basically Everything Else<\/a>. So this is the rest of the executive branch us army the legislative branch and the Judicial Branch<\/a> all combined, right . Department of the interior the Treasury Department<\/a> all these other executive agencies 486 locations us post is operating a vastly more expansive system. Than the rest of the federal government. And im happy to talk more about what ends up happening. Is that these other entities then start to rely on the us post to fulfill basic functions because of this spatial coverage and this spatial coverage is really what sets apart the post. And really gives it so much of its influence. So again, if we think back to this process of settler colonial occupation this agency model is what allow the us post to move so quickly into the San Juan Mountains<\/a> one of the most remote distant places in the contiguous United States<\/a> at the time. The reason is theyre not building new brick buildings, right . Theyre not hiring a fulltime staff. They are not buying their own stagecoaches there again paying commissions. Fees contracts for a store owner a mine operator to operate a post office or a Stagecoach Company<\/a> thats carrying gold out to the hills around the hills. To carry mail there this is the model that allowed the us post to move so quickly. And its also not the only entity that is operating along this model. What i started to recognize with that this was actually everywhere. The us Pension System<\/a> after the civil war obviously hundreds of thousands of Veterans Union<\/a> veterans. Disabled suffered some kind of injury during the war or left behind if they died during the war widows children and the Us Government<\/a> adopts a Pension System<\/a> starts to pay out money by the 1890s. This is one of the largest items in the entire federal budget. I believe its Something Like<\/a> 40 of the entire federal budget is going towards this Pension System<\/a>. But if you think about right you have hundreds of thousands of different people who are filing claims to money from the government. They have to be evaluated. And the Us Pension Office<\/a> is not going to send. A person from washington dc to every one of these communities across the country. Instead what they do is they take doctors surgeons local doctors and pay them a commission. Pay that in commission to evaluate the claims of someone to see okay, do they actually have a bullet in their right leg . How disabled are there and then how much money are they owed from the federal government . These are private actors right private actors of the Us Government<\/a> is paying to perform a service one. That is geographically expansive. Or just last year, right . We had a census every 10 years the Us Government<\/a> has to go around and figure out how many people live in this country. And where do they live . To do that they again turn to private actors. These are not fulltime employees. And in fact, they are not fulltime employees today. These are temporary people working. So for a long time. They would pay the Marshall Service<\/a> was actually in charge of the us census and they would send out enumerators who were local Business People<\/a> oftentimes in fact postmasters. Right grafting this onto an existing network to try to perform a service that is geographically expansive. This model defined a lot of aspects of the american state at the time that i found fairly surprising. So this agency model had a whole lot of implications for understanding some of these processes and im going to touch on just kind of three very short examples that i explore a lot more in the book and use that as a little incentive for you to buy the book. Chapters are great. But if we take the first of these right the decentralized system decentralized system. What you see is the us postal, excuse me the post Office Department<\/a> in washington dc absolutely struggling to figure out what the hell is going on across the country, right . You have 60,000 post offices operating. Theyre discontinuing all the time. Theyre changing names right routes are getting added some are getting contracted. And so the person in charge of making maps of this system. Its just a complete loss right employees several dozen people to try to produce maps of this network. But its basically trying to produce a map of a network that refuses to stand still its constantly changing. And so what you see instead are the struggles of this office the topographers office to create cartographic representations maps of this system. So again highly decentralized network. Private actors, right . What are some implications that come with relying on private actors to provide Public Service<\/a>s . This might not come as a surprise to people. But in the case of contracting system with stagecoach companies this bread a tremendous amount of corruption and in fact in one of the chapters, i look at a period in the 1870s through the through the early 1880s where large stagecoach companies in the west managed to basically cheat the government where they would manipulate the bidding system for contracts to win these giant inflated contracts worth hundreds of thousands and up to millions of dollars. This is a direct result again a relying on private actors. To perform a Public Service<\/a> while also having a decentralized network where theres basically no administrative check in terms of what is happening on those distant male routes. And then finally thinking about temporary parttime and then nonsalied positions in particular the position of a postmaster. Is really important for understanding. The 19th century United States<\/a> you know looking at this i kept thinking myself. Why would you want to be a postmaster . Youre getting paid 50 bucks a year sounds like kind of a lot of administrative work, you know, whats in it for you . And what you see is that its less about the amount of money. Theyre receiving. And instead its about having control over the local post office because if you control the local post Office Everyone<\/a> needs to come to your store. This is in a period for the rural United States<\/a> before residential delivery. So if you wanted to get or send mail you had to walk to your local post office. And if you were the one that owned that post office had it housed inside your store that meant customers were had to come in several days a week to get their mip. Maybe theyd buy some cigars or nails right at the same time. And that also meant that they were not going. Your local competitor down the street. And this led to some fascinating things if you read the correspondence of any politicians during the 19th century congressman senators, youll be blown away at how much time they spend talking about post offices and postmasters. Their constituents are constantly writing to them complaining. Saying josh mo should not have the local post office. I should have the local post office. Right and you have them just expending dozens of letters trying to figure out whos gonna be the postmaster where the post office is going to be located. Because of this because the way in which a post office operated is the central gathering point of a community it was around which Everything Else<\/a> orbited and it wasnt just in terms of people coming into your store. It also meant you knew exactly what kind of newspapers they were subscribing to who they were writing to right postmasters were oftentimes the hub of information gossip news about a local community. Theres a tremendous amount of local power exercised by these postmasters. And the location of the post office would actually shape this local space of western communities. So ultimately this book though is about two different spatial scales. One of these is kind of a large scale examination. Things like Massive National<\/a> networks the us postal system studying. Its geography. Its expansion how it operated . Trying to bring into view these kind of systems that oftentimes float under the surface ones that you might see every day, but not fully appreciate or understand. And as part of that. I also created a cocreated i should say much more talented Web Developer<\/a> helps build this a companion websites. To this book and what this website does is it allows you to scroll through chronologically and start to explore different patterns . Over time with some text on the right side explaining some of these big largescale geographic patterns about the expansion of the us post and what was causing it. Again, trying to explain some of these different eras in western history. At a very large scale i intentionally did not try to do this in the book, right . I did not fill my book with all these maps trying to explain these Continental Scale<\/a> patterns. Instead what i tried to do was balance some of these largescale patterns. With what those patterns meant for individual people so if we go back to the curtis family. Our brother in the middle of the arizona backcountry can use this Larger Network<\/a> to share news with his family. About the birth of their niece. These kind of mundane connections that unfolded across the country thousands and thousands of times every day. Those quiet connections that ultimately knit. The 19th century us together. Thank you. So a password just a moment and then in about 10 or 15 seconds, i will let cameron call his own questions. Im sure youve got some and please dont forget that there are books outside available for purchase. Sure, if you have a question. Just put your hand up and well get a microphone to you. Were ready. Okay. So did i hear you earlier . Say then . Can you raise your hand . I have no idea. Thank you. So did i hear you earlier . Say then that when you notice a trend of these president ial candidates of competing parties taking over coming in and sacking postmasters over and over and over again. Could you expand on that a little bit . Is there some sort of political capacity that these postmasters had in this time that im not thinking of because i certainly im certainly understanding how its a locus of pull it like local community and things like that. Im not i cant understand how they would be able to politically be influential if they cant open the mail, you know. Yep. So two things i would say one of which is that if you know the business in connections and news of everyone around you youre actually in a pretty well situated position to be a political operative second. It is probably less i would say about them acting as like a local democratic and more the fact that the democratic these positions as patron just kind of rewards for being a democratic. So if youre able to get the post office in your store, that is a kind of reward for what you might have done in the previous election. That makes sense. Right does that make sense . I noticed that the letter that person to assist her has no address of san diego. So wasnt really that will back then . Just go back here. So just to clarify, youre talking about that top letter that basically said ms. Curtis, san diego, california. Thats it nothing else, right . This is whats remarkable to me is that in large cities you could even have aff letterbox in the post office, some cities at the time did have residential delivery but everywhere else in the country he basically wrote someones name, the name of the post office and thats it. And the reason they get to this is because it is not the kind of address system for every Single Person<\/a> in the country he would have to go to your local post office to pick up your mail. That ill submit them to go back to the local postmaster, postmaster hado delivered was right . Theres a tremendous idea that you kind of winter and it was this personal local connection that ultimately allowed the network as a whole to operate. And begin this is a very different idea that we have from the kind of bureaucratic system with your kind order and safe addresses, right, zip codes are a moderate thing. This was much more reliant on local knowledge. I think in many ways it embodies the larger system as a whole where it is decentralized and highly dependent on these local actors. Sport that was great. You focus on sociological implications of the post office. There was alsoo something happening in the 1800s that the commerce, and, at the beginning of the mail order catalogs at that point after the civil war and the movement of merchandise and more particularly money back and forth. How did the post office, how do the post office handle the commerce and how do the post office eventually get kicked out of the commerce . You are going to love chapter six. [laughter] entirely about the money order system. So the money order system to get some background started during the civil war and the basic idea was that soldiers, Union Soldiers<\/a> serving on the front lines needed a way to send holder wages to family members on the home front without sending physical money through the mail i that might get lost r stolen. For the idea behind it was you would go to your local post office and that you would say heres ten dollars, fill out a form. The postmaster within step the form, the mail the form itself to whoever he wanted to do and whoever you were sending it to ritual and they would get ten dollars for that postmaster. It became almost like a small scale tracking system. This developed in the 1860s and started to spread over the following decades. This actually was phenomenally important especially in the western United States<\/a> and to some degree himself asla well because the Banking System<\/a> at the time there was a huge lack of currency. There was not currency in circulation and so for rural parts of the country the money order system became a really important way toik conduct smallscale transactions. If you want to subscribe to a magazine like ones i showed you oftentimes you might send three Dollars Money<\/a> order through the mail. The flipside was it was one of the few parts of the u. S. Post that was really bureaucratic to her it was run as this kind of topdown hierarchical depended on forms and it had a system of rules in place that basically constrained its growth, and so the person in charge of it was that this kind of amazing bureaucrat who was there for 30 years name charles mcdowell. Blended so much in such a dedicated Civil Servant<\/a> he left 5000 in his will to the money order system. But what i think striking about this is that men actually constrained by that service was offered. Unlike the rest of the post which expand willynilly showing up in all these distant areas, Salt River Valley<\/a>, there should not be post office or in any way, right . The money orderna system is constrained to sayuc have to met this kind of financial threshold of how much revenue you bring income have multiple, back of the system, much more bureaucratic basically part of u. S. Post that actually stands in contrast to some of the more other network stuff. That becomes still really, really important for all sorts of different places. You can see flows of money from the western United States<\/a> to the eastern United States<\/a>, and its performing all sorts of Different Services<\/a> for people that are able to access it. And then mail order catalogs which i find really interesting, these would be you right into Sears Roebuck<\/a> for instance, in order a particular piece of machinery and then would d to you. Up until the 1910s the u. S. Post would only carry very small things, less than two pounds Something Like<\/a> that. Sears roebuck would have to send back to youha something larger than that by a freight so railroad or express company, private companies that are going to charge rates that a lot of people really upset about dick whereas the u. S. Post had a single uniform letter right no matter where you lived in the middle of Salt River Valley<\/a> you could spend two cents and reach anywhere. Some of the c private and Public Division<\/a> start to come out and like us to chapter six youre going to love it. What would a criteria for the location of post office, where there are objective criteria or was it just patronage . It was very complicated, extremely rulebased. He basically wrote a letter saying we wanted post office, admin you mailed the letter. [laughter] so you would basically do it cindy petition pick it didnt have to be a standardized petition for ivee looked at hundreds of these in the National Archives<\/a> come and written two sentences saying whats going to go. You want a post office and you would mail it to your congressperson. You would mail it to the post Office Department<\/a>. You would mail it to your senator. And then it would eventually kind of work its way there and the post Office Department<\/a> would almost always say okay, and thats it. There was no rules about it being too close to another post office or their there bein number of people that have to serve, for instance. It was incredibly capacious system and it really wasnt until the late 1800s into the early 1900s you start to see central administrators actually trying to pull some kind of restraint on do n you really ned a post office in the middle of nowhere to serveve 20 people . But throughth this time it is extremely driven by the periphery i these local communities with very little oversight from washington. Cameron, thanks. Beautiful presentation peer im curious about your story about decentralization. So if we think about contemporary post offices in great britain, they are also highly decentralized. There being rightiv out of prive ends. They havent been centralizedth get there the innkeepers of the postmasters. So theres an argument to be made that thisal process you wee talking about is the process by which we see the modern state in action here notot that these are decentralized human rights the state its outec there becoming the state over the course of their lifetimes they will have correspondence with washington as you so clearly showed but they will become the fish eaters. What do you think the role of ideology is in that . Thank you, jeff. Was fascinating to me at least is said again and again during the time the most really visible form of state, the federal government was not the tax person. Was your local store owner being the postmaster. I think that does have a lot of implications. So the story of brian balogh for instance, has written a phenomenal book that basically argues that during this time the federal government hid a lot of its power by operating through these other networks and norms. Voluntary associations, state andnd local governments, and tht this was an intentional move on their part to kind of not worried americans practice overly powerful government. I actually tend to think that theres less intentionality involved pick the image it comes toto my mind at least when it comes to the u. S. Post is more like fantasia and mickey mouse where he starts doing the magic thing admin broomstick start appearing and dumping whatever educate control and it is spinning out of control. Going back to the previous question,xp write, local communities are the one driving the expansion and really in charge of the operations. So i think it forces us to reconsider like what is the state courts will oftentimes view it with a sense of intentionality topdown nature but sometimes skeptical about how much control they had during the time. I think this continues through the 20th century as well. There are all sorts of different ways in which the federal covered continue to operate as a decentralizedit system. Still relies on the vast force of contractors part time federal workers. I was reading something from a couple years ago but basically they admitted they dont know how many people work for the federal government because theres like millions and millions. You see this as military contractors obviously abroad in this part of this kind of aligned to state to operate and extend across a really, really wide Geographic Area<\/a> and all the local places but obviously comes with other applications as well, lack of oversight, abuse of power that can happen there, to. S i dont think its just a 19th century story. I think youre right in a lot of ways it does define the modern state. Thank you. [inaudible question] the modern world a lot of drawback desperate in the other direction disconnected, more modern, continue to get all these things. Do you think that might have some similar parallels . So ill talk to the first question which was about the rule of Civil Service<\/a> reform during this time,sy this idea of trying to get rid of the system of patronage which o is close to democrats orso republicans peero 1883 Congress Passes<\/a> the pendleton act which is a landmark piece of legislation that tries to institute things like exams, Civil Service<\/a> exams that federal employees need to take back whats wht basically does not touch the u. S. Post for decades, not until the 1910s to local postmasters companies, small postmasters who might be a store owner have to start following any kind of Civil Service<\/a> rules all the way through the 1910s. The reason for this is twofold. One of which is it still the largest source of political patronage for parties. If you come into power youre very little incentive to try to extend Civil Service<\/a> reform and last i year of the outgoing president which you see them sometimes try to do if they know theyre going to lose control of the presidency here they are like now its time for Civil Service<\/a>. And the second reason being i really think if you want to provide the service in all these distant places it really hard to require things like Civil Service<\/a> exams appear theres an administrative overhead when you have 70,000 postea offices thats usually difficult to implement in a lot of ways. The second question if i live right was contraction in rural areas but also things like today you were sitting extension of things like amazon delivery kind of ordering stuff like that. Whats interesting to date is youre seeing a reverse of whats happening, whereas before the u. S. Post what oftentimes graphed this Public Service<\/a> onto private infrastructure peer to dangerous thing things like fedex graphed its services on the u. S. Post which is the only operating in some places. If you are a private carrier incentive for you to establish service in these distant places, not very densely populated, is likely to turn a profit so they basically leave that to the u. S. Post and contract with them start carrying packages. Whats interesting, i do what you are quite open the door to other 21st century problems of the u. S. Post, but bleeding money right now youre one of the few bright spots is Package Delivery<\/a> complexes exploded in recent years in large part again because private carriers are contracting the u. S. Post to deliver packages in these rural areas. Go for export is at microphone working over there . I have two questions. Go back to your idea about someone in some town right in and say hey, id like to have a post office here. With somebody in washington, d. C. Right back up for sure, go ahead and pay 12 a year. How did they get paid . How was that part of it . For sending a large percentage of the federal budget for the Postal Service<\/a> and was the postmaster gene the postmaster general was a cabinet level position at the time and often times would be given to one of the most powerful public in our democratic operatives in the Republican Party<\/a> John Wanamaker<\/a>s Department Store<\/a> magnet but also the chair of the Republican National<\/a> committee at the time that means because hes able to control tens of thousands of patronage positions. So when you write him to the post Office Department<\/a> often times they mail you a manual a book of rules you have to provide evidence of financial backers in case you stole money from them and then besides that, thats it. You would take your commission from people coming in and buying stamps canceling stamps on outgoing mail thats how you calculate they had a system for calculating commission you keep that and then send the remainder off to the more centralized locations that would say if you live in colorado, that was that. Very lightweight system once the local buying and drying and really left the post office gets shut down within a couple weeks. This white wave system is really central to the understanding. I think will do a couple more questions and then save oothe rest for people who want come talk to you. Stamps were issued i think in 1847 i dont see a stamp on that envelope. When were stamps becoming prominently used and i take it then that they just paid two cents in arizona and put it on the bag . Yes this is where i was like always know more about the actual machinery. My understanding and please correct me if im wrong stamps were not necessarily widespread the adhesive ostamps think of and staff these were called cancellations where you edit stamp the actual letter cancel envelope and then send it out thats where aaif someone wants to correct me please that might be the stamp but its missing a stamp. [laughter] dont put that on cspan. [laughter]. [inaudible] the u. S. Was one of the most highly let er rip in the country and the little there is a letter that talks about how the 1840s and 50s the u. S. Post instituted postage reform to reduce the cost of sending letters. This open the door for ordinary americans to start sending way more mail and letters than they were used to. Americans embrace the mail because it was affordable from that point on. This went handinhand with the literacy i will end with an example i find really fascinating which is if you look at maps here we take 1889 for instance obviously theres a giant hole in the middle of the country, does anybody know what that is . We would say its oklahoma today, not quite done. This is indian territory. What you saw theres a towonderful book that came out writing about how native people during the 1880s actually started using the same post exclusively for their own purpose and the original questions spurred on a boom in literacy reservation they will learn right and use the mail to connect with relatives who would separate moved onto different reservations they would send petitions to washington and use the mail to spread the ghost and obsessive religious revivalism 9movement 1889 through the early 1890s even though theres a lack of access to the postal system on reservations you can see this up there in south dakota the sioux reservation. You see a lack of Government Services<\/a> provided which continues esto this day. If you all will join me in thanking cameron once again","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia902708.us.archive.org\/11\/items\/CSPAN2_20230802_120000_The_U.S._Post_and_the_Making_of_the_American_West\/CSPAN2_20230802_120000_The_U.S._Post_and_the_Making_of_the_American_West.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20230802_120000_The_U.S._Post_and_the_Making_of_the_American_West_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240707T12:35:10+00:00"}