Finish thanks so much for coming out. My name is andy gray bell, and im the director of the center for southwest stus here at smu. Studies here at smu. Let me start by thanking the many people, or at least a few of them, 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 jeffreying brian and ron that. I also want to thank Vivian Elmore who coordinates things on our end for the Clement Center. It is my pleasure to introduce Cameron Blevins who braved last nights weather to fly in from denver where he teaches digital humanities at the university of colorado campus in the mile high city. He was assistant professor of history at Northeastern University in boston and a core faculty member at the schools lab for tech, maps and networks. I learned last night cameron is a native of the nutmeg state, for those of you anybody know what the nutmeg state is . A number of you. I was really hoping i was going to be able to enlighten you. Although he bolted for the palm trees and sunny skies of Southern California where he studied at Pomona College as an undergraduate. Heh liked the west so much that he move up interstate 5 to stanford where he completed his ph. D. In history in 2015. He already boasts an impressive publication record, andve tonigt hes here to discuss with us his most significant accomplishment to date, his paper trail anpaper trail the u. S. Post account expect making of the American West, published earlier this year. Following his lecture, cameron will be happy to take his questions and afterwards stein books that are available for purchase right outside. I think you buy them outside and bring them back here so that camerone can sign them. Please welcome me in joining Cameron Blevins. [applause] all right. I think im all set here. Can everyone hear me all right . Good . Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Thank you so much for coming here tonight and also i want to start by just thanking andy, obviously, and the cent center for Clement Center along with the center for president ial history. Re ruth ann el more has also been fabulous organizing this, and thank all of you for coming. Before i get started, can i get a show of hands here, how many folks have sent or received a a hand written letter in the last two weeks . Okay. How many folks have been to their post office in the last two weeks . Finish okay. How many folks collect stamps . Oh, im in trouble, okay. Im just getting a sense for where everybodys coming from, what their interests are here. So i just wanted to see what that was like first. Obviously its arizona in september so it is extremely hot, about 100 degrees. September 8, 1886. Were going to zoom down to the house of benjamin and mary curtis living in the middle of the Salt River Valley on a ranch. Benjamin curtis is sitting there. Mary is napping and benjamin sits down to write a letter. Benjamins life at this point had involve guided nomadic existence, actually born in ohio, the youngest of four siblings there 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 pier after the war started moving west across the railroad, eventually settled in northern california, worked as a store clerk, spent some time trying to open up his own store, made in orange grove in Southern California individually relocated again to the middle of arizona to start a ranch pier this was in the 1880s. This is a where he met mary as his 20 when your labor actually they 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. Now, his letter is written to his two older sisters who lived in san diego, california, at the time pier he was basically sharing the news saying your little niece is sleeping nicely in and to in the mother is doing well also appear last sunday when him we made happy by successful arrival. He went on to report it was a trying time for any mother but mary stood up 1 bravely and brah it is 100 degrees here now in this room, she did not complain but is just as sweet as ever here and my personal favorite part, we think it is just the nicest baby ever born. Only doesnt take after its father because it has plenty of there on air on the top of its head. [laughter] as you can see, jim had a pretty severe receding hairline. And finally he closedch the letd with what i think is the most touching part. Try that again. That we do. Now for its name. Mary says she thinks delia henrietta would do nicely, and so to wipe your this letter was addressed to his older sisters, delia and henrietta kurtz telling them their name is her baby after aunt. This is especially poignant. Visa get our orphans. They lost their own parents to that ofat the last remaining generation and this is a first member of the next generation. This connection across arizona over to Southern California connecting the 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 theira, house at the Huntington Library in Southern California and pasadena pier i Read Everything one of these letters and basically this man from the 1840s when the orphaned all the way to the 1890s, so a remarkable collection. These letters are in many ways a paper trail of the past. And as historians we come across these paper trails all the time everywhere, often in archives like the Huntington Library. And we are trained to read, analyze these pieces of paper, write, 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. Letters like this oneff offering these intimate glimpses into past lives, experiences along judgment of loaded people w parents sitting down in 100 degrees heat to write a letter, sharing deeplyy meaningful moment with people he loved. But wee historians are not necessarily as good at recognizing how these paper trails were generated here in the case of letters in particular, that breadandbutter of historical archive, 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 froms benjamins table in the Salt River Valley to sisters letterbox in San Diego Post Office about 400 miles away, scrap of paper is just a scrap of paper. That is what gives it meaning. And i noticed and read 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 ranchen subscribe to half a dozn newspapers and magazines from across the country, places like san francisco, chicago, new york, a nearby city in globe. Benjamin subscribe to the american agricultural list, a farming magazine. Mary subscribe to the delineators, a womans magazine. All of this stuff. In those letters they mention other things, asking them to send fiction but good, sent by mail benjamin asked for mother and fathers photo. Mentioned them sending a 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. The importance of these grows even more remarkable when you stop for a second to zoom out and think about where they are living at the time period i cannot drive home to you how remote the Salt River Valley district this is a rugged western backcountry that you see in hollywood films, right . When he moved there two years ago hes a bachelor and he wrote in the letter he complained all he had for company or his cows and his horses. The nearest doctor was a 30mile course right away in the city of globe. He was utterly alone. Except that he wasnt. That mail 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 8th. Three days later september 11 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 on september 11. Or days later on september 15 it showed up in San Diego Post Office. Four days too go from the middle of nowhere arizona to san diego, right . Travelingot again 400 miles acrs mesa and scrubland and desert and mountains and ends up in the hands of his sister. Allll of this means that that hd to travel across a network of post offices and mail routes that connected these two places. And traveled acrosste a network that was arguably the most expansive communication expensive Communication Network on the planet at the time, the u. S. Post. So what idce like to argue here 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 and all these remote places like the Salt River Valley, without understanding the role of the u. S. Post in this process. So a little context for you. Three years later postmaster general of the United StatesJohn Wanamaker basically the head of the entire u. S. Postal system reported that in his annual report to congress the visible physical form of the federal government to every community, every citizen, talking about the u. S. , the only one that touches a local life social interest in Business Concern of every neighborhood. And went on to share the r58999 post offices and 669,766 kilometers of mail routes operating in the United States. What do those numbers mean we can dismiss this as kind of hyperbole, a bureaucrat trying to advertise what his department is doing. And im willing to bet if i said 28,000 or if its at 88,000 it probably wouldnt have made that much of a difference to you. We are not that good at understanding some of these numbers when youre operating at this scale. Ansell in part what my research is done is try to understand what some of these numbers mean. And to do that ive turned to a method, broadly noted, digital history for this isd the kind of looseygoosey predator about using computers and technology to study, teach, or communicate about the past in some way. I think at this point in the last year and a half touch anything come in many ways we are all digital historians. We are all interacting with the past learning about the past in large part through screens. But in my case of this project, i was specifically using data, quantitative data to try to conduct research, look for patterns and visualize those patterns about the past in this topic. So you can start to understand with the size of the u. S. Post actually was in 1889. S 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 300 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 Political Parties 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