A SHORT HISTORY OF RURAL FREE DELIVERY

If you lived on an American farm during the 1800s, life could be austere, especially when it came to communicating with your neighbors and far-off relatives. The telephone hadn't come into general rural use yet, and radios were merely a fantasy. To learn what was happening, you generally had to harness your horses to a wagon or carriage and ride many miles into town. There, along with buying provisions, you could share the latest gossip and pick up your mail at the post office.

Around the turn of the century, farmers joined forces with politicians, especially through the popular farm organization of the day - The National Grange - and made it know that, like folks in the larger cities, they wanted their mail delivered by letter carriers. The first rural letter carriers delivered to a bewildering array of mailboxes - everything from lard cans to cigar boxes. When the sometimes motley mailboxes deteriorated, carriers were required to tell the owners to improve them or mail service would be stopped. After one carrier left such a message, he reported that he "...came pretty near to getting lynched."

Due to Rural Free Delivery, the lives of rural people improved. With the daily delivery of newspapers, magazines, and catalogs, farmers kept in touch with advanced farming methods and the world beyond the horizon. After parcel post was introduced to the mails - which farmers played no small role in bringing about - country folks could shop anywhere in the world.

Even though our current technology provides us with the ability to communicate instantly, many people still have a special relationship with their rural letter carriers and with the mail - as evidenced by their beautiful, custom-designed mailboxes.

Contributed by: Bil Paul, U.S. Postal Service Corporate Relations Center, San Francisco, CA and James H. Bruns, Director, National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.