Showing posts with label postal services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label postal services. Show all posts

July 1 - ZIP Code Day

Posted on July 1, 2019

July 1 is National Postal Workers Day in the U.S. AND U.S. Postage Stamp Day (see link below, in "Also on this date") - but it's also ZIP Code Day.

That's because the first 5-digit ZIP codes were introduced all over the United States on this date in 1963.

In order to encourage people to use the new ZIP codes,
a sort of ZIP code mascot, Mr. ZIP, was introduced in
ads. The emphasis was on speed!

The use of the ZIP codes was not mandatory, but people were urged to use them to keep mail zipping along.

Before there were ZIP codes, there were postal district numbers for the 124 largest cities in the nation. These numbers were either one or two digits, and they were written between the city and the state. For example, a Minneapolis address might read "Minneapolis 16, Minnesota" or "Birmingham 7, Alabama"; the "16" and "7" were the pre-ZIP Code postal codes in these examples. 

These postal codes were created during World War II in an effort to make a short-staffed postal system more efficient. (Thousands of experienced postal employees had left to serve with the military.) Even newcomers and substitutes could easily sort mail using these postal codes - without having to learn where a city's worth of streets and addresses were located.

Those short postal codes haven't been abandoned, because they are generally the last two digits the current ZIP Code. 

What about the first three digits of a ZIP code? Postal inspector Robert Moon suggested, in 1944, using three digits in order to code which sectional center facility (SCF) each piece of mail should go to for further sorting and delivery. 
However, his system was never used until the early 1960s.



Did you know...?

  • ZIP actually is an acronym that means Zone Improvement Plan!

  • Most nations have postal codes of some sort - although many small nations don't (for example, neither the Bahamas nor Kiribati have them), and many nations that have relatively small economies don't, either (examples include Burkina Faso in Africa and Bolivia in South America). 
Some place with few or no inhabitants don't have ZIP codes!

  • Some nations use letters or letters-and-numbers as their postal codes. An example of a nation that uses mixed numbers-and-letters postal codes (called the postcode) is the United Kingdom. U.K. postcodes also have a varying number of symbols, in two sections; the first section is two to four letters or letters-and-numbers, and the second section is always one number and two letters.
  • Now that the United States is moving from 5-digit ZIP codes to ZIP+4 codes (nine numbers separated into two groups by a hyphen), it has one of the longest postal codes in the world. But Iran has TEN numbers - without any spaces or hyphens, apparently! Which just makes it so hard! - so it probably wins the longest-postal-code award.
  • The White House has its own ZIP code. There are 42 buildings in New York City that have their own ZIP codes, including Saks Fifth Avenue, and there are a few other places in the U.S. with a unique ZIP code, including Dodger Stadium, the CIA, and.... 
  • ...And including the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. This one-ZIP-code plant has such an easy ZIP code - 12345 - that it gets mail for all sorts of fictional characters such as Micky Mouse and John Doe!
  • Speaking of fictional characters, a fictional character that actually has a ZIP code is Smokey the Bear! Smokey's ZIP is 20252.

  • Back to easy ZIP codes - Newton Falls, Ohio, has the ZIP code 44444.

  • The lowest ZIP code is the IRS located in Holtsville, NY: 00501.
  • The highest ZIP code is Ketchikan, Alaska: 99950.

If you're interested in checking out ZIP code maps, this blog post tells you how to do it!




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February 20 - With the stroke of the pen, the USPS is born!

Posted on February 20, 2018

Don't get me wrong, today was not the start of any sort of postal service in what was to become the United States of America.

Way back when the British colonies in North America were getting started, getting messages and packages from one place to another was usually handled by paid couriers. By 1707, Britain set up a position called Postmaster General so that sending mail from Britain to its colonies, or vice versa, was as efficient as quick as possible. 

And when Benjamin Franklin was just 31 years old, he was given this important position.

During his tenure as Postmaster General, Franklin spent most of his time in Britain. But the colonies were inching toward rebellion, and Franklin was looking like he sided with the rebels... 

Which, from the British point of view, made him a traitor. He was dismissed from his position in 1774.

Just a year later, the Second Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin to continue what he had been doing, but for the still-not-quite-independent colonies.

And thus was the Constitutional Post created, and it was very important to the colonists and even the American military. Once the Revolutionary War was over and a peace treaty with the British was signed, in 1783, the Americans made a first stab at a new government with the Articles of Confederation. Those articles dictated that postal service be created to move messages and packages from state to state...but it took until this date in 1792 for the the U. S. Postal Service to be actually, formally begun, when President George Washington signed the Postal Service Act into law.



 
Here are some factoids about the start-up of the USPS:

  • Congress had the power to establish official mail routes.
  • The cost of sending a letter wasn't a flat fee - instead, it cost between 6 and 12 cents, depending on the distance.
  • The nation already had 75 regional post offices and 2,400 miles of postal routes.
  • The USPS had its headquarters in Philadelphia, which was the capital of the young nation from 1790 to 1800. Of course, the headquarters moved to the newly built capital, Washington, D.C., in 1800.
Compared to old-time stamps such as the two above, modern stamps are colorful and varied:












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July 1 – Postal – Postage Day!

Posted on July 1, 2015

I couldn't find the “why” postal workers and postage stamps are being honored today, July 1, rather than some other day, but several sources claim that July 1 is both National Postal Worker Day AND U.S. Postage Stamp Day.

It would be a perfect time to recognize your postal carrier with a small gift in your mailbox. It would also be a great time to discover the fun of stamp collecting and the beauty of commemorative stamps.

I found some commemorative stamps honoring poet Maya Angelou and architect Robert Robinson Taylor, remembering the Civil War, and celebrating gifts of friendship between Japan and the U.S. – plus more.



Here are some facts about postal workers and postage stamps:

  • Many postal carriers walk from four to eight miles a day – while carrying heavy bags of letters and packages – in all sorts of weather!








  • Of course, some postal carriers deliver mail while driving mail trucks. Or deliver mail in some other way, like mule train at the Grand Canyon, in Arizona, or by boat in several places.
  • The postal service moves mail using planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways, float planes, hovercraft, mules, bicycles, and of course feet!
  • The longest rural delivery route is in Oklahoma; the carrier travels more than 187 miles a day!
  • These days a letter traveling across the country, from NYC to San Francisco, takes less than seven hours, but in 1900 it took four and a half days, and in 1850 it took four weeks up to several month.
Of course, in the 1800s, carrying mail across
the country was dangerous as well as time-consuming.
(Notice the man next to the driver - he's using a rifle,
perhaps against a large animal, or attacking I
The Pony Express carried letters (not packages)
across the country in less than two weeks.

This service operated at a loss and only lasted
for 18 months.
  • The U.S. Postal Service processes millions of letters per day! Like, more than 500 million! (That's almost 6,000 pieces of mail processed per second!)
  • Did you know that the U.S. Postal Service receives ZERO tax dollars for its operations?
  • Before 1863, postage paid only for the delivery of mail from one Post Office to another Post Office. People mailing letters and packages would take their mail to the nearest Post Office (as people often do today), and people also had to go to the Post Office to get their mail. Some people and businesses hired private delivery firms to get their mail for them.

    In 1863 the Postmaster General suggested free city delivery, which was being used in England, and Congress agreed. By the next year, free city delivery had been established in 65 cities across the country. By 1900, this service had been extended to 796 cities nationwide.
  • Originally the postal carriers hand-delivered the mail to their customers – if the person named on the envelope wasn't home, the letter remained in the carrier's bag, to be delivered later. But in the early 1900s, people created letter slots and mail boxes. This helped make mail delivery much, much more efficient, since hand-delivery meant that letter carriers had to wait an average of 30 minutes to an hour each and every day just standing at doors waiting to see if anybody was home!
  • In the first half of the twentieth century (1900s), mail was delivered to homes twice a day in most towns and cities, and it was delivered to businesses up to four times a day! But in 1950 the second delivery to homes was ended in most places; the additional deliveries to businesses were also phased out over the next few decades.
  • In the past, carriers used to walk 22 miles a day, carrying up to 50 pounds of mail at a time, working 9 to 11 hours a day six days a week (and sometimes part of Sunday as well). Now U.S. postal carriers have a 40-hour workweek and may only carry up to 35 pounds at a time.

Also on this date:






























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