Happy 223rd Birthday to the Postal Service Act

Image credit: http://www.constitutionfacts.com

On February 20, 1792, George Washington signed into law the Postal Service Act, which established the department. Postmaster General John McLean was the first to call it the Post Office Department rather than just the “Post Office.” The organization received a boost in prestige when President Andrew Jackson invited his Postmaster General, William T. Barry, to sit as a member of the Cabinet in 1829. On July 26, 1775 however, Congress established the U.S. Post Office and named Benjamin Franklin as the first U.S. Postmaster General.

According to history.com, William Goddard, a Patriot printer, frustrated that the royal postal service was unable to reliably deliver his Pennsylvania Chronicle to its readers or deliver critical news for the paper to Goddard, laid out a plan for a Constitutional Post before the Continental Congress on October 5, 1774. Congress waited to act on the plan until after the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Benjamin Franklin promoted Goddard’s plan and served as the first postmaster general under the Continental Congress beginning on July 26, 1775, nearly one year before the Congress declared independence from the British crown. Franklin’s son-in-law, Richard Bache, took over the position on November 7, 1776, when Franklin became an American emissary to France. Franklin had already made a significant contribution to the postal service in the colonies while serving as the postmaster of Philadelphia from 1737 and as joint postmaster general of the colonies from 1753 to 1774, when he was fired for opening and publishing Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s correspondence.

The Post Office Act of 1872 elevated the Post Office Department to Cabinet status. Happy 223rd Birthday United States Post Office’s Postal Service Act!