BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 2): Binding the Nation (incl Pony Express)

DC -- Natl Postal Museum -- Exhibit (MIA Galleries 2): Binding the Nation (incl Pony Express):

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIPMBI_120106_012.JPG: The Colonial Posts: The American colonies began as lonely coastal settlements, separated by dense forests. Settlers were more eager for news of their families and homelands overseas than the news from other colonies. The British government, however, needed reliable mail service throughout the American colonies for official communications with colonial governors.
2. SIPMBI_120106_020.JPG: From Crown to Revolution: Benjamin Franklin was named postmaster of Philadelphia by the British Crown in 1737. The colonial post still carried mostly official and commercial correspondence, and most communications were transatlantic. Few residents of one colony needed to contact residents of another. But over the next three decades, a sense of common destiny began to unit the colonies in opposition to British rule. By 1753, Franklin was the Crown's joint postmaster general for the colonies. After a 1,600-mile inspection of post offices, he organized a weekly mail wagon between Philadelphia and Boston. Using lanterns to light their way, post riders traveled day and night in relays. This cut mail delivery time between the cities in half and made the colonial post efficient for colonies and profitable for the Crown.
3. SIPMBI_120106_024.JPG: Revolution by Mail: Following the British victory in the French and Indian War in America (1757-1763), relations between the American colonies and their mother country rapidly deteriorated. The war depleted the British treasury, forcing Parliament to pass a series of Acts designed to increase revenues from the colonies. America's colonial leaders viewed these new taxes on tea, molasses, stamps, and other commodities as a concerted effort to strip away their civil rights and liberties. The individual colonies regarded their resistance to England's tyranny as a common cause and developed new strategies and institutions in opposition to the English threat. Secure communication between patriot leaders was critical to the success of the revolution and control of the colonial mail was fiercely contested. British authorities employed only loyal postmasters who opened and read the mail forcing colonial leaders to boycott the post. Many advocated creating an independent American postal system to protect the American cause and to decrease their dependence upon the Crown's post.
4. SIPMBI_120106_028.JPG: Creating an Independent Post: William Giles Goddard, a printer and newspaper publisher, experienced the abuses of British authority firsthand. Goddard moved to Philadelphia in 1765 and formed a partnership with Benjamin Franklin to publish the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a paper sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. The local Crown postmaster failed to deliver out-of-town newspapers to Goddard depriving him of important information for his own newspaper. The Chronicle was forced out of business when the Crown post refused to deliver it through the mail. Goddard retaliated by designing a distinctly American postal system in opposition to the Crown's post. Goddard's plan stressed the constitutional principles of open communication, freedom from government interference, and the free exchange of ideas. An elected committee would select the Postmaster General for this "Constitutional Post" and have the authority to fix rates and establish post routes. Goddard's vision of a free post provided the foundation for the future United States postal system.
5. SIPMBI_120106_034.JPG: Stage Coach Horn: Stagecoach drivers blew a blast or two from horns like this as they charged into a town alerting townsfolk of the mail's arrival. This horn was used on stagecoaches in the early 19th century.
6. SIPMBI_120106_038.JPG: Binding the New Nation: Following the war, the leaders of the newly formed United States struggled to incorporate the principles and ideals of the revolution into their political institutions. When the framers of the Constitution met in Philadelphia in 1787, they sought to protest the free flow of ideas and information essential to self-government. The Constitution granted Congress the exclusive power to create a central postal system -- an institution devoted to the open exchange of ideas and information. The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791, reconfirmed the sanctity of open communication and free ideas. The amendment restricted Congress from making any law "... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."
7. SIPMBI_120106_050.JPG: The mail and the press... are the nerves of the body politic. By them the slightest impression made on the most remote parts is communicated to the whole system. -- John C. Calhoun, 1817 Printers vied for the postmaster's job, knowing they would get news first and could mail their newspapers for free and refuse competing papers. As deputy postmaster general, Benjamin Franklin insisted on cheap, impartial delivery of all newspapers. The 1792 Post Office Act let newspaper editors exchange their papers by mail without charge so that each could print the other's news. By 1825, newspapers circulated in-state or within 100 miles of publication for 1 cent, and for 1-1/2 cents beyond that range. Newspapers and magazines still enjoy special rates, based on the revolutionary conviction that knowledge is power, not to be taxed.
8. SIPMBI_120106_052.JPG: The Post and the Press: The first colonial newspapers -- single sheets of paper printed on only one side -- were nailed up, or posted, in public places. They carried official decrees, court decisions, ship arrivals, a few advertisements, reprints of sermons, letters from travelers, and news of floods, storms, or piracy. Called broadsides, these papers were often printed and sold by postmasters, who usually were the first to get the news. As the colonies grew, broadsides appeared more often, first as weekly, then daily, newspapers. Printers often titled their papers The Post, The Packet, or The Courier, according to their means of delivery.
9. SIPMBI_120106_056.JPG: The Post and the Press: The first colonial newspapers -- single sheets of paper printed on only one side -- were nailed up, or posted, in public places. They carried official decrees, court decisions, ship arrivals, a few advertisements, reprints of sermons, letters from travelers, and news of floods, storms, or piracy. Called broadsides, these papers were often printed and sold by postmasters, who usually were the first to get the news. As the colonies grew, broadsides appeared more often, first as weekly, then daily, newspapers. Printers often titled their papers The Post, The Packet, or The Courier, according to their means of delivery. Case In Point: Freedom of Speech in the Mail: At the beginning of the new America, nearly all the news came by mail. When the Constitution was signed, it was rushed by post riders to every town that had a printing press. And that's how the newspapers were able to bring the resounding news of how we were to govern ourselves. The newspapers knew of it first by mail. In England, for centuries, the mail was frequently scrutinized by agents of the Crown or of the Parliament. It could be worth your life to write a letter than might be seen as having the seeds of treason. This did not happen here. From the beginning, by and large, the US mails have been free of eyes other than our own and those of the sender. To the framers of the Constitution, the mail made the engine of democracy run -- along with the newspapers. And newspapers then printed a good deal of correspondence. Rufus Putnam, a key military figure in the Revolutionary War, said, "The knowledge diffused among the people by newspapers, by correspondence between friends" was crucial to the future of the nation. "Nothing can be more fatal to a republican government than ignorance among its citizens." As a journalist, I have sometimes been asked where my leads for stories come from. Much of the time, they come from opening the mail. Readers from all over the country send personal stories, newspaper clippings, local court decisions, and student newspaper editorials arguing for the First Amendment rights of students. There is no other way I would have known about these stories except through the mail. It is through letters that I often receive highly confidential stories about unfairness in the justice system from people who would not trust any other form of communication. The framers of the Constitution knew how vital the mail would be when Article I was written to protect the privacy of communications through the mail. -- Nat Nentoff Nat Nentoff is a columnist for the Washington Post and the Village Voice, and the author of Free Speech for Me, But not for Thee: How the Left and Right Continually Censor Each Other.
10. SIPMBI_120106_059.JPG: The Expanding Nation: In the early 1800s, the United States seemed a land of boundless promise and possibility. Between 1803 and 1853, it more than doubled in area, and many Americans believed that the nation had a "manifest destiny" to rule from sea to sea. Settlers poured into these new territories from the states and from Europe and Asia, driving American Indians from ancestral homes in the land rush. But territory alone was of little value unless the lands could be developed, especially the vast region from the Mississippi to the West Coast. Stagecoach companies holding mail contracts helped to secure those areas, turning rough trails into well-traveled roads. And the somewhat regular arrival of the mail coach connected settlers to faraway families, friends, and businesses back home.
11. SIPMBI_120106_062.JPG: Inland Waterways: In the early 1800s, the postal service relied on riverboats to move the mail south and west. Overland routes were poor in the new territories, and far less extensive before 1850 than the water and rail routes shown on the map. In 1823, Congress declared all steamboat routes to be post roads, subject to federal regulation. Even with faster and more reliable transport of the mails, steamboat service was unpredictable. Weather and accidents delayed service, and steamboat captains found it hard to maintain regular schedules demanded in postal contracts. The money they made from mail contracts often was not worth the trouble.
12. SIPMBI_120106_082.JPG: Early Rail Routes: Congress designated the nation's 1,913 miles of railroad tracks as post roads in 1838. By then, mail was already being carried on most tracks. The Post Office Department recognized early that the expanding rail system would be useful in carrying mail. After the Civil War, clerks began sorting mail aboard trains. As the miles of track grew, railway mail became the backbone of the postal service. By the 1870s, more mail moved by rail than by stagecoaches and steamboats combined.
13. SIPMBI_120106_085.JPG: Around Cape Horn: In the years before steamships, clipper ships provided passage from the East Coast to the West Coast by way of Cape Horn. But the three-month journey to the gold fields,. unpleasant as it was for many passengers, was not fast enough for most eager fortune-seekers, nor for those in California anxious for news from home.
14. SIPMBI_120106_090.JPG: Across Central America: The discovery of gold in 1848 made postal service to California an urgent priority. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company contracted with the US government to carry the mail from Panama north to San Francisco by ship. By mid-century, two companies monopolized the Panamanian Isthmus route, linking East and West Coast communications. George Law's US Mail Steamship Company operated on the Atlantic Coast, and William H. Aspinwall's Pacific Mail Steamship Company, on the Pacific. Tickets from New York to California ranged from $400 in first class to $125 in steerage, and passengers paid their own way across the Panamanian Isthmus. The 50-mile journey by mule, wagon, or on foot along jungle trails was difficult, and many fell ill. In 1851, the Vanderbilt Line opened a route through Nicaragua, all but 12 miles of it by water, giving California-bound travelers a more comfortable alternative to Panama. The exhausting overland trip across Panama became faster and easier in 1855 when the Panamanian Railroad began operation.
15. SIPMBI_120106_096.JPG: Moving West: The ocean routes of the 1840s and 1850s opened up the West Coast, but did nothing to encouragement settlement in the vast territories between the Mississippi River and California. To help open up the interior, Congress provided money for mail contracts with stagecoach lines. By 1851, mail moved on three routes -- between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City, Utah; Independence and Sante Fe, New Mexico; and Sacramento, California and Salt Lake City -- often on a monthly basis. These overland mail routes helped attracts settlers and commerce to the new region.
16. SIPMBI_120106_099.JPG: The Homestead Act of 1862, passed during the Civil War, guaranteed 160 acres of land to anyone who agreed to improve the land and live on it for five years. As Congress anticipated, thousands headed west along the overland trails after the war to claim land. Railroad companies pushed into the frontier after the Civil War, bringing more settlers. The railroads also dispatched land agents to Europe. Immigrants could purchase both their transportation and land from the railroad companies, land that often had been given by federal and state governments to the railroads to encourage growth.
17. SIPMBI_120106_112.JPG: When Congress agreed to finance overland mail in 1857, Southern and Northern factions fought to gain the route through their states. The decision landed on the desk of the Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown. Brown, a Tennessean, chose a Southern route for the overland mail. Starting in St. Louis, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee, the routes converged at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and continued across the Rio Grande, through Fort Yuma, Arizona, and up to San Francisco. Among Brown's many critics, The Chicago Tribune called his decision "one of the greatest swindles ever perpetrated upon the country by the slave-holders." But the postmaster general insisted that weather alone dictated his choice, for deep and unpassable snows would make northern routes unusable in winter.
18. SIPMBI_120106_120.JPG: Traveling with the Mail: Mud wagons and more elegant, decorated Concord coaches carried passengers and mail throughout the country. The ride in these hard wagons over rough roads and dusty deserts or in frigid, snowy weather tested the endurance of even the most seasoned traveler. We three were the only passengers.... About the rest of the coach was full of mail bags -- for we had three days' delayed mail with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular wall of mail matter rose up to the roof. -- Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872
19. SIPMBI_120106_122.JPG: Securing the Frontier: The federal government's annual payment to overland mail contractors before the Civil War was $1.5 million. The most important of these was the Butterfield Overland Mail line, established in 1858. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri recognized the importance of the overland mail. He referred to the new cross-country service as the "skeleton of the future railroad." I regard the inland postal system as a great instrumentality for maintaining, preserving, and extending this Union. -- Senator William Seward, 1857
20. SIPMBI_120106_135.JPG: Hardships: New immigrants were not only separated from their families and friends in their new homes, but neighbors as well, for houses were often built miles apart. Letters and social events helped relieve the sense of isolation, but other hardships of homesteading were not so easily overcome.
21. SIPMBI_120106_150.JPG: The Pony Express: The legendary name of the Pony Express calls up thrilling images of horse and rider racing across treacherous terrain. Yet the actual Pony Express lasted for less than two years (April 1860 to October 1861) and was only one of a number of private express services that used riders to carry the mail. It owes it fame to the romanticizing of the Pony Express and the American West that began late in the 19th century, in Wild West shows and dime novels, and continues to the present. Pony Express riders live on today, still dodging varmints and villains in books and movies, evoking speed and the thrills on countless commercial products.
22. SIPMBI_120106_153.JPG: The Central Route: In 1860, a relay system of horses began to carry mail across the 1,966-mile-long "central route" between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. This privately owned service would become known as the Pony Express. The Pony Express solved an urgent problem for the US government. In the late 1850s political tensions had increased between North and South over slavery and other issues. The government feared losing control over mail along the Southern Route and contact with gold-rich California. To ensure Union control over cargo and mail carried between East and West, a route outside the Southern states was needed.
23. SIPMBI_120106_160.JPG: Length of entire route: 1,966 miles Stations along route: about 165 Distance between stations: approximately 10 miles Each rider rode one segment of the route, 75-100 miles long At each station, a rider changed horses Every 75-100 miles, a new rider took over A rider changed horses 8-10 times per ride (every 10 miles or so) Average speed: 10 miles per hour How long did it take to get from Missouri to California? 10 days in summer, 12-16 days in winter (mountain snows can slow you down). In 1860, that was speedy! A stagecoach took 24 days Whose idea was it? Three business partners -- William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell -- founded the Pony Express as a private company
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Description of Subject Matter: Binding the Nation
July 30, 1993 – Permanent
Level 1: Mail in America Galleries
This gallery provides an overview of mail service in America from colonial times through the 19th century, stressing the importance of written communication in the young nation. As early as 1673, regular mail was carried between New York and Boston following Indian trails. That route, once known as the King's Best Highway, is now U.S. Route 1.
Benjamin Franklin, a colonial postmaster for the British government, played a key role in establishing mail service in the colonies, as well as in forging a strong link between colonial publishers and the postal service. Many newspapers that relied heavily on information carried in the mail customarily adopted the word "Post" into their title. Newspapers were so important to the dissemination of information to the people that they were granted cheaper postage rates.
By 1800, mail was carried over more than 9,000 miles of postal roads. The challenge of developing mail service over long distances is the central theme of "The Expanding Nation," which features the famed Pony Express and the Southern Postal Administration of the Civil War. At one interactive video station, visitors can create their own postal route. Another interactive video challenges visitors to move mail bags from Philadelphia to New Orleans in the 1850s without losing any bags in wrecks and bad weather.
Visitors are also invited to walk through a replica of the first post road, peek inside a Colonial mailbag, and climb into a mud wagon replica.

Included within the Binding the Nation gallery is this one:

Pony Express: Romance vs. Reality
April 3, 2010 – Permanent
The legendary name of the Pony Express calls up thrilling images of horse and rider racing across treacherous terrain. Yet the actual Pony Express lasted for less than two years (April 1860 to October 1861). It owes its enduring fame to the romanticizing of the American West that began in the late 19th century. ...More...
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2012 photos: Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA), a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean, another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else.. Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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