The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia - Smithsonian ...

Cheap Postage: A Tool for Social ReformDavid L. StraightOn June 10, 1840, Daniel Webster rose on the floor of the United StatesSenate to share the contents of a letter he had just received from GreatBritain. As he showed the senators the world’s first postage stamp, thePenny Black, and the first stamped lettersheet, the Mulready, (Figure 1) seen inthe United States, Webster offered resolutions that “rates of postage charged onletters transmitted by the mails of the United States ought to be reduced” andthat an inquiry be made “into the utility of so altering the present regulations ofthe Post Office Department as to connect the use of stamps, or stamped covers,with a large reduction of the rates of postage.” 1Like many today and in his own time, Webster focused on the introductionof stamps and the reduction in postage rates without understanding them intheir larger context as a complete overhaul of the business model for the postoffice. Perhaps because he stood to lose a valuable perquisite of public office,Webster made no mention of another important element in the British Post Officereforms—elimination of the much- abused franking privilege. The full suiteof postal reforms enacted in Great Britain between 1839 and 1841 also includedfree home delivery of mail, registered mail, and money orders. In contrast to theBritish reforms, which were achieved in only a few years, the parallel reform ofthe U.S. Post Office spanned more than half a century. Twenty- three years passedbetween Daniel Webster’s resolutions and the 1863 elimination of distance asa factor in domestic postage rates. However, it would be another twenty years(1883) before American letter rates were lowered to two cents, thus matchingthe British one- penny rate. Yet, another decade (1893) passed before urbandwellers were required to erect a mailbox or cut a slit in their front doors. 2 Thefranking privilege, severely curtailed with the introduction of official stamps in1873, continues today for members of Congress and the president. Althoughregistered mail began in 1855 in the United States, it was not secure until 1867.Money orders introduced during the Civil War were not available at a majorityof post offices until the early twentieth century.American interest in British post office reforms did not begin with DanielWebster. By 1839, it was a regular topic in the leading national news magazine,Niles’ Weekly Register. 3 Postmaster General Amos Kendall dispatched GeorgePlitt to London and the continent in June 1839 to observe first- hand the changesin British and European postal operations. When Plitt returned in August 1840,