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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3 4 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o h i s t o ry a n d t e c h n o l o g yThis correlation indicated that when a town’s populationincreased, so did estimated postal income. The correlationfurther shows that even when a town’s populationdecreased, income increased. What could account for thisseemingly odd result? It appears that over the course ofthe nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, there wasa dramatic and pervasive increase in the use of the postalservice. Certainly over this period, postal rates decreased,both in nominal and real terms. For example, in 1820,when postal rates were determined by the distance evena domestic letter would travel, it cost 18.5 cents to senda letter between 150 and 400 miles. That corresponds to$3.07 in 2005 dollars. In 1920, sending the same letter costtwo cents ($.41 in 2005 dollars). Early in the nineteenthcentury, because of the high cost of postage, the mailshad been primarily used for business correspondence. Asthe century progressed postage rates decreased considerablywhile literacy rates increased. Both these factors ledto more correspondence. In addition, the country grewin size and, especially in northern New England, youngpeople moved west where much better land was available.This great westward migration also led to greater correspondenceas family members staying in the east correspondedwith relatives who had moved west. The findingthat local postal incomes increased whether population ofa town increased or decreased strongly supports the argumentmade by Henkin that the post office emerged as a,if not the, major source of personal communication in thenineteenth century. 20In economic terms the data in Table 3 suggest thateven when population shrinks in a town, if per capita incomegrows sufficiently and if per capita usage of capitalgrows as well, postal revenue may well expand, demonstratingnot only economic growth but development aswell. This further suggests that postal efficiency closelyparallels a general trend of increasing efficiency of capital.A question for further analysis is whether there is a differencebetween “public” capital efficiency (the post office)and private capital efficiency in allied communication andtransportation systems such as railroads and telegraphcompanies. It should be realized, of course, that both thesesystems did receive government support in the nineteenthcentury.The correlations between population and estimatedpostal income may be modified by a factor not mentionedpreviously. And this factor may actually add to the usefulnessof the Official Register data for economic analyses.The published census data reports the total population fora given political entity such as Hanover, New Hampshire.But the town of Hanover has had, at different times, threedifferent post offices—Hanover itself (1792 to date),Hanover Center (1828–1918) and Etna (1882 to date).The Official Register reports data for each post office individually,permitting a more fine grained analysis than thecensus data both in place and in time, since the OfficialRegister data is available every two years and the censusdata only every ten years.Recession of 1837The Official Register data may be useful for examiningmore directly economic variables. The National Bureau ofEconomic Research (NBER) supplies a list of generally accepteddates for the economic ups and downs of the nationalbusiness cycle. One well-known data phase was therecession of 1837. Does evidence of this recession appearin OR data? To examine this question with regard to NewHampshire, the estimated postal incomes for the six largesttowns in New Hampshire (Concord, Dover, Hanover,Keene, Nashua, and Portsmouth) for the years 1835 to1845 were submitted to a one-way analysis of variance.The mean income data is shown in Table 4. Examinationof the data shows that while there was an increase from1837 to 1839, from 1839 to 1845 there was a consistentdecrease. However, the variance among the six differenttowns was so great that this trend did not even approachsignificance (F (3, 23) = .383) (Table 4).New Hampshire was then, admittedly, a small stateremoved from the main centers of economic activity inthe nation. It is perhaps thus not surprising that the recessionof 1837 had no noticeable effect on postal incomeeven in its largest cities and towns. Examination of OfficialRegister data from other larger states and with moresophisticated analytical tools may well reveal the effectsof recessions and recoveries. To the extent that this is thecase, it may be possible to examine the time course of recessionsand recoveries in different parts of the country. Arecession is not like an explosion that happens suddenly.Rather, the business cycle is a dynamic process that affectsTABLE 4. Mean Estimated Income, 1835 to 1845.1835 1837 1839 1841 1843 18458234 7363 8294 7736 7146 6323
n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 5different geographic and demographic areas differently inboth time and intensity. It is our hope that careful analysisof regional and nationwide OR data will reveal these temporaland spatial changes in the business cycle at a level ofdetail heretofore unavailable.ConclusionsOur analysis of the OR data from the State of NewHampshire has shown that these data hold considerablepromise as a source of previously unavailable insights intoeconomic and demographic variables during the nineteencentury. We have specifically examined population effectsand the effects of one recession on postal income. The ORdata can be used to examine a number of other interestinghistorical trends. For example, how does the use of thepostal service change with the advent of improved transportationand other communication systems such as railroads,telegraph lines, and road construction? Does theintegration of the frontier and the re-integration of theSouth following the Civil War manifest in the OR data?It should be mentioned here that similar data are availablefrom Canada. In Canada, from at least Confederationuntil 1948, local postmaster compensation was based onthe income accruing to each individual post office. 21 Thiscompensation data is found in the annual report of thepostmaster general printed each year in the Sessional Papersof Parliament. The reports of the postmaster generalalso give very valuable statistical data not found in anyUS official document. For every post office issuing moneyorders, the annual report gives the total value of moneyorders issued and cashed by that office. Further, for at leastsome years (neither of us have yet been able to examine acomplete run of the postmaster general reports), data onthe number and value of money orders issued in one provincedestined for another province is given, as well as thenumber and value of money orders issued in the secondprovince that were paid in the first province. The postmastergeneral reports also give, for at least some years,information on the number and value of money orders issuedto and received from other countries.Returning to the compensation data, given that inCanada postmaster compensation was based on postalbusiness, it might be suspected that a similar practice wasfollowed in Great Britain. This is not the case. In Britain,at least during the nineteenth century, postmaster salarywas based on the individual’s grade and not on theamount of business done by the office.STATISTICAL APPENDIXThe Pearson Product Moment Correlation CoefficientThe Pearson product moment correlation coefficient isone of a family of correlational techniques and probablythe one most commonly used in research. A correlation isa number between negative one and positive one that indicatesthe strength of the relationship between two variables.A positive correlation indicates that when the value of onevariable increases (or decreases), the value of the other variablechanges in the same direction. A negative correlationindicates that a change in one variable is associated with achange in the opposite direction of the other variable. In thetext, the value of the Pearson correlation coefficient is indicatedby the symbol lower case r, as in “r = 0.66.”NOTES1. P. A. Coclanis, ed., The Atlantic Economy During theSeventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation,Practice and Personnel (Columbia, S. C.: University ofSouth Carolina, 2005).2. M. Abromovitz, and P. A. David, “American macroeconomicgrowth in the era of knowledge-based progress: The longrunperspective.” In Cambridge Economic History of the UnitedStates, Vol. III, ed. S. L. Engerman and R. E. Gallman (Cambridge,U. K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 6.3. A. H. Jones, Wealth of a Nation to Be: The AmericanColonies on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1980).4. J. Hughes and L. P. Cain, American Economic History(Boston: Addison Wesley, 2007), 50–51.5. Abramovitz and David, “American macroeconomicgrowth,” 66.6. J. Komlos, “The height and weight of West Point cadets:Dietary change in antebellum America,” Journal of EconomicHistory, 47:897–927, 1987.7. L. E. Davis, American Economic Growth: An Economist’sHistory of the United States (New York: Harper and Row,1972), 16.8. R. D. Harris, “The Official Register. Part 1,” Post Script,2:12–20, 1977; A. Hecht, “Official Register of the UnitedStates,” American Philatelist, 74(12):891–894, 930–931, 1961.9. Joint Commission of Postal Services, “Memorandumconcerning compensation of postmasters and method of determiningsame, etc.” In Postal Salaries: Final Report of the JointCommission on Postal Salaries (66th Congress, 3rd Session, SenateDocument No. 422, Vol. 1, 1921), 102–118.10. K. Stach, “A statistical analysis of Nebraska Territorialpostal history,” La Posta, 33(6):15–19, 2003; K. Stach, “A
Page 1 and 2: Smithsonian InstitutionScholarly Pr
Page 3 and 4: smithsonian contributions to histor
Page 5: ContentsLETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR OF
Page 9: AcknowledgmentsThe symposium would
Page 12 and 13: 2 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n t
Page 20 and 21: 1 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n
Page 25 and 26: “Little Colored Bits of Paper”C
Page 27 and 28: n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 7as something
Page 29 and 30: n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 9protest came
Page 31 and 32: n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 1nals I revie
Page 33 and 34: WWI Philatelic Censuses of East Afr
Page 35 and 36: n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 5Table 1. GEA
Page 37 and 38: n u m b e r 5 5 • 2 7Figure 5. MA
Page 39 and 40: Explorations in the Official Regist
Page 41 and 42: n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 1receipts. De
Page 43: n u m b e r 5 5 • 3 3TABLE 2. Pop
Page 47: Introduction to the Second Symposiu
Page 59 and 60: “Food Will Win the War”: Motor
Page 61 and 62: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 1business tha
Page 63 and 64: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 3support for
Page 65 and 66: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 53. “Postal
Page 67: n u m b e r 5 5 • 5 7“Farmers W
Page 81 and 82: Picking Up the Pieces: The Aftermat
Page 83 and 84: n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 3and U.S. adm
Page 85 and 86: n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 5September, 1
Page 87 and 88: n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 7Figure 9. Th
Page 89: n u m b e r 5 5 • 7 9“B.C.O.F.
Page 94 and 95:
8 4 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o n
Page 96 and 97:
Page 98 and 99:
Page 101:
Introduction to the Fourth Symposiu
Page 104 and 105:
Page 106 and 107:
Page 108 and 109:
Page 110 and 111:
1 0 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 112 and 113:
1 0 2 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 114 and 115:
1 0 4 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 116 and 117:
1 0 6 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 118 and 119:
1 0 8 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 120 and 121:
1 1 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 122 and 123:
1 1 2 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 124 and 125:
1 1 4 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 126 and 127:
1 1 6 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 128 and 129:
1 1 8 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 131 and 132:
“Why Is a Raven Like a Writing De
Page 133 and 134:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 3and prepai
Page 135 and 136:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 5Figure 3.
Page 137 and 138:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 7Figure 5.
Page 139 and 140:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 2 9A Final No
Page 141 and 142:
America’s First Carrier Service:T
Page 143 and 144:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 3Figure 3.
Page 145 and 146:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 5The glazed
Page 147 and 148:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 7Intercity
Page 149 and 150:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 3 9The End of
Page 151 and 152:
The U.S. 1847 Issue:Stamps That Cha
Page 153 and 154:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 4 3the positi
Page 155 and 156:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 4 5stamps as
Page 157 and 158:
From the Pulpit to the Post: Anti-
Page 159 and 160:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 4 9The allege
Page 161 and 162:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 5 1Individual
Page 163:
n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 5 337. Archiv
Page 166 and 167:
1 5 6 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 168 and 169:
1 5 8 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 170 and 171:
1 6 0 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 172 and 173:
1 6 2 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 174 and 175:
1 6 4 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
Page 176 and 177:
1 6 6 • s m i t h s o n i a n c o
show all

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?