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{{Short description|1792 U.S. Federal law establishing the Post Office}}
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
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| longtitle         = An Act to establish the Post Office and Post Roads within the United States.
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| enacted by        = 2nd
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| cite public law   = {{uspl|2|7}}
| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|1|232}}, Chap. 7
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| introducedin    = House
| introducedbill  = {{USBill|2|HR|154}}
| introducedby    = [[Samuel Livermore]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.congress.gov/house-journal/449 |title=Introduction of U.S. House Bill 154 by Samuel Livermore |date=November 29, 1791 |journal=Journal of the House of Representatives |series=2nd United States Congress ~ 1st Session 1791-1792 |publisher=United States Library of Congress |page=465 |via=Congress.gov}}</ref> ([[Federalist Party|F]]-[[New Hampshire|NH]])
| introduceddate  = November 29, 1791
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| signedpresident = [[George Washington]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.congress.gov/house-journal/495 |title=Enactment of U.S. House Bill 154 by George Washington |trans-title=Message concerning ''An Act to establish the Post Office and Post Roads within the United States'' presented by [[Tobias Lear]] |date=February 20, 1792 |journal=Journal of the House of Representatives |series=2nd United States Congress ~ 1st Session 1791-1792 |publisher=United States Library of Congress |page=511 |via=Congress.gov}}</ref>
| signeddate      = February 20, 1792
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The '''Postal Service Act''' was a piece of [[United States]] [[federal law|federal legislation]] that established the [[United States Post Office Department]]. It was signed into law by [[President of the United States|President]] [[George Washington]] on February 20, 1792.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?id=192&action=tdihArticleCategory | title = February 20, 1792: George Washington signs the Postal Service Act | publisher = The History Channel / This Day In History | access-date = January 20, 2008 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090227200354/http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=192 | archive-date = February 27, 2009 }}</ref>

== History ==
<!-- Washington signs legislation renewing the United States Post Office as a cabinet department led by the postmaster general, guaranteeing inexpensive delivery of all newspapers, stipulating the right to privacy and granting Congress the ability to expand postal service to new areas of the nation. -->

[[William Goddard (U.S. patriot)|William Goddard]], a Patriot printer frustrated that the [[Royal_Mail#History|Royal Mail]] 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 the "Constitutional Post" before the [[Continental Congress]] on October 5, 1774.<ref>[http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibits/2a1f_wgoddard.html Smithsonian Postal Museum]</ref> 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 was appointed as the first postmaster general under the Continental Congress beginning on July 26, 1775,<ref>{{cite web |title=Editorial Note on the Founding of the Post Office |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0074 |website=Founders Online |publisher=[[University of Virginia Press]] |access-date=2021-03-24}}</ref> 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.  He was dismissed as colonial postmaster general after [[Hutchinson letters affair|the publication of private letters]] of [[Province of Massachusetts Bay|Massachusetts]] Royal Governor [[Thomas Hutchinson (governor)|Thomas Hutchinson]] in Massachusetts; Franklin admitted to acquiring the letters (probably from a third party, and not in any sort of official capacity) and sending them to Massachusetts.  While postmaster, Franklin streamlined postal delivery with properly surveyed and marked routes from [[Maine]] to [[Florida]] (the origins of [[U.S. Route 1|Route 1]]), instituted overnight postal travel between the critical cities of New York and Philadelphia and created a standardized rate chart based upon weight and distance.<ref>[http://www.ushistory.org/Franklin/index.htm US History.org]</ref>

[[Samuel Osgood]] held the postmaster general's position in New York City from 1789, when the [[U.S. Constitution]] came into effect, until the government moved to Philadelphia in 1791. [[Timothy Pickering]] took over <ref>[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000324 Biographical Directory of the U.S.Congress]</ref> and, about a year later, the Postal Service Act gave his post greater legislative legitimacy and more effective organization. Pickering continued in the position until 1795, when he briefly served as secretary of war, before becoming the third U.S. secretary of state.

Because news was considered crucial to an informed electorate, the 1792 law distributed newspapers to subscribers for 1 penny up to 100 miles and 1.5 cents over 100 miles;  printers could send their newspapers to other newspaper publishers for free.  Postage for letters, by contrast, cost between 6 and 25 cents depending on distance.<ref><!-- Postage Rates for Periodicals -->{{cite Q|Q112167199}}</ref> This subsidy amounted to roughly 0.2 percent of US [[Gross Domestic Product]] (GDP), according to McChesney and Nichols.<ref>{{Citation | last1  = McChesney | first1 = Robert W. | last2 = Nichols | first2 = John 
| author-link = w:Robert W. McChesney  | author2-link = w:John Nichols (journalist)
| year = 2016 | title = People get ready: The fight against a jobless economy and a citizenless democracy| publisher = Nation Books | page = 169 | isbn = 9781568585215}}</ref>
  
The postmaster general's position was considered a plum patronage post for political allies of the president until the Postal Service was transformed into a corporation run by a board of governors in 1971 following passage of the [[Postal Reorganization Act]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=article&id=50394 | title = July 26, 1775: Congress establishes U.S. Post Office | publisher = The History Channel / This Day In History | access-date = January 20, 2008 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090226014045/http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=50394 | archive-date = February 26, 2009 }}</ref>

== Economics ==

JD Thomas said the Postal Service Act was shaped in part by the desire to avoid censorship employed by the Crown to try to suppress their political opponents in colonial times.  He also claimed that "the promise of mail delivery [helped] grow the nation and economy instead of serving only existing communities."  He illustrated its importance to people on the frontier by discussing the role of mail in the lives of people around Royalton, NY.  Before they got a post office in 1826, "The neighbors would club together, put a boy on a horse, and about once a month he could be seen wending his way through forest and stream, ... to get, perchance, half a dozen letters and papers for four times that number of families. ... [W]hen he returned, if no tidings came from loved ones, they did their best to suppress the silent tears that would often betray their sadness."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Thomas|first1=JD|title=The Postal Act: A Free Press, Personal Privacy and National Growth|url=http://www.accessible-archives.com/2011/02/the-postal-act-of-1792/|access-date=2016-05-22|publisher=Accessible Archives|date=2011-02-11}}</ref><ref>Thomas said that the nearest post office was in Batavia, roughly 20 miles (33 km) away.  It's not clear how long that took, but Rodrigue said, "The average overland speed by horse ... was around 8 kilometers per hour."  If that was typical of that Royalton, NY, community, then this mail procedure might have taken three days:  The boy could have collected the letters on the first day and spent the night with the family closest to Batavia on the first day.  The second day could include eight hours riding to and from Batavia.  On the third day, he would revisit the families from the first day.  {{cite book|last1=Rodrigue|first1=Jean-Paul|title=The Geography of Transport Systems|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|location=NY|isbn=978-0-415-82254-1|url=https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch2en/conc2en/ch2c1en.html|access-date=2016-05-22|chapter=2. Historical Geography of Transportation: The Emergence of Mechanized Systems}}</ref>

Researchers have claimed that the widespread availability of newspapers contributed to a high literacy rate in the U.S.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Soltow |first1=Lee |first2 = Edward | last2 = Stevens|title=The Rise of Literacy and the Common School in the United States: A Socioeconomic Analysis to 1870|url=https://archive.org/details/riseofliteracyco0000solt |url-access=registration |date=1981|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago, IL|pages=[https://archive.org/details/riseofliteracyco0000solt/page/76 76], 155–159|isbn=9780226768120 }}</ref><ref>Cited from {{cite news|title=Universal Service and the Postal Monopoly: A Brief History|url=https://about.usps.com/universal-postal-service/universal-service-and-postal-monopoly-history.txt|access-date=2016-05-22|publisher=US Postal Service|date=October 2008}}</ref> This in turn helped increase the rate of economic growth,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hanushek |first1=Eric A. |last2 = Woessmann| first2 = Ludger |editor1-last=Brewer |editor1-first=Dominic J.|editor2-first = Patrick J. 
|editor2-last = McEwan |editor1-link=Economics of Education|title=Education and Economic Growth|date=2010|publisher=Elsevier|location=Amsterdam|pages=60–67|url=http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/education-and-economic-growth|access-date=2016-05-22}}</ref> thereby contributing to its dominant position in the international economy today.

== Further reading ==
* {{cite web |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ia.ark:/13960/t6tx3jk12&seq=41 |title=Chapter VII; An ACT to eſtabliſh Post-Office and Post-Roads within the United States |author=2nd United States Congress |year=1791 |website=HathiTrust Digital Library |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |publisher=[[Francis Childs (printer)|Francis Childs]] and [[John Swaine]] |oclc=7009665 |pages=37-52}}
* Kielbowicz, Richard B. (1989). ''News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s''. Greenwood Press. {{ISBN|9780313266386}}
* {{cite book |last1=John |first1=Richard R. |title=Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse |date=2009 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=9780674039148}}

== See also ==
* [[Post Office Act of 1872]]
* [[Postal Reorganization Act]] of 1970

== References ==
<references />

{{United States Postal Service}}
{{wikisource|United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/2nd Congress/1st Session/Chapter 7|Postal Service Act}}

[[Category:1792 in American law]]
[[Category:United States federal postal legislation]]
[[Category:2nd United States Congress]]