November 7 Trivia And The US Post Office

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A big story for November 7...

The beleaguered U.S. Postal Service could use a man like Benjamin Franklin on their side again. He laid out the framework that would set up the postal system and when he left the job, he kept it in the family. It was on this day in 1776 when Congress chose Benjamin Franklin's son-in-law to succeed Franklin, as postmaster general. Franklin had sailed in October for France on behalf of the Continental Congress.

Franklin invested nearly 40 years to establish a reliable system of private communications in the colonies. He was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737 and then joint postmaster general of the colonies, a position he held until 1774 when he was fired for opening and publishing Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson's correspondence.

As postmaster, Franklin streamlined postal delivery with properly surveyed and marked routes from Maine to Florida, instituted overnight postal travel between the critical cities of New York and Philadelphia and created a standardized rate chart based upon weight and distance.
The postmaster general's position was considered a plum patronage post for political allies of the president until the USPS was transformed into a corporation run by a board of governors in 1971.