| Description |
x, 232 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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still image sti rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [165]-223) and index. |
| Summary |
There were five times as many post offices in the United States in 1899 than there are McDonald's restaurants today. During an era of supposedly limited federal government, the United States operated the most expansive national postal system in the world. In this cutting-edge interpretation of the late nineteenth-century United States, Cameron Blevins argues that the US Post wove together two of the era's defining projects: western expansion and the growth of state power. Between the 1860s and the early 1900s, the western United States underwent a truly dramatic reorganization of people, land, capital, and resources. It had taken Anglo-Americans the better part of two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of the continent, yet they occupied the West within a single generation. As millions of settlers moved into the region, they relied on letters and newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, petitions and money orders to stay connected to the wider world. Paper Trails maps the spread of the US Post using a dataset of more than 100,000 post offices, revealing a new picture of the federal government in the West. The western postal network bore little resemblance to the civil service bureaucracies typically associated with government institutions. Instead, the US Post grafted public mail service onto private businesses, contracting with stagecoach companies to carry the mail and paying local merchants to distribute letters from their stores. These arrangements allowed the US Post to rapidly spin out a vast and ephemeral web of postal infrastructure to thousands of distant places. The postal network's sprawling geography and localized operations forces a reconsideration of the American state, its history, and the ways in which it exercised power. "-- Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
The Gossamer Network -- Geography and State Power -- Stories and Structures -- Postal Maps, 1860-1883 -- Mail Routes and the Costs of Expansion, 1866-1883 -- The Post Office Window, 1880-1892 -- Money Orders and National Integration, 1864-1895 -- Rural Free Delivery, 1896-1913 -- The Modern American State. |
| Subject |
Postal service -- West (U.S.) -- History -- 19th century.
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United States -- Territorial expansion.
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West (U.S.) -- History.
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United States -- Colonial question.
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Postal service. (OCoLC)fst01072885
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Territorial expansion. (OCoLC)fst01355135
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
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West United States. (OCoLC)fst01243255
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| Chronological Term |
1800-1899
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| Genre/Form |
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
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| Added Title |
US post and the making of the American West |
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US post & the making of the American West |
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United States post and the making of the American West |
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United States post & the making of the American West |
| ISBN |
9780190053673 (hardcover) |
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0190053674 (hardcover) |
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9780190053697 electronic publication |
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