Read on Twitter
I'm delighted that The Internet is just now realizing how awesome the USPS is! I love the mail and the post office, sending letters is one of my favorite activities and i used to volunteer at the @PostalMuseum. I even have a postage stamp tattoo! https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/14/834336341/hoping-to-save-the-postal-service-people-rush-to-buy-stamps?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/14/834336341/hoping-to-save-the-postal-service-people-rush-to-buy-stamps?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
I'm going to share a thread with some excellent historical reading about the @USPS. Not quite the post office syllabus (yet!) but that may still be in the works. This is incomplete because it's just what immediately comes to mind. Are you ready?
Two (relatively) recent books that I'd direct folks to are Winifred Gallagher's "How the Post Office Created America" provides an approachable, readable overview of the institution and its impact https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143130062
Philip F. Rubio (a former letter carrier), "There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality," is an excellent account of the intertwined labor and race dynamics of the 20th c USPS. https://uncpress.org/book/9780807859865/theres-always-work-at-the-post-office/
Rubio just wrote another book, which I admit that I haven't read yet, about the 1970 postal strike! "Undelivered: From the Great Postal Strike of 1970 to the Manufactured Crisis of the U.S. Postal Service" https://uncpress.org/book/9781469655468/undelivered/
Richard John's "Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse" is older but a classic and, like Gallagher's book, offers an excellent overview of the @USPS and its impact focused on the late 18th to the middle of the 19th centuries https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674833425
For how letter writing and affordable postage changed the way people interacted with each other (outside the US), I'd encourage you to pick up "Posting it: The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing" by Catherine Golden https://www.abebooks.com/Posting-Victorian-Revolution-Letter-Writing-Golden/30471224337/bd
Philately is its own thing and it's not, really, my expertise but there are a few great articles about nationalism and postage stamps! You might try "Stamps as iconography: Celebrating the independence of new European and Central Asian states" https://www.jstor.org/stable/41147570
The @APS_stamps has a number of resources on their website for folks interested in getting into (or back into) stamp collecting https://stamps.org/learn/getting-started
I'd also strongly encourage you to visit the @PostalMuseum online (and in person when we're able to). They've got a number of excellent virtual exhibitions you can explore from home here https://postalmuseum.si.edu/virtual-exhibitions
That's all for now, I need to go do my actual job... send me more of your favorite readings on the USPS' role in American history. I love the post office and really, really hope we're able to #SaveTheUSPS. Tonight, I'll write some letters.
One more thing, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that you can find stamp collections all over the place! @SciHistoryOrg has loads in their collections (you can see a selection in the digital collections). Now I can also justify writing this on work time https://digital.sciencehistory.org/collections/kw52j810t
