Paper trails : the US post and the making of the American West / Cameron Blevins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blevins, Cameron, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Postal service--West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Postal service.

United States--Territorial expansion.

United States.

West (U.S.)--History.

West (U.S.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (248 pages) : illustrations (black and white).

Other Title:

United States post and the making of the American West

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2021.

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.

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

0-19-005369-0

0-19-755006-1

0-19-005368-2