Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-299) and index.

Prologue -- The founding father -- Interlopers I -- Comstockery -- A businessman at the Post Office -- Into the sky -- A stamp collector at the White House -- Mount Semrow -- The day the mail stopped -- Interlopers II -- Going postal -- You've got mail! -- "Thank God for Amazon" -- Epilogue.

Founded by Benjamin Franklin, USPS was the information network that bound far-flung Americans together, fostered a common culture, and helped American business to prosper. A first class stamp remains one of the greatest bargains of all time, and yet, the USPS is slowly vanishing. Critics say it is slow and archaic. Mail volume is down. The workforce is shrinking. Post offices are closing. This is a multifaceted history, full of remarkable characters, from the stamp-collecting FDR, to the revolutionaries who challenged USPSs monopoly on mail, to the renegade union members who brought the system--and the country--to a halt in the 1970s. An exciting and engrossing read, this is the first major history of the USPS in over fifty years.