Rural Free Shipping ( RFD ) is a service that started in the United States at the end of the 19th century, to send email directly to rural farm families. Prior to RFD, people living in more remote homes have to take their own mail at an occasional post office or pay for a personal delivery service (this is in addition to the postage paid by the sender). RFD became political football, with politicians promising to voters and using it themselves to reach out to voters. Proposals to offer free rural delivery are not universally accepted. Private operators and local shop owners are worried about losing business. The US Post Office Department began experimenting with Rural Free Delivery as early as 1890. However, it was not until 1893, when Georgian Congressman Thomas E. Watson pushed through the law, that the practice was mandated. However, the universal implementation is slow; RFD was not generally adopted in the United States Post Office until 1902. The rural delivery service uses a network of rural routes through which operators send and retrieve mail to and from the roadside mailboxes.
Video Rural Free Delivery
Histori
Until the end of the 19th century, rural residents had to go to distant post offices to pick up their mail, or pay for delivery by private carriers. Postmaster General John Wanamaker, the owner of a large department store, strongly supports Rural Free Delivery (RFD), with thousands of Americans living in rural communities who want to send and receive cheap retail orders. However, the adoption of a national RFD system has many opponents. Some people just oppose service charges. The personal delivery officer considers the cheap delivery of rural mails to get rid of their business, and many municipal traders fear that the service will reduce the farmer's weekly family visit to the city to get goods and merchandise, or that postal merchants selling through catalogs, such as Sears, Roebuck and the Company can present significant competition.
Support for the introduction of nationwide mail delivery service comes from The National Grange of Order of Patrons of Husbandry, the oldest agricultural organization in the country.
Fayette County in central eastern Indiana claims to be the birthplace of Rural Free Delivery. Milton Trusler, a prominent farmer in the area, began advocating the idea in 1880; as president of Indiana Grange, he spoke with farmers across the state for over sixteen years.
The first Post Office Department experimented with the idea of ​​sending rural mail on October 1, 1891 to determine the feasibility of RFD. They start with five routes covering ten miles, 33 years after free shipping in cities has started. The first route to receive RFD during the experimental phase was in Jefferson County, West Virginia, near Charles Town, Halltown, and Uvilla.
Legislation by US Congressman Thomas E. Watson mandated the practice, and RFD eventually became the official service in 1896. That year, 82 rural routes were operated. Massive efforts, national RFD services take several years to complete, and remain the "biggest and most expensive effort" ever made by the US postal service.
Service has grown steadily. By 1901, mileage had increased to over 100,000; it costs $ 1,750,321 and more than 37,000 operators are hired. In 1910 the distance was 993,068; cost $ 36,915,000; operator 40.997. In 1913 came the introduction of mail delivery packages, which led to another explosion in rural delivery. The postal parcel service enables the distribution of national newspapers and magazines, and is responsible for millions of dollars of sales in postal order items to customers in rural areas. In 1930 there were 43,278 rural routes serving about 6,875,321 families - about 25,471,735 people. It costs $ 106,338,341. In 1916, the Rural Post "Good" Roads Act authorized federal funds for the rural pos road.
Maps Rural Free Delivery
First route
The following is a list of the first rural routes established in each state, along with the names of (up to three) Post Office served and date of establishment.
See also
- US. Postage Stamps Year 1912-13
- Mayberry R.F.D.
References
Further reading
- Barron, Hal S. mixed harvest: The second major transformation in the northern countryside, 1870-1930 (U of North Carolina Press, 1997).
- More complete, Wayne Edison. RFD, changing rural American face (1964), standard scientific history
- Kernell, Samuel, and Michael P. McDonald. "Congress and American political developments: Transformation of post offices from patronage to service." American Journal of Political Science 43 # 3 (1999), p. 792-811 at JSTOR; online copy
- Perlman, Elisabeth Ruth, and Steven Sprick Schuster. "Speaking: The Political Effect of Free Letter Delivery in the Early 20th Century America." Journal of Economic History 76.3 (2016): 769-802. online
External links
- 1903 carrier films receiving RFD mail for delivery in Westminster, Maryland, from the Library of Congress
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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