How the Post Office Made America
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
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Research by William Mayne
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I hope you enjoy this video! It's certainly a unique topic :)
If you don't already know, I started a podcast with Brian from Real Engineering called Showmakers. So far we've talked to Hank Green, Destin Sandlin, Myke Hurley, and Ben Schlappig and I encourage you to give it a listen to see if you like it!
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It's honestly a really great suitcase and they make the show possible!
Wendover Productions LOVE ME!!
Your video is very similar to the 99% Invisible podcast episode from 4 months ago, so no, not so unique.
Ben Schlappig as in One Mile At A Time? Wow
Wendover Productions ii
Wendover Productions now speak about the mail in Roman Empire
A video where you talk about boats, trains and airplanes under the guise of the Post Office, this one checks all the Wendover boxes!
Exactly what I just said. There's no sovereignty movement in Brazil, at least not a serious one.
+Lucas Carvalho there is one here in the south.
No one takes that sovereignty movement in the south as serious lol
If you thought I could get through a video without talking about planes... you were wrong :)
I like planes
I work for USPS I carry mail, it is a difficult job at times. Everyone works really hard and they are very helpful. Serving people mail is very nice. I think the USPS is the only government institution I like and respect.
Ty for working there. I like the post office
Wendover, no matter wath is videos subject, will find a way to mention airplanes
I do, and I would. lol
Lord Orio It is fairly relevant to the topic though.
On a side note, this guy is my favorite airline/aeroplane explainer.
wath is videos
oh a video not about planes!
a few minutes in
oh
hi
hi
747 likes
i like planes
His name is Wendover. What did you expect?
so united treat the passengers the same way they treated mail bags
thunder2.0 They still do :P
most airlines do treat passengers like freight these days.
Yes, & American Airlines, too. I'll never fly them again.
For the love of god, just stop
Stop flying. That's the best idea.
I live in a town with 50 people in Missouri, yet, the 4 story post office still stands to this day!
Seems good and classy :)
Why would the post office be obsolete today? People are ordering things online more than ever before. Private delivery companies are also relying more on the post office's existing local delivery methods in order to not need tens of thousands of trucks. Its use may be shifting, but it's not disappearing any time soon.
Endyo have you been to a post office lately? The employees are coasting since their jobs are secure and it's a miserable experience. If it was a for profit business it would have been gone years ago.
yeah, it lacks the incentive to innovate and work hard that Private Companies have.
if FEDex is slow and disorganized, it will fail
the Post Office is slow and disorganized, well it has government funding so it won't fail
The usps is doing great and have been operating in the positive for years, the only reason they look like theyre doing bad is from shady accounting shit, they have to have retirement funds for everyone of their employees in full now...and guess who the lobbyist were that pushed for that? Surely not shitty fedex and ups nooo, they wouldnt like to charge you 5 times more and delivery only on weekdays
Andrew Clements post office gets zero government funding. It earns all its money. And it usually makes too much money and the government takes it
Milkman Milk.
Okay, if thats true
Then I am still angry the Government takes the surplus money! They could put that money into improving the post office and possibly giving some more benefits to the workers.
I'm picturing people in the 1820's going "Whoa! I can get messages from Boston to New York in less than seven days! What a miraculous time to be alive! Pity for all the generations that came before us who can't marvel at this huge information technology leap forward." And here I am, saying a similar statement about the power of the internet in 2017, which will be ridiculed 200 years from now.
BackfallGenius i don't know if the internet will be ridiculed because you can't get much faster than instant. What's there to be improved?
Moens Bruno if something faster than light is found, we have our answer
Wait... Is the Post Office an airline? Otherwise, why is Wendover talking about it?
No hes saying the Postal Service created the airlines.
Weissman Hyperion its a joke
USPS planes exist
Terry Madill Postman Buy Celestron SOUTHMINSTER Svhool Caravan CM0 Birthday CHILLDREN
Terry Madill School Caravan SOUTHMINSTER Cm0 Postcard
always drop whatever I'm doing when I get a wendover notification
Elijah Masquelier same, nothing more important than a Wendover video.
Benjamin Hoffmeyer This channel is one of the best out there
Nooo, not the baby! 😱
Elijah Masquelier Same!!!
David -flamingsword1 he said whatever he is doing..... ur sick. Lol jk
This video gets my _stamp_ of approval!
👏
Photonon Videos haha im ded
Photonon Videos Well done sir.
How does youtube letter do this? I mail be a youtube commentor, but I'm not mailed!
Dum dum
Pefffs
USPS is still my preference for mail and packages.
They truly are the best!
Thank you!
Relevant again. Thanks :)
Amazing history and perspective on the Post Office! Anyone who found this video as interesting as me should check out the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum in Washington, DC. It's one of the underrated museums in the city and like all Smithsonian Museums, completely free!
been thinking about this video a lot lately....
@AlwaysAllyCat Me too. The United States Postal Service is amazing and anyone that says different is a liar.
I love this channel so much. The transportation and geographical topics are the most interesting ones imo!
It's amazing how we went from a time when it took weeks to travel from Boston to New York, to now where it takes less than a day to travel from New York to Los Angeles
3:58 Yes, Americans love Turkish newspapers 😂😂
Well, any American who does, will have no problem getting them, thanks to our post office!
My brother is a mailman. We (America) may have lots of problems, but watching this video reminds me that we can be proud, united and patriotic about at least one thing, our excellent postal service.
interesting that you show a Turkish newspaper (cumhuriyet) as an example (at 3:38)
I saw it and I was about to write a comment about it before seeing this comment.
That's what I came here for as well, was just looking for anyone else that noticed it.
Cumhuriyeti gorenler likelasin ozaman :)
it's at 3:58
I was just talking about latency and ping on Reddit and this video popped up at the right time!
The ping between US east and west coast came down from few weeks to less than 50milli seconds today! The latency around the world is less than a second, and this is what makes it possible for people around the globe to watch this video simultaneously just as when you upload it.
And now people are discussing when the Post Office will end....
Dr.StickFigure ubiquitous one
it is is useless and unbelievably inefficient nowadays.
Dr.StickFigure Dude are you stalking me. You are everywhere.
Shemegory FedEx, Amazon, UPS, and others send packages just fine.
Hi
as a new postal worker, I'm proud of what's in this video! I have been, however, very curious about how mail systems in other country's work. I haven't been able to find much on China, for instance.
I'm still looking for witch "serious, present-day, sovereignty movement within its borders" Brazil has.
Lucas Carvalho He's probably talking about 'The south is my country' movement or the São Paulo separatist movement, but yeah, both are in no way serious nor important.
Rafael Rezende I also think so, but if that's the case the Texas sovereignty movement should also be considered serious. Although the Texan movement is incredibly much more spread than the Brazilians ones.
Lucas Carvalho Agreed. I thought about Alaska, but Texas is a more high profile case.
Same with Canada. Quebec talks about it but I can't call it serious or current.
Yeah, I just posted something to that effect as well. Plus, Brazil today is the largest monolingual country in the world, seeing as the US now has a sizable Spanish-speaking minority.
hats off to wendover productions..i can already tell how patriotic you are and how much you love our great country...
Such a high production looking video. Keep up the good work!
I challenge your last statement of the post office being obsolete today. I'm still getting Amazon deliveries on Sundays, and having most of my online orders delivered earlier than expected.
Some of us still depend on the post office. Just last week I sent a box cross country for $17 and some change. I couldn't have done it without the post office.
Peter Herring cheap cheap
This was an excellent video. I absolutely loved it. Very insightful, and it provides a great perspective over such a large period of history.
I'm not impressed. The Mongols pulled off the Pony Express in the 13th century
+Leaun Hunt
Yea but they only delivered on type of package.... death.
Yep, Mongol Empire's Yam route in around 1200s was the biggest at the time. It's in the history of infamous Russia Post.
Ieuan Hunt To be fair that was across the plains with few if any major obstacles
it was still a feat, though. they set up waystations like every 20 kilometers. they definitely knew a thing or two about proper infrastructure.
And the Romans pulled it off as early as in the 1st century, and even they got inspired by the ancient Persians who had a somewhat similar system even earlier than that.
This is one of the coolest American history videos I've seen and also makes me proud of my country. Keep up the good work man. Because these videos are not only entertaining but educational.
sitting in my USPS truck listening to this..
D Pink you whipping ain't it fam... poetic Justice
#postalproud. I got the book. It's amazing
@D Pink Thank you so much for your service. The USPS is the only service that delivers by every method including using pack animals to deliver to a Native American tribe that lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. You're all amazing and the majority of us couldn't or wouldn't do the work you do faithfully every day. Keep up the great work.
@@renaclara #postalproud #postalreliable #postalforever
I implore you, whenever visiting DC, go to the National Postal Museum. It's a hidden gem. Rarely a crowd and full of amazing exhibits, it's in my top 5 museums in DC.
This was one of the most informative videos I've seen :D
Awesome video! Really gives one a sense of how complicated and integral the mail system is
This reminds me of the advantage that historians attribute to why the Mongols held so much of the China region.
The post office / rail station makes your town legitimate thing is still in effect to this day. In rural Michigan, there are small towns like Irving, Freeport, and Bowne Center that are seemingly in the middle of nowhere with regards to the roads. But overlay an old railroad map, and they are all on the line between larger towns and cities to the north west and south east. Most were fuel and water stops for the locomotives.
Great video. But what about Alaska? The airplane made Alaska.
Actually Russians not giving a sh*t about the cold made Alaska. Airplanes furthered it's development.
I wonder what other things contributed, as far as I know oil didn't help in this case. Didn't they find oil there long after towns were founded in Alaska? Maybe it was the fishing industry and military stations way back in the beginning (if anything, at least the military brought Bob Ross there, lol!)... dunno, would love to find out, though.
Recently I have heard a couple podcasts on the Post Office (think Planet Money and Backstory). When I saw the title I almost didn't click because its a story I thought I knew, but then I noticed it was a Wendover Productions video and knew it would have a new insightful take, which it did. Thank you for all of your videos.
Well, to be fair, U.S. not having a serious sovereignty movement within its borders has more to do with ruthlessly massacring anybody who can make such sovereign claims; though I'm sure the postal office contributed to reinforcing the national unity. If the U.S. allowed most of the native Americans to live, it would have a serious crisis of sovereignty today.
Other than this, as usual, great video! Love channels that cover seemingly boring yet extremely important (and at least for me fascinating) topics like this!
WRC Most natives died of diseases not government massacres.
That sounds reasonable, given that Brazil doesn't have a serious separatist movement, probably for the same reason.
I went to a railroad museum this weekend and saw a mail car. Pretty cool to see a historical photo that matches. Thanks for another great video.
No small share of the credit goes to the Post Office, and the Post Office was never intended to be for-profit, but remember, that's because the Post Office is funded by a well-funded federal government, and the federal government is well funded because they abolished the Articles of Confederation and established the Constitution, instead. The Articles of Confederation did not give the federal government the authority to levy taxes, and so, under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government was frequently underfunded. The Constitution has never had this problem. Whatever credit goes to the Post Office, it was made possible by the Constitution.
"the Post Office is funded by a well-funded federal government"
No, it's not. The Postal Service is entirely self-funded and receives no tax money from the rest of the government.
What a video...you should be winning awards for this delivery of content!! Well done sir
9:35 I thought he was about to say "Made America Great Again"...
LOVE the music. Fantastic topic. Can't get enough of this channel.
9:15 Does Brazil have a sovereignty movement I'm not aware of?
Not a serious one
There is some for the southern states, but they are less serious than the ones in Texas and California.
Oh well thanks for reminding me that the US actually has minor sovereignty movements as well in Texas and California. I'm very aware of Canada's Quebec issue and China's Xinjiang and Tibet issues. I also assumed Russia could have some due to being a Russian Empire and Soviet Union forcing ethnicities together.
Texit and Calexit aren't serious at all, lol
neither are the ones in Brazil
This video brought tears to my eyes. Thank you.
Make a video on the interstate system
I've been studying for exams for the past 2 weeks non stop. Watching this video is my only break, love wendover productions
Just discovered you have the link to the script on the description. Really neat, thanks WendoverPro.
anyone else see that dot at 4:57 lines up with that lake in canada?
holy shit, the video is good but that insane!
Panda or Whatever cannot unsee
I dont see it.
There are two actually. When the video transitions from the black and white photo at 4:57 to the North America map at 5:00, a black spot in the upper middle of the photo becomes Lake Claire in Alberta. Also, a tiny spot a little lower and slightly to the right of the center becomes Dog Lake in Ontario.
Agree with +Thatguythere98 -- once you see them, you can't unsee them.
I travel a lot and have been looking for a new carry on. That Away suitcase is perfect!
3:57 WOW! I never knew the americans read the Cumhuriyet! (lmao just kidding of course I knew they read that)
By far the best video that I watched out of all them. It shows the most important innovations that made this country so amazing. Love your vids
i'm a simple man, i see wendover, i press like
Excellent work on an often overlooked, underappreciated, historical important subject.
Man, USA owes so much to Kevin Costner!
I love your channel, it is so informative and the best thanks for producing great work, keep it up
5:43 Fort Laramie! Sigh... Ol' Oregon Trail.
This is a great time to focus on things that bring us together
"The post office may be obsolete..."
WTF?
That ain't gonna happen.
Great sponsor to have because I was looking to buy a suitcase and I want to do some time lapse video from the top of the suitcase so this was perfect.
wait...
sovereignity movements (plz don't comment on spelling)
canada: quebec
china : tibet
russia : chechnya
brazil : ????
I'd hardly call quebec a movement...
There is a secession southern Brazilian movement but I guarantee you IT IS NOT as serious as the Chinese or Russian one. It basically a bunch of old people yelling how great brazil used to be.
The brazil movement is less serious than the Texan one in the US, but I guess without that falacy, we wouldn't have such a strong ending to this topic.
@@kingjames4886 cascadia?
These vids are alwaus so high-quality, its incredible
1:24 what the hell does "almost more" mean? less?
From horses to trains and then planes Post Office now a great gain for all of us in all countires states, cities...Today is a World Post Office Day and great work for Postal System across the globe to make it important not only for delivery letters but Post Office of any village county matters a lot...Nowadays with just tickets of some pennies take your letter in hours to a different state great achievement and its wonderful history will keep it alive always...P.O. Numbers so important .
Great video as always, but as a Nebraskan I cringed how you pronounced Kearny. It's phonetically pronounced "Car-nee". I know us Nebraskans are we weird. We also pronounce places like Norfolk as "Nor-fork".
Yeah I though the same thing, I'm from Nebraska too
I don't know if it's just a Nebraska thing. We pronounce Kearny the same way in Pennsylvania. I believe it's the original Irish pronunciation.
It must be. It's fascinating because most of eastern Nebraska (where Kearny is) was settled by Pennsylvanian Amish. Most of our counties' names have Pennsylvanian roots like "Lancaster" and "York".
I think Norfolk in England is pronounced the same way, I might be wrong though
コイノ/ Koino no it's not, it's more like Nor-fok
god I get such a warm and fuzzy feeling learning about the history of this wonderful country
Seems heavily inspired by that 99% Invisible episode. You know which one.
I'm shocked the first 99% Invisible comment is so low down.
More inspired by the book that inspired that 99pi episode (the one mentioned at the beginning), but I've heard that episode as well!
I ctrl+f-searched it because i could not believe i m the only one who noticed that. Especially because the voice sounds a lot like Roman Mars' voice.
Man... I just listened to that episode earlier this day. Freaky
Came here to say exactly this
I only recently discovered this channel but I'm already hooked.
I would remove the part where you allude that the US had no popular sovereign movements during the Post Office movement or that the other countries had this issue due to how hard communication was/is as this is a very crudely flushed out idea and false. There are many huge movements that took place since the PO's inception: A big one would be during the America Civil War, Hawaii's movement, the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), Cascadia, Puerto Rico... and the list goes on.
There's also the fallacy that the other countries had a harder time communicating throughout their country (yes, not said explicitly, but how you structured your statement makes it so). Canada's movements, even to do this day is due to the non-homogeneous population that resides in it and their right to express themselves. Quebec for example is that they are quite culturally different, they are the true remainder of New-France, not just because they speak French.
This is quite a complex matter that you grossly oversimplified. The way you stated this makes it sound like the US had the only adequate communication service, which is also false.
And also, Brazil most definitely does not have a sovereign movement.
I really love listening to your voice and learning new facts from you
What? An enterprise not focused on profit, subsidized by the government, aiming to improve society? HERESY! Quick, get the Private-Public-Partnership-Priest in here to perform a capitalism!
Without government, who would send the mail?
Idk, in Canada we sold off our postal service, and there aren't many people who've done anything about it
But that's the thing - the Post Office probably wouldn't have flourished as well without the public-private partnership. Partnering with the private railroads explosively increased the efficiency of the postal service. I'm not saying that we should privatize the post office or anything, I'm just saying that you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one.
Exter that's bullshit....I work for Canada Post....it's still very much pic service right here in case ada with zero private owners
Lol. That was really funny. 100 internet points for you.
One of my favorite videos you've made. I've rewatched it at least 10 times!
Wait, there are countries with sovereignty movements?
Definitely not Brazil. That's just a made up fact.
Hi!
I am Brazilian and as far as I know, we don't have any serious "sovereignty movement within our boarders", neither! But I see the point you're trying to prove.
Your videos are definitely amazing. keep it coming!
Now Trump Wants To Dismantle It
It's really Sad when Everything is Politicised by a Sitting president
@@napoleonbonaparte7686 So true and he won't win this fight. USPS forever.
A thing that I might add to this - in the video you made it seem like "pony express" was an american invention, but it was well known in europe as even in the middle ages, but back then, messengers traveling like that would be at service only for more wealthy ones, like kings, dukes, magnates and others like that. Plus - important messages would not be written on paper, but the messenger would have to memorise it. But yeah, switching horses in every couple villages was known back then.
As a Canadian, I can tell you that there is absolutely no major sovereignty movement. You might be thinking of Quebec, but their sovereignty movement has almost completely died.
X GAMINGTACO X 49% of Quebec voted to leave Canada in 1995. It wasn't that long ago.
X GAMINGTACO X naw that shit is still alive some what British lite
I love wendover productions, they're informative, intelligent, and have a good pace to them.
Your voice is at a Morgan Freeman level.
Eason Murphree ion know about that.
Great Video Wendover. Everyone should write a letter..we all love to receive letters rather than an email..
don't Texas and California want to get out of the union?
Tom Sistermans He said serious sovereignty movement. Not a trendy hashtag and a joke about Texas' orgins.
Those movements are extremely tiny and not particularly serious.
There are probably more Texans in the Californian separatist movement than Californians.
Opposite. Several hundred thousand Californians move to Texas every year. lol The Texas secessionist movement got more traction under Obama, while the California secessionist government got more traction under Trump. Neither movement is nationalistic, they're, ironically, protest movements related to national politics.
no. just because a tiny minority wants out, doesnt mean the whole state wants it.
The Post Office isn't obsolete. Post Office has to serve everyone. Private services can deny service to people who live in places too expensive to deliver to. That's why USPS is still important. No matter what they have to deliver your package where it needs to go.
9:18 *ahem* Texas *ahem*
SyncOut 226 Actually I was thinking of Puerto Rico.
SyncOut 226
Key word there is Serious
Aiden18734 the texit is actually very big AND for real
It's not really serious
+Thundercast Tech
By very big, do you mean less than 5%? Because that's what you're looking at.
Liberty. Reason. Justice. Civility. Edification. Perfection.
MAIL.
21 views but 63 likes. nice UA-cam
Ben Franklin appointed first Post-Master General for British North America. Later the American PMG.
Railway post offices are British: Just a few years after Rowland Hill introduced prepaid adhesive coupons for mail - called them postage stamps - the Royal Mail (open to the paying public since 1665) experimented with a railway run of mail from London to Edinburgh with sorting happening in a modified postal car. Immediate success. Thereafter EVERYWHERE in the British Empire and other countries rail car sorting became the norm. This was early 1840's in UK.
Railway Post Offices were developed in Canada. Some villages or towns were too new, too small for a PO so the Royal Mail leased rail cars, outfit them appropriately and made scheduled stops along lines to receive (and sort) outbound mail and received customers in a small office front in the car and had mail ready for recipients. US, Australia, India, South Africa all copied.
USPS could revitalise today if not for political meddling (fedex, ups anyone?) and be great again.
Very interesting video. A PO put people in touch with their national govt and people around the WORLD. It was a sign the area was settled well enough something as innocuous as a PO could exist - a settlement had become a town.
n-th
Thank you for the videos. I learned a lot from your channel. keep up the great work
I really love your informative videos. Could you do one about the history of the Interstate System?
I hope the post office stays influential. I get a lot of packages through USPS so they're definitely not obsolete.
I do wish you had made mention of Lysander Spooner's private company and how competition has shaped the Postal Service as well.
But as always, your videos are amazingly done. Loved the music a whole lot on this one too.
I exclusively use USPS for ebay, and so do like 90% of ebayers. No one else will allow you to send an 8 oz package to california from florida with tracking for $2.61. In 3 days I might add.
The transcontinental railroad opened in 1869 not 1863 (completed in May 1869 in Promontory point, Utah)
How the first airmail pilots used to find their way? They were guided by giant concrete arrows built on the ground, called Beacon Stations. "They were at the base of 50 foot skeleton towers that had a 24" or 36" rotating beacon and in the early days painted Chrome Yellow. Where electricity was unavailable they had a generator to power the beacon.They pointed to the next higher numbered beacon station, directing the pilot along his route. All arrows pointed east on the west-east airways and north on the south-north airways. They were built between December 1926 and November 1932, when metal arrows became the standard."
Great video. I still love getting and sending mail- it's not totally obsolete yet!
My rental company only accepts checks. To mail it by USPS: .49 cents. Via UPS or FedEx: starts at $7 for domestic delivery. My uncle lives in Bali, Indonesia. Sending a letter to him costs $1.87. There is still a need for the USPS.
Pretty cool video. Amazing that back then it was impressive to see information being sent across the US in ten days, while now we can send information almost instantly.