Carriers setting out on their daily rounds (1936)

This photograph, in possession of the National Post Museum, shows dozens of carriers leaving the main city post office building in New York City on June 15, 1936. Among the items carriers had in their mailbags for delivery that day were the first “bonus army” checks. The “bonus army” were World War I veterans who demonstrated in Washington, D.C. in 1932 for more rapid payment of their Service Certificate payments. The veterans received cashable bonds in 1936.

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States, including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorised by the United States Constitution.

The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The Post Office Department was created in 1792 from Franklin’s operation. It was elevated to a cabinet-level department in 1872, and was transformed by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 into the United States Postal Service as an independent agency.