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For much of American history, the mail was our main form of organized communication. Americans wanting to know the state of the world, the health of a friend, or the fate of their business anxiously awaited the mail. To advise a distant relative, to order goods, to pay a bill, to express views to their congressmen or love to their fiancée, they used the mail. No American institution has been more intimately involved in daily hopes and fears.

The history of the U.S. mail is not only interesting but also reflective of changes in American 7society, specifically transportation. A variety of modes of transporting mail have been used over the years. Speed, of course, was the driving force behind most of the changes.

Steamboats

Congress used inventions to move the mail from place to place. In 1813, five years after Robert Fulton’s first experiments on the Hudson River, Congress authorized the Post Office to transport mail by steamboat. Transporting mail to river cities worked very well. However, the efficiency of using steamboats to transport mail between New York and San Francisco was questionable. “The distance was 19,000 miles and the trip could take as long as six to seven months.”

Railroads

Although mail was carried by railroads as early as 1834, it was not until 1838 that Congress declared railroads to be post roads. Trains eventually revolutionized mail delivery. The cost of sending a letter decreased substantially, making it more affordable to the public.

No Aspect of American life was untouched by the revolution that the trains brought in bringing mail service almost to the level of a free good. (For many years-ironically enough, until the depression called for an increase in the cost of a first-class letter to three cents-an ordinary first-class letter went for two cents.)

Pony Express

The Pony Express was one of the most colorful means of transporting mail. This method of delivery was used to take mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, westward.

April 3, 1860, remains a memorable day in the history of the frontier, for that was the day on which Pony express began its operations-westward from St. Joseph and eastward from San Francisco. Even in those days San Francisco had already become the most important city in California.

With the East Coast being connected to the West Coast by railroad in 1869, the Pony express had a relatively short life span.

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 Humans have always communicated with each other. After the electricity had been invented, it was possible for the Morse and others that work on the telegraph. The speed of the telegraph was to drop Pony Express, pigeons and smoke signals, for now, there was keen masts along the railway tracks and at every railway station, could receive or send messages.

Prize in 1856 for sending messages was approx. 40 cents for 15 words.

In the late 19th century came the wireless telegraph (radio wave) which we can thank for Guglielmo Marconi. Until then, ships had only been able to communicate closely on land or close to other ships. The wireless telegraph also used Morse code to send messages.

Probably the most famous Morse signal is enough SOS (… — …) as the Titanic when it sent aid into an iceberg and as everyone knows and does help. Today when we speak over the radio or telephone use is also May Day comes from the French “M’aidez” and does help me. Another interesting thing about Morse code is that you can also use sound, light or flags to send signals.

 
You can compare the telegraph to today’s email to the email computer also communicate with signs, it is obviously much faster than Morse code, but the principle of communicating the same speed is the same. But the difference between e-mail and the telegraph is that everyone can send an e-mail if we have learned to read and write and have a computer available. To use the telegraph, you should be trained to send and understand the codes and it was only such military and postal services were trained. Millions of people have up to several computers at home and sends e-mails every day. It is also cheaper.

But the Internet (and thus e-mails) would not exist if no electricity and the telegraph was invented and further developed by various scientists

And to think, as stated above it used to take days or even months to send a message from one person to another via pony express.

Samuel F B Morse created “Morse Code” by using the basic elements of the dot (dit) and the dash (dah) being the dot the minimal duration element, with the dash equal to three times the duration of the dot. Electrically, current flowed with both dots and dashes. The time between each element of the same character was one dot. The amount of time between each character was three dots; and the time between words was equal to seven dots! During these idle time intervals, the telegraph line was open (no current flow)

Unfortunately, Morse code suffered from a couple of drawbacks. For starters skilled telegraph operators were required, and the work of these operators was grueling (well what do you expect, can you imagine tapping on a single key all day). Also, because the code had varying numbers of elements between characters, it was very difficult to automate. But at least it still beat the pony express.

All in all it really just shows how once upon a time it took days, months or probably years if the message was sent from the other side of the world to reach its destination. So just imagine if the pony express had to still exist today…..

Data communications as we know it will forever keep changing as inventors will keep finding ways to improve the way we all communicate today. Who knows what they will come up with next.