IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcl/mclwop/2009-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The United States Post Office Domestic Postal Money Order System In The 19th Century: A Nascient Banking System

Author

Listed:
  • Tom Velk
  • Terence Hines

Abstract

The domestic United States Postal Money Order System was established in 1864 to allow Union soldiers to send money home to their relatives and to reduce the risks of sending cash through the mails. By the late 1800s, this system had become a major means of conveying smaller (less than $100) sums of money throughout the country. By 1890 the total value of money orders issued was over $110 million a year. In this paper we describe the development and basic structure of this system. The system performed a major function of a bank by providing a cheap, safe and highly reliable means of transferring funds to almost any place in the country where there was a post office. This system has gone unnoticed by previous writers on 19th Century financial history. This paper is divided into two parts. The first is a description of the origin, operation and magnitude of the system. The second part uses a detailed record of money order activity in a small 19th century New Hampshire town to show that records of the postal money order system can provide unique windows into the economic activity at the local level.

Suggested Citation

  • Tom Velk & Terence Hines, 2009. "The United States Post Office Domestic Postal Money Order System In The 19th Century: A Nascient Banking System," Departmental Working Papers 2009-11, McGill University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcl:mclwop:2009-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mcgill.ca/files/economics/hines_velk_working_paper_money.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Milton Friedman & Anna Jacobson Schwartz, 1970. "Monetary Statistics of the United States: Estimates, Sources, Methods," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie70-1, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Calomiris, Charles W. & Mason, Joseph R. & Wheelock, David C., 2011. "Did Doubling Reserve Requirements Cause the Recession of 1937-1938? A Microeconomic Approach," Working Papers 11-03, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    2. Bordo, Michael D & Choudhri, Ehsan U & Schwartz, Anna J, 1995. "Could Stable Money Have Averted the Great Contraction?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(3), pages 484-505, July.
    3. Söderlind, Paul, 1995. "Forward Interest Rates as Indicators of Inflation Expectations," CEPR Discussion Papers 1313, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. William A. Barnett & Marcelle Chauvet & Heather L. R. Tierney, 2011. "Measurement Error in Monetary Aggregates: A Markov Switching Factor Approach," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Aggregation And Index Number Theory, chapter 7, pages 207-249, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Bordo, Michael D., 1986. "Explorations in monetary history: A survey of the literature," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 339-415, October.
    6. Vijay VICTOR & Maria FEKETE FARKAS & Florence JEESON, 2018. "Inflation unemployment dynamics in Hungary – A structured cointegration and vector error correction model approach," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(2(615), S), pages 195-204, Summer.
    7. Michael D. Bordo & David C. Wheelock, 2004. "Monetary policy and asset prices: a look back at past U.S. stock market booms," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Nov), pages 19-44.
    8. Allen Sinai & Houston H. Stokes, 1989. "Money Balances in the Production Function: A Retrospective Look," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 349-363, Oct-Dec.
    9. Livio Di Matteo & Angela Redish, 2015. "The evolution of financial intermediation: Evidence from 19th-century Ontario microdata," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(3), pages 963-987, August.
    10. Shambaugh, Jay C., 2006. "An experiment with multiple currencies: the American monetary system from 1838-60," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 609-645, October.
    11. Nelson, Edward, 2003. "The future of monetary aggregates in monetary policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1029-1059, July.
    12. Michael D. Bordo & Michael J. Dueker & David C. Wheelock, 2002. "Aggregate Price Shocks and Financial Instability: A Historical Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 521-538, October.
    13. Klaus Kraemer & Florian Brugger & Luka Jakelja, 2017. "Social Usage of Money: Which Roles Does Money Play in the Life-Cycle-Stage of Children?," Working Paper Series, Social and Economic Sciences 2017-04, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Karl-Franzens-University Graz.
    14. William A. Barnett, 2000. "Which Road Leads to Stable Money Demand?," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: The Theory of Monetary Aggregation, pages 577-592, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    15. Peter F. Basile & John Landon-Lane & Hugh Rockoff, 2010. "Money and Interest Rates in the United States during the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 16204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Dahalan, Jauhari & Sharma, Subhash C. & Sylwester, Kevin, 2005. "Divisia monetary aggregates and money demand for Malaysia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1137-1153, January.
    17. William A. Barnett & Marcelle Chauvet, 2011. "International Financial Aggregation and Index Number Theory: A Chronological Half-Century Empirical Overview," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Financial Aggregation And Index Number Theory, chapter 1, pages 1-51, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Giovannini, Alberto & Labadie, Pamela, 1991. "Asset Prices and Interest Rates in Cash-in-Advance Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(6), pages 1215-1251, December.
    19. Rocheteau, Guillaume & Rodriguez-Lopez, Antonio, 2014. "Liquidity provision, interest rates, and unemployment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 80-101.
    20. Charles W. Calomiris, 1993. "Financial Factors in the Great Depression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 61-85, Spring.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mcl:mclwop:2009-11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shama Rangwala (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demcgca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.