Economic History: Rural Free Delivery

For much of the nation's history, rural Americans had to travel — sometimes great distances — to send and receive their mail or they had to hire a private courier to deliver it. When the weather made travel on country roads difficult, rural families could sometimes go weeks without any contact or communication with the outside world. This situation was in stark contrast to that of Americans who lived in urban areas, where mail had been delivered daily since 1863. In 1890, however, there were far more people living in the countryside than in cities: 41 million Americans, or 65 percent of the population, called rural America home. Advocates of free delivery of rural mail in the late 19th century argued that it wasn't right for so many Americans to be left behind with limited access to news and information, as well as to new economic opportunities made available through the daily free delivery of mail. Through the Post Office Department, the federal government would eventually act in the mid-1890s, implementing Rural Free Delivery (RFD), which brought daily mail to millions of rural homes. As President Roosevelt pointed out, the program positively transformed rural life, ushering in changes in the relationship between rural residents and each other, the economy, and their government.