Zip Codes: A History

[Music] you know today if you want to mail a letter or a package almost anywhere in the world it's a relatively simple process if you know the name the address and the postal code that's all the information needed for a postal carrier to get the package where it's supposed to go but while we take that service for granted today the development of a service where you could reasonably expect that you could drop off a package and have it arrive where you hope for it to go was an incredibly important development in human history one that is absolutely vital to the modern world in which we live of course the development and convocation of addresses was important but perhaps just as important was the development of those postal codes a series of numbers that give the postal carrier most or all the information they need to get a letter or whatever you ordered from amazon yesterday to your front door the history of the underappreciated but incredibly important zip code deserves to be remembered the earliest postal systems didn't bear much similarity to the ones used today the ancient egyptians were possibly the first instituting a kind of state-sponsored message carrying system with dedicated couriers nearly 4 400 years ago less well-attested systems may have existed in china even earlier other fertile crescent civilizations like the assyrians and babylonians also had impromptu systems used by businesses in the wealthy and likely using paid couriers for messages that had to be written down and sent these were not usable by the general populace but created by nearly all empires that followed to send orders and official documents to institute taxes and enforce rule perhaps the best early mail system was that of the achaemenid persians who could transport messages using horse riding couriers working in relay across the massive empire in a matter of days from the capital of souza messages could reach the city of sardis 2600 kilometers in seven to nine days along royal roads according to dr lindsey allen it marked the first time that consistently formatted letters folded and sealed were used it was far more efficient than any of the systems that predated it and herodotus's description of it has become the unofficial model of the us postal service chiseled on a new york city post office on 8th avenue neither snow nor heath nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds across the world other systems developed in china the islamic empire the mongol empire and the inca empire in south america until the early modern era a regular person sending a message had to hire a courier or send it along with travelers and hope that the message reached its destination in 15th century in europe the holy roman empire contracted the italian torrey and tasso family to handle mail in the empire which in germany was called the turn and toxies post the family would control much of the continental postal service until the 19th century in 1653 jean-jacques renaud de vigliere established his own mail system in paris using mailboxes established throughout the city he would deliver letters placed in them using prepaid envelopes that he sold though the experiment failed this petite post was imitated more successfully in other large cities charles ii of england instituted the general post office in 1660 replacing the version set up in 1657 by oliver cromwell the london penny post was established in 1680 and used what some consider to be the first postage stamp not self-adhesive but actual ink stamps which postmarked the letters adhesive postage stamps like those that we used today were also invented in england by roland hill in 1837 he was knighted for his invention growing cities quickly made mail delivery more complex as did the number of cities in vast areas of rural land that needed mail service increased literacy and commerce was also contributing to a huge explosion of mail it was roland hill who again suggested a solution to the growing difficulties of male delivery especially in london where many streets had the same name he suggested splitting the city into 10 districts named by compass points northern northeastern eastern and so on along with eastern and western central with corresponding post offices in each the plan was authorized in 1856 and implemented over the next two years other english cities began to imitate the system using a letter to denote the town and a number that indicated a geographical district by the 1930s at least a dozen large towns that instituted similar systems in the united kingdom during world war ii these systems were refined by adding sub-districts as new staff were brought in to replace long-serving postal employees who joined the war effort the 20th century saw cities across europe and the united states developed similar systems the earliest american versions likely started informally with the earliest known referring to boston those early plans are often called zone plans the earliest modern postal code appeared in 1932 in the ukrainian soviet socialist republic december of 1932 ukraine instituted a national fully governed support system with a three-digit postal code called an index the government released a 268-page book with every town village and royal council's new code the system was abandoned in 1939 for unclear reasons possibly political or maybe related to world war ii world war ii was an important moment for the development of postal codes elsewhere as well just as in world war one postal workers were sent to combat in increasing numbers leaving new workers who didn't have the same intimate knowledge of their zones nazi germany was next to institute postal codes on july 25 1941 using a two-digit system initially only for parcel delivery but later for all mail world war ii led the united states to institute postal zones officially which did not cover the entire country but did cover 124 of the country's largest urban areas in response to rising male volume these areas had one or two digit codes written after the city name but before the state more efficient systems began to evolve around the world after the war singapore instituted codes in 1950 argentina in 1958. the uk began testing five digit codes in 1959 but didn't complete a nationwide adoption of the codes until 1974. canada instituted one in 1971 in india in 1972. in 1962 postmaster general edward day declared in his annual report that the current system was outdated and outmatched by urban expansion and the increase in mail between 1943 and 1962 mail volume had doubled from 33 billion pieces annually to 66.5 billion in 1944 postal inspector robert moon had actually first envisioned the zip code concept when he developed a three-digit system moon had correctly surmised that mail would soon be transported not by train but primarily by plane and the time that was lost to sort which used to be done while the train traveled would require greater organization moon submitted the idea at least three times until it was finally studied by a committee in 1962 officially the post office gives credit for the zip code concept to multiple people including moon the three digits combined with a two-digit local zone number created the five-digit number that we are familiar with today the name zip was derived from the previous plan to try to improve the existing postal zones and officially stands for zone improvement process but it was also a piece of marketing the suggestion that the new codes would allow mail to zip across the country the advancement wouldn't have been possible however without machines that could automate much of the sorting process prior to machines huge workforces were needed to sort the mail by hand the postal service estimates that eight to ten employees handled the letter just to sort it mail sorting machines had actually existed for decades specifically the transforma machines built by a dutch company starting in 1927 standing for transport and sorting plus the initials of the inventors it began used throughout the netherlands before world war ii the united kingdom had several machines by 1935 but most of the sorting was still done by employees they were among the first machines used by the u.s postal service in 1957 in silver spring maryland in order to prepare for more automation the possible service instituted the national improved mail service program in 1961 which standardized the physical sizes and shapes of envelopes the zip code was developed in part because of automated machines who could find it easily readable and would negate many of the problems with similar names across the country more machines came quickly and soon the transformer machines were replaced by ones capable of optical character recognition the five-digit zip code contains several important numbers the first number designates a national area with the u.s being split into ten sections the following two numbers indicate a sectional center facility while the final two represents either an area of a city or a particular village or town all postal code systems work in essentially the same way uk an up to seven digit alphanumeric system contains first and outward code with the first one or two letters indicating an area such as a city or county followed by one or two letter or digit district followed by a space in an inward code that includes a single digit sector and a two-letter unit that refers to a specific set of buildings street or even single delivery point at least 116 countries now require some kind of postal code for mailing in the united states the first area to be subdivided was puerto rico and the first postal code defined was zero zero 601 given to ajuntas puerto rico the next was zero one zero zero one to the town of agawam in massachusetts the lowest zip code currently was given specifically to the irs in holtsville new york zero zero 501. the numbers essentially grow moving from the east coast to the west coast with the highest zip code being 99950 belonging to ketchikan alaska well they largely line up with state and even city borders that was not the intent zip codes were supposed to reflect mailing routes to more efficiently organized mail delivery because addressing machines could only have so many characters the post office also sought to standardize state abbreviations in 1963. previously california was abbreviated to c-a-l-i-f alaska a-l-s-k and utah and ohio weren't abbreviated at all in fact prior to 1963 the post office generally even preferred the state to be fully written out since they were standardized in october of 1963 only one of the two letter abbreviations has changed nebraska which was originally nb until it was changed in 1969 to ne to avoid confusion with new brunswick canada but the invention of zip codes alone wasn't enough people had to actually use them remember only you can put zip in your postal system there was a reason to be concerned a t had struggled mindly to get people to adopt area codes and told the post office as much when they gave them a new marketing tool mr zip according to the united states postal service historian mr zip was originally designed by harold wilcox son of a letter carrier and a member of the cunningham and walsh advertising agency for use by chase manhattan bank as part of a bank by mail campaign used only a few times att purchased the rights to the character and allowed the post office to use it without cost slightly altered the post office introduced mr zip in october of 1962 the same time as the zip code postmaster general day planned a huge marketing effort to accompany the zip code mimicking the push that the west german postal system had made to get their country to use codes in april of 1963 a post office department memorandum and advertising kits informed postmasters that zip codes would be introduced on july 1st 1963. you have two months within which to accomplish what some cities have not accomplished in many years the memo acknowledged mr zip played a large role appearing in countless ads in newspapers and elsewhere on stamps on signs on buttons and posters and on tv famous broadway actress and singer ethel merman was even enlisted to sing a version of zippity-doo-dah that included the lyrics welcome to zip codes learn it today send your mail out the five-digit way snoopy moan that he was doomed because he forgot his zip code in a comic in september 1963. the department even formed the swingin six to sing about zip codes and encourage children to include a zip on their letters to santa [Music] it wasn't accepted without complaint many americans were simply sick of numbers between area codes phone numbers and even social security numbers the oakland tribune grown that the post office has employed santa to intimidate children into using zip codes to further subdue men with digits the democrat argust of caruthersville missouri wrote that americans were surrounded and enveloped in a maze of numbers by the government the daily herald in chicago complained that the zip code may have been the last straw for citizens of a sometimes over organized society people rebelling with apathy it added and yet by 1966 half the country were using zip codes and by 1969 83 mr zip and his more elusive wife mrs zip were phased out in the 1970s but in 1983 the post office added another four digits to make things even more specific relating to po boxes and even the side of the street which was also met with some consternation one opinion piece in indiana announced zip plus four equals nonsense not nine in 1993 they instituted another two digits on top with a 12th check digit the introduction of the post-net barcode in 1980 made them even easier to sort by machine postnet was replaced by the intelligent mail barcode in 2013. and zip codes have even found their way into our popular culture just ask the residents of 90210 the system today can generally find those extra digits for you as we the mailing public never seem to quite embrace the nine digit zip code but the post office have offered discounts to large mailers who use the system and in the future even more sophisticated systems like geo codes might arrive although those will probably raise their own set of complaints still the development of postal codes has been inextricably linked to the advancement of human civilization it's an important part of the answer the question of how we share information and goods and services across an increasingly interconnected globe even as emails come to replace much of the previous normal mail direct delivery systems have come to replace much of retail sales and so while mr zip might be retired the system that he represented is likely to continue well into the future shoot at some point we may even need to add a couple of digits to represent well what planet you live on i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music] you will really make you flip so if you have baby further muscle demands we're gonna leave you in his hands you know you gotta have a zip [Music] [Applause] [Music] we know it's up to you to make zip code [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all everything will be [Applause]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 147,331

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, zip codes, postal history

Id: s7gcO-Qs9eY

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 03 2022