WASHINGTON, July 5, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
MAIL CALL
Profile America — Sunday, July 5th. The month of July has put its stamp on U.S. Postal Service history. In early July 1847, the first Post Office-issued stamps went on sale. Before then, there were no uniform stamps — a haphazard system of private postal services around the country had issued their own. Less exaltedly, the first drive-up mailbox was installed in 1927 in Houston. And in 1963, the postal service introduced the ZIP code to help speed mail service. That year, Americans sent nearly 68 billion pieces of mail. Lately, the Postal Service handles 155 billion pieces of mail annually, while nearly a half-million Americans work in 9,000 private courier and express delivery establishments. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.
Sources:
First post office issued stamps: http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/stamps-postcards.htm
Denominations: http://www.stamp-one.com/gallery/hopkins/1847issue.htm
Early mail: http://stamps.org/Stamp-History
Drive-up mailbox: Kane's Famous First Facts, 6009
Zip codes: http://pdxretro.com/2011/07/post-office-zip-codes-introduced-on-this-date-in-1963/
1963 volume: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 804
Current volume: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/decade-of-facts-and-figures.htm
Couriers and delivery services/ NAICS 492110: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
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