Episode 4: Paper Trails
When we think about the history of westward expansion and the growth of state power in the United States, the postal system probably isn’t the first institution that comes to mind. But this week, that’s exactly what we’ll be exploring: the unsung power and reach of the U.S. Postal Service in the late-19th century America.
It took Anglo-Americans nearly two hundred years to occupy the eastern half of what became the United States, but just one generation in the late-19th century to occupy the rest of the continent. This exponential increase in settlement speed and occupation can be attributed in large part to the sprawling geography and localized operations of the American postal system. During this era of settlement, Americans relied on letters and newspapers, magazines and pamphlets, petitions and money orders to stay connected to the world, and the post office enabled them all. It did this at such a high volume that by 1899, there were five times as many post offices in the U.S. as there are McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. in 2023.
This week’s conversation on the role of the postal system in developing the American West features Dr. Cameron Blevins of the University of Colorado Denver, author of Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West.
Guest:
Cameron Blevins teaches United States history and digital humanities at the University of Colorado Denver as an Associate Professor on the Clinical Teaching Track in the History Department. Along with his professorship, he has participated in multiple digital humanities and research projects and is a frequent conference speaker.
Cameron Blevins is associate professor of history at CU Denver and a respected leader in the field of digital history. He also serves as the interim Director of Digital Initiatives for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where he leads the Digital Studies Certificate for students to develop computational skills while understanding the relationship between those technologies and wider society. As part of an interdisciplinary team, he and his fellow researchers won one of five CU Next Awards, which supports faculty pedagogical innovation across University of Colorado campuses.
He is the author of Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West, which presents a spatial interpretation of the nineteenth-century American state by mapping the sprawling infrastructure of the nation’s postal network. Its companion website, Gossamer Network, depicts the spread of thousands of post offices across the western United States.
Follow him on Twitter @historying and visit his website cameronblevins.org.