The JuniperLea primitive is showing her age, although her memory is faulty.
JuniperLea (1000+ posts)
Response to Original message
2. Not surprising...
When I was a kid the mail was delivered twice a day during the week, and there was no Saturday delivery at all.
franksolich knows this only from stamp-collecting, not from his memory, which doesn't stretch back that far.
From the 1890s until sometime during the first Eisenhower administration (1953-1957), mail in cities and towns was delivered two times a day Monday-Friday and once on Saturday. (Rural delivery areas got it only once a day, Monday-Saturday.)
It was quite possible--in fact, quite frequent--to get something in the morning mail, read it, respond to it, mail the response, and it would be delivered yet that same day.
Concurrent with the introduction of the four-cent first-class rate, the Post Office did away with twice-a-day delivery, anticipating saved costs.
The unintended consequence was increased costs in the forms of storage and warehousing; the mail had to sit around longer, and mail piles up.
This was exacerbated by abolishing the premium air-mail service, and making all first-class mail air-mail (sometime during the first Richard Nixon administration, 1969-1973, and concurrent with the introduction of the eight-cent first-class rate), which meant that mail went from, say, New York City to Los Angeles within a day (rather than three days).....but that had to sit around, it taking three days to go from addressor to addressee.
The net gain to consumer: increased postage rates, nothing more than that.
