For more than thirty years the history of postal policy and operations has been a major focus of my scholarly research.  This site lists the products of these studies, mainly articles and government reports, and provides full-text copies wherever possible.  Most of these works examine the postal system as a network for the delivery of public information—newspapers, magazines, books, and advertising.  Other areas of emphasis include the universal service obligation of the postal system and parcel post.

This site was launched in January 2009 and will be updated frequently through the early part of the year.

For my writings on non-postal topics, click here.

Contact me if you need copies of materials not online (I hope to add more), or if you have questions:

     Richard B. Kielbowicz
     Associate Professor
     Department of Communication
     Box 353740
     University of Washington
     Seattle, WA 98195

     kielbowi@u.washington.edu
 

News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s.  Contributions in American History, No. 138.  New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.

     Main topics: newspapers, magazines, advertising, postal expresses, printers'/editors' exchanges, postal transports, postal network, postal politics, rates, books, postal administration

Universal Postal Service: A Policy History, 1790-1970 (2002), report for Postal Rate Commission (PRC; renamed Postal Regulatory Commission in 2006), available at http://www.prc.gov/prc-pages/newsroom/TechnicalPapers.aspx?name=KIELBOWICZ.  Also prepared an executive summary for the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service, Jan. 24, 2003.

Postal Enterprise: Post Office Innovations with Congressional Constraints, 1789-1970 (2000), report for Postal Rate (now Regulatory) Commission, available at http://www.prc.gov/prc-pages/newsroom/TechnicalPapers.aspx?name=KIELBOWICZ; reprinted in E-Commerce Activities of the U.S. Postal Service: Hearings Before the International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, 106th Cong., 2d sess. (Sen. Hrg. 106-762) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2001), 168-247.

A History of Mail Classification and Its Underlying Policies and Purposes (1995), report for Postal Rate (now Regulatory) Commission.  The best copy for searching is here.  Official copy (should have same pagination) available at http://www.prc.gov/prc-pages/newsroom/TechnicalPapers.aspx?name=KIELBOWICZ; also testified as part of a proceeding, Docket MC95-1, to revise the mail classification structure.

A Policy History of Selected Preferred Mail Categories (1986), report for Postal Rate (now Regulatory) Commission; published as appendix A in Report to the Congress: Preferred Rate Study (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1986), 1-148.

Development of the Paid Subscriber Rule in Second-Class Mail (1985), report for Postal Rate (Regulatory) Commission, available at http://www.prc.gov/prc-pages/newsroom/TechnicalPapers.aspx?name=KIELBOWICZ; also served as a witness for the Commission in Docket C85-2.

Entry on the "Postal Service," Governing America: Major Policies and Decisions of Federal, State, and Local Government (Facts on File, in preparation).

Review of F. Robert van der Linden, Airlines and Air Mail: The Post Office and the Birth of the Commercial Aviation Industry, for Journal of Economic History 63 (September 2003): 913-14.

Entry on "Postal Service," Oxford Companion to United States History.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.  Pp. 612-13.

Entry on "Post Office and the Media," in History of the Mass Media in the United States: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Blanchard (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998): 524-26.

Review of Bernhard Siegert, Relays: Literature as an Epoch of the Postal System, for Technology & Culture 42 (July 2001): 563-64.

Review of Richard John, Jr., Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse, for Business History 39 (Jan. 1997): 126-27 (British journal).

Review of C. R. Perry, The Victorian Post Office: The Growth of a Bureaucracy, for Technology & Culture 34 (October 1993): 940-41.

Several of my studies touch on aspects of postal history in connection with other topics.

Societal Values That Have Guided the U.S. Communication System: A Short History (1988), report for the Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress.

The Role of Communication in the Development of Communities and Markets: An Historical Overview (1987), report for Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress.

"AT&T's Antigovernment Lesson-Drawing in the Political Economy of Networks, 1905-20," History of Political Economy (in press for winter 2009  publication).
     Article examines debates over the possible nationalization of telecommunication; many of the arguments, including quite a few by economists, compared postal networks with telecommunication systems.

Richard Kielbowicz and Linda Lawson, "Unmasking Hidden Commercials in Broadcasting: Origins of the Sponsorship Identification Regulations, 1927-1963," Federal Communications Law Journal 56 (March 2004): 329-76.
     Examines the origins of sponsorship identification rules in broadcasting that derived from postal regulations requiring the disclosure of ad content disguised as editorial content.
     Article [pdf]

"Party Press Cohesiveness: Jacksonian Newspapers, 1832," Journalism Quarterly 60 (Autumn 1983): 518-21.

"News in the Mails, 1690-1863: The Technology, Policy, and Politics of a Communication Channel" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1984).

"Universal Postal Service: A Policy History to 1971," presented at the annual meeting of the National Council of Public History, Houston, April 2003.

"Some Technological and Geographic Aspects of Newsgathering, 1820-1860," presented at the annual meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association, St. Louis, October 1986.

"The Cultural Politics of Information in the Age of Jackson," presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Indianapolis, July 1984.

"Magazines and Postal Policy Before the Second-Class Mail Category," presented to the Magazine Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Corvallis, Oregon, August 1983.

"The Eastern Media Establishment: An Enduring Criticism of the Press," presented at the annual meeting of the Western Social Science Association, Albuquerque, April 1980.

"Newspaper Postage, 1792-1845: Rationales for a Privileged Status," presented to the History Division, AEJ, Madison, Wisconsin, August 1977.

Presentation on "The Postal Classification of Printed Matter: A Short History" to attorneys and senior managers of the U.S. Postal Service, Washington, D.C., June 7, 1989.

Presentation on "Printed Matter and Advertisements in Postal Policy: A Short History to the 1920s" to the staff of the Postal Rate Commission, Washington, D.C., April 12, 1989.

Presentation on "Nothing New under the Sun: The 1880s to 1920s as a Backdrop for Current Postal Controversies" to American Bar Association forum on postal law and policy, Washington, D.C., March 6, 1989.

Chairman, committee of three scholars that administers the annual Rita Moroney Award, conferred by the U.S. Postal Service, for the best scholarly research on the history of the U.S. postal system (2005-present).

Member, Advisory Council, Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum, 2003-2008.