You never know where a story will take you, and it was in that adventurous spirit that I volunteered in early 2011 when Josh Tyrangiel, former editor in chief of Bloomberg Businessweek, said offhandedly that he was interested in a story about the U.S. Postal Service. I didn’t know the first thing about the USPS, but Josh knows a good story. This was no exception but it wasn’t easy. I spent three months reporting and going through several drafts before I got it right.
The story was entitled “The End of Mail,” and when it was published that May, it got more of a response than anything else I’d ever written. Whether they love it or hate it, people care about the postal service. It was clear that there was a bigger story to tell. I struggled with a book proposal for too long. My agent Adam Eaglin came along at just the right time and connected me with Jamison Stoltz, senior editor at Grove Atlantic. Jamison was enthusiastic about this project when we met in 2013, and his feeling about it has never waned, which has been enormously helpful, along with all his suggestions on how to make this a better book.
The USPS is a big topic. You need people to guide you as you try to figure it out. Jim Campbell, one of the world’s most respected experts on the mail delivery, was kind enough early on to send me four disks holding all of the annual reports of the postmaster generals to Congress dating back to 1824 and a wealth of other historical documents. I can’t thank him enough for doing that. Sue Brennan, senior media relations representative at the USPS, helped me find my way around inside the USPS. She couldn’t have been more supportive. I’m also grateful to Jenny Lynch, the postal service’s historian. Sue and Jenny functioned as a tag team, answering my questions about the colonial post and antebellum mail delivery the same day.
I spent a lot of time talking to USPS executives including U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan and her predecessors Patrick Donahoe, William Henderson, Anthony Frank, Paul Carlin, and Benjamin Franklin Bailar. They were so gracious, answering my dumb questions and telling me fascinating things. So were former deputy postmaster generals Michael Coughlin and John Nolan and many more former officials, whose stories I tried to bring to life in this book.
I got to know people at postal workers’ unions too. Jim Sauber, chief of staff at the National Letter Carriers Association, helped me understand the views of his members. I visited the Walter Reuther Library at Wayne State University, where Mike Smith was kind enough to provide me with his insightful interviews with former NALC presidents James Rademacher and Vincent Sombrotto, which I drew heavily on to write my chapters about the 1970 postal workers’ strike. Mike put me in touch with Jim Rademacher himself. Jim and I had a lengthy conversation in 2013. He is 92 years old and just as passionate about the postal service as ever. I’m grateful to him for sharing his stories. I also talked several times to Mark Dimonstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, and also relied on documents and press clippings from the late APWU president Moe Biller’s papers at the Taminent Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University.
I had some fine researchers. Christine Bednarz clicked with the subject matter and spent hours at the Library of Congress, the USPS library, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, and the Historical Society of Philadelphia gathering material. In the final stages, my friend Danielle Muoio retrieved articles for me and did important interviews when I was in the midst of rewrites.
Then there is my family. I dedicate this book to them not simply because I think they are the greatest. They put in a lot of work on it. My wife, Eileen, read most of these chapters early on and told me hard truths about them. I didn’t always want hear them at the time, but she was invariably right, though it took me a while to accept it sometimes. We’ve been married for 28 years; sometimes it’s like that. Our daughter Faith transcribed taped interviews and seemed to instantly grasp arcane postal matters.
Our son Colin was more steeped in this project than anyone besides the author. Like his father, he became something of an expert on postal matter. He found old newspaper clips and did research reports on the Pony Express and the rise of private carriers like Federal Express and DHL. He transcribed countless interviews quickly and accurately and read most of these chapters, helping me strengthen them. Colin and I traveled together to Detroit and Washington, D.C., to do research. It was great fun to go to these places, get the work done, and then hang out. When can we do it again?
As I was writing, three of my talented editors at Bloomberg Businessweek—Bryant Urstadt, Nick Summers, and Jim Aley—read chapters and helped me improve them as they have done with many of my articles. And all my colleagues at the magazine were supportive in their own way from editor in chief Ellen Pollock on down. It’s a pleasure to come to work every day with such a great group.