Just as social media and texting tie people together today, letters were critical in helping people communicate in the early days of our country.
And pretty much the only way to get a letter to a faraway place was to send it through the mail.
So the post office was like the Internet of its time, a point Winifred Gallagher brings home in her book How the Post Office Created America. Created? It's not too strong a case, she says. Winifred joined us last year, and we get a refresher as the paperback edition is released.