Map of Columbia County Post Offices, 1786-1900
In the 53 years between 1786 and 1839, 45 post offices were built in Columbia County. By comparison, between 1840 and 1900, Columbia County built 82 post offices.
Beyond noting that with increased rail traffic came a rise in the construction of post offices, this map shows that while many post offices were built along or in the immediate vicinity of emerging or extant rail lines, more often they were constructed in the spaces between the railways. This suggests that residents of the county fashioned lines and zones of communication via the post that were distinct from those afforded by the railroad network. So there is a tension: on the one hand, the frequency with which post offices appeared during the railroad’s most dynamic period increases; on the other hand, the postal system was a system that pre-dated and in a certain sense disregarded the new spatial-temporal efficiencies afforded by the railways. As the 19th century wore on and more track mileage crossed Columbia County, residents continued to embrace a communication system that prefigured the dissemination of information along rail lines.
David Henkin notes that one reason for the expansion of the American postal network beginning in the middle of the 19th century was Congress’s intervening to “revamp the postage scale” and, ultimately through the Postal Act of 1851, standardize and reduce postage rates. Henkin claims that the railroads “played an important role in the increasing geographical mobility of Americans and thus in the greater likelihood that Americans would live at a distance from friends and family,” and thus rely on long-distance communication technologies (including the post) to stay in touch–a simultaneous contraction and expansion of space similar to that which Schivelbusch observes.1
Information conveyed via the rails traveled along those lines, whether in the form of written notes, travelers bearing messages, or through telegraphs, the crucial spur for and answer to the industrial era’s demand for more rapid communication across great distances. Railroad stations also doubled as telegraph centers, which meant that people visited stations to send and receive telegrams regardless of whether or not they were traveling.2 Conversely, information conveyed via the post traveled along existing roadways or across and in between these traditional routes.
Columbia County’s staggered communication networks–via the postal and railroad systems–reinforce what we know about mass literacy rates rising during the 19th century as well: that such an increase would both motivate and require multiple reading and writing audiences who saw themselves as engaged in discourses that extended beyond their immediate family and neighbors.3 This meshes with Michael Warner’s conception of a public that understands itself in relation to texts and discursive space, and highlights that a key requirement for an expanding reading public is that it envisions itself as such.4 Moreover, we know that both systems of communication encouraged literacy, albeit in somewhat different registers. If postal communication relied on traditional forms and modes, communication by rail introduced a new take on “functional reading,” where readers and travelers would have to parse timetables in order to understand when trains were departing or arriving, and telegrams were reduced to their most elemental and essential bits of information to convey more with fewer characters in new syntactical structures.5
With this in mind, the map that emerges of the communicating public of Columbia County as seen through railways and post offices portrays a diversity of forms and competencies.
End Notes
1. David M. Henkin, 2006. “The Postal Age: The Emergence Of Modern Communications In Nineteenth-Century America By David M. Henkin, An Excerpt”. Press.Uchicago.Edu. http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/327205.html. ; Wolfgang Schivelbusch, 1986. The Railway Journey. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, pp. 34-35.
2. A.S. Callan, Jr., 2002. “Memories Of The Old H&B RR”. Columbia County History & Heritage (1:2). Kinderhook, NY: Columbia County Historical Society. p. 7.
3. Henkin, 2006.
4. Michael Warner, 2002. “Publics And Counterpublics (Abbreviated Version)”. Quarterly Journal Of Speech 88 (4): 413-425. doi:10.1080/00335630209384388, p. 413.
5. Mike Esbester, 2009. “Nineteenth-Century Timetables And The History Of Reading”. Book History 12 (1): 156-185. doi:10.1353/bh.0.0018, pp. 159-163.
