National Card and Letter Writing Month – April 2025

History of National Card and Letter Writing Month

The United States Mail Service (U.S.P.S.), also known as the U.S. Mail or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the United States federal government that is responsible for providing postal service throughout the country. The U.S.P.S. was founded in 1775 during the Second Continental Congress. With the enactment of the Postal Service Act in 1792, the Post Office Department was established and upgraded to a cabinet-level department in 1872. The department was reconstituted into the United States Postal Service as an autonomous agency by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970.

Only the U.S. Postal Service is responsible for the delivery of letters in the United States. Letters can be traced back to ancient India, Egypt, Rome, Greece, and China, and it is still relevant today. Letters were used to self-educate throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Letters were primarily used to provide information, news, and pleasantries. For some, writing letters was a means to improve their critical reading skills, express themselves creatively, and engage with others who shared similar interests.

Letters were written on a variety of materials throughout the ancient world, including metal, pottery fragments, animal skin, and papyrus. According to Ovid, Acontius wrote a letter to Cydippe using an apple. Letters have primarily been written on paper in recent years, either handwritten or typed. For many years, letters were the primary mode of communication in both personal and business communication until telegraphy and internet communications replaced them. Illiterate persons could pay literate people to compose letters and read letters from distant correspondents. Letters were significant even in the period of telegrams and telephones, until fax and email further eroded their primacy, especially since the turn of the twenty-first century.