U.S. Post Office BUTTONS through the ages

this card was in a collection I acquired, the top left button doesn’t belong on here as it’s a Telegraph Co. button, the top right button this device (image) was adopted as the Seal of the U.S. Post Office in 1837.

 All the buttons are brass

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The story of the United States Postal Service begins in 1775, when the Continental Congress named

Benjamin Franklin the first American Postmaster General. Franklin and his fellow patriots saw a robust

mail system as critical to the nation’s welfare. A healthy postal network facilitated communication among

army commanders and the first elected representatives, and representatives and their constituents;

newspapers sent through the mail enabled Americans to participate in political life. As directed by

Congress, postal officials first extended the mail system geographically, adding mail routes and Post

Offices to embrace communities up and down the coast and then westward, keeping pace with the

traveling frontier. In the mid-1800s, Congress increased access to the mail by simplifying and lowering

letter-postage rates. Later in the century, Congress introduced the convenience that most Americans

now expect – free home delivery of mail, first in the city, then in the country. To check for mail, city

dwellers no longer had to wait in long lines at crowded Post Offices, and farmers no longer had to unhitch

horse from plow and plod five or six miles into town. In 1913, the Post Office Department introduced

Parcel Post – affordable parcel delivery available to all Americans that opened up a new world of mail

order merchandise to many, especially in rural areas

(above information taken from the U.S.P.S. site

click on image to enlarge