U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for July 5

WASHINGTON, July 5, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

MAIL CALL

Profile America — Sunday, July 5th. The month of July has put its stamp on U.S. Postal Service history. In early July 1847, the first Post Office-issued stamps went on sale. Before then, there were no uniform stamps — a haphazard system of private postal services around the country had issued their own. Less exaltedly, the first drive-up mailbox was installed in 1927 in Houston. And in 1963, the postal service introduced the ZIP code to help speed mail service. That year, Americans sent nearly 68 billion pieces of mail. Lately, the Postal Service handles 155 billion pieces of mail annually, while nearly a half-million Americans work in 9,000 private courier and express delivery establishments. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: First post office issued stamps:  http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/stamps-postcards.htm Denominations: http://www.stamp-one.com/gallery/hopkins/1847issue.htm Early mail: http://stamps.org/Stamp-History Drive-up mailbox: Kane's Famous First Facts, 6009 Zip codes: http://pdxretro.com/2011/07/post-office-zip-codes-introduced-on-this-date-in-1963/ 1963 volume: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 804  Current volume: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/decade-of-facts-and-figures.htm Couriers and delivery services/ NAICS 492110: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110428/DC91889LOGO

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-census-bureau-daily-feature-for-july-5-300106318.html

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau