Seeking casing standards for US Postal Service

The USPS's Historian maintains copies of Postal Laws and Regulations since 1794.  You can email them at phistory@usps.gov or contact them via mail at...

Historian

United States Postal Service

475 L'Enfant Plaza SW

Washington, DC 20260-0012

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https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/research-sources.htm

Dear Mr. Moreland,

Thank you for posting your request on History Hub!

In the case involving the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO, it states that “For many years prior to passage of the Postal Reorganization Act, the casing of mail was performed by Letter Carriers under time standards established by the Post Office Department.”  It describes standards going back to “at least 1932” which were not changed until a new handbook was issued in 1974. It also references standards for the configuration of the cases established in 1922.

According to the case, the use of casing standards predates the formation of the USPS in 1971 and is a carryover from the Post Office Department. Therefore, we searched the National Archives Catalog and located a series titled Directives and Publications Case Files, 1935 - 1972  in the Records of the Post Office (Record Group 28) that may include Post Office handbooks pertaining to standards. For access to these records, please contact the National Archives at Washington, DC - Textual Reference (RDT1) via email at archives1reference@nara.gov.

We hope this information is helpful. Best of luck with your research!