2015 Articles

Projecting Power Overseas: U.S. Postal Policy and International Standard-Setting at the 1863 Paris Postal Conference

John, Richard R.

In May 1863, representatives from the fifteen countries that generated 95 percent of the world’s correspondence met in Paris to devise a set of common standards for international postal communications. The impetus for this meeting, which would become known as the Paris Postal Conference, originated not in France, nor in Great Britain, nor even in Prussia. Rather, it was the brainchild of a little-known U.S. postal administrator-turned-lawmaker, John A. Kasson.