The “official” creation of the United States postal system actually has two major birthdates, depending on whether you are looking at its revolutionary roots or its formal legal establishment under the Constitution.

The Revolutionary Birth: 1775
The first iteration of a national postal system was created on July 26, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress. This was done to ensure reliable communication during the American Revolution, as the colonists no longer trusted the British “Parliamentary Post.” Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General. Because the post office was created in 1775, it is actually one year older than the United States itself!

The Constitutional Birth: 1792
While the service existed in various forms after the war, it was officially established as a permanent part of the federal government by the Postal Service Act, signed into law by President George Washington on February 20, 1792. This date matters because it formally created the Post Office Department .It established the principle of mail privacy, making it illegal for officials to open personal correspondence, and it set low rates for newspapers, effectively subsidizing the spread of news and information across the young nation—a cornerstone of early American marketing.

Special Note: The modern corporate structure of the Post Office Department was reorganized into the United States Postal Service (USPS) as an independent agency on July 1, 1971, following the Postal Reorganization Act signed by Richard Nixon.