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The Post Office is older than the United States, and that's not a coincidence. From the American Revolution to Rural Free Delivery, the Post Office has been a silent, foundational institution that literally built the roads and airways of modern America.
Join Aileen Day and Maia Warner-Langenbahn as they dig up the receipts and reveal the untold, radical history of this essential public good. This is a story about the unseen power that truly holds the country together, and why we all need to understand what's at stake when public institutions are under attack.
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Recent Episodes
Breaking News: The Supreme Court Seems Poised to Limit Mail-In Ballots Ahead of Midterms. Your Ballot Is in the Mail… But Will SCOTUS Count It?
People of Agency Special Episode: Show Notes Special Episode: Your Vote Is In The Mail Explicit: No Summary On March 23rd, 2026, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Watson v. Republican National…
Breaking News: The Post Office Has 12 Months to Live. Here's How We Got Here.
On March 17th, 2026, two things happened simultaneously: the Postmaster General told Congress the U.S. Postal Service will run out of money in less than twelve months, and Amazon, USPS's largest…
SEASON 2 TRAILER: The Fourth Estate
Season 1 told the 250-year history of the U.S. Postal Service, but we weren't really talking about mail. We were talking about how ordinary people build public institutions, and how power tries to…
(Ep. 14) - The Postal Service We Choose: institutions serve whoever fights for them
In August 2020, three months before a presidential election, during a pandemic, postal workers watch perfectly working mail sorting machines being dismantled, some cut with blowtorches, some thrown…
S1E13 (Ep. 13) - Insufficient Postage: How Other Countries Adapted While We Waited. Death of Denmark's Postal Service and UK's Royal Mail Privatized and regrets it
In December 30, 2025 a Danish postal worker delivers the last letter Denmark will ever send. After 401 years, postal service ends entirely. The 1,000 iconic red mailboxes get auctioned off, nostalgic…
S1E12 (Ep. 12) - Going Postal. USPS Toxic management culture created the phrase "going postal" after workplace shootings.
(Content warning: Episode contains discussion of gun violence, workplace violence and toxic work environments) Summary Post Office Postmaster General William Henderson proposes giving every American…
S1E11 (Ep. 11) - Death by a Thousand Cuts. The Post Office didn't refuse to adapt, it was sabotaged. The tail of E-COM and INTELPOST
January 4, 1982. Post Office Postmaster General William Bolger sends the first official E-COM message, Electronic Computer-Originated Mail, a brilliant hybrid system where businesses transmit…
S1E10 (Ep. 10) - POSTAL POWER! The 1970 Strike - Union History and Postal History win big
In 1970 at the Hotel Statler, Manhattan 2,600 postal workers are packed into a ballroom at 6 PM to vote on something incredibly illegal: striking against the federal government. Twenty percent have…
S1E9 (Ep. 9) - Numbering the Nation: How the Post Office Create Zip Codes. Dear Zippy, With Love
December 1966 in Chicago's main post office. Ten million pieces of mail sit backlogged, and officials are reportedly discussing whether to just burn it all. The problem? The postal system that worked…
S1 Breaking News: Postmark Changes and Amazon Contract Update (USPS News)
Chipping away at Trust Two stories just broke that show exactly how you destroy the most trusted institution in America, a classic corporate capture. Amazon's $6 billion contract with the Post…
S1E8 (Ep. 8) - From Savings to Surveillance: The Post Office used to offer banking, but then corporations killed it 50-years later.
December 1930 in the Bronx. Thousands of people stand outside the collapsed Bank of United States, their life savings vanished overnight. But a few blocks north at the post office, there's a…
S1 Special Episode: Well, I Laughed - Famous Feuds: Party Animals
Aileen, Maia and special guest Grant introduce Well, I Laughed (Maia’s other podcast *gasp*). Tune in for a dive into the history of America’s political parties and how that relates to our current…
S1E7 (Ep. 7) - Return to Sender: What We Could Lose. The impact of the post office and the power of mail.
"Okay, I get the history is interesting, but do we really need the Post Office anymore?" After their first episodes of postal history dropped, Aileen and Maia kept hearing this question. So they…
S1E6 (Ep. 6) - Cowboys of the Sky: How the Post Office Created Commercial Aviation. This chapter of Postal History, airmail, is action packed.
Everyone thinks 1918 was slow. Horse-and-buggy America, right? Wrong. The Post Office had built one of the most advanced communication networks on the planet, but it still took over a week to get…
S1E5 (Ep. 5) - Special Delivery: From Farm Rebellion to Mailed Babies. Your Rural Free Delivery is here because rural America organized and fought for it
What if the most revolutionary force in American history wasn't a politician or an army, but post office mail carriers bringing letters to farmhouse doors? At the turn of the 20th century, rural…
S1E4 (Ep. 4) - Spoils of Office: Garfield, Guiteau, and Civil Service Reform. How this assassination changed civic history, government workers, the post office, and is a cornerstone of postal history.
July 2, 1881. President James Garfield walks through a Washington train station. Charles Guiteau steps forward, raises a revolver, and fires twice. As Garfield falls, Guiteau shouts: "I am a Stalwart…
S1E3 (Ep. 3) - Outlaws vs the Postal Inspectors. How the first peacetime robbery involving the Post Office accidentally invents federal law enforcement as we know it.
October 6, 1866. Three men board a slow-moving train in Seymour, Indiana. They beat a messenger unconscious, steal $16,000, and throw a 300-pound safe off a moving train. It's the first peacetime…
S1E2 (Ep. 2) - Westward Bound - How the U.S. expanded West because of the Post Office
Winter 1895 in Cascade, Montana. A nearly sixty-year-old Black woman who was born enslaved leans into a blizzard, driving a U.S. Post Office wagon through drifts that have turned men around. Her name…
S1E1 (Ep. 1) - Signed, Sealed, Delivered (to Treason). How the Post Office was created before America and made the Revolution possible.
What if the real glue holding America together isn't laws or leaders, but the mail and the post office? In the premiere episode of People of Agency, Aileen and Maia kick off their deep dive into U.S.…
Trailer
The Post Office is older than the United States, and that's not a coincidence. From the American Revolution to Rural Free Delivery, the Post Office has been a silent, foundational institution that…
Frequently Asked Questions
People of Agency has published 20 episodes since October 2025, covering topics in Comedy, History.
People of Agency is currently declining with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 53m.
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