[Lee Stewart]

Everyone had to go to the post office to get mail—until the Civil War helped change one man’s mind.

In 1863, Free City Delivery—i.e., free delivery of mail at your home—was first launched in Cleveland. Joseph Briggs, a postal clerk in that Ohio city, is said to have come up with the idea over the previous winter when he saw so many women customers who were forced to wait in long lines at the post office, freezing and fretting, since the only way to get news of their loved ones fighting in the war was via the mail. His Free City Delivery was such a success that it quickly spread to other cities before becoming a national norm. What’s more, Civil War veterans got dibs on applying for the newly-created mail carrier jobs. One other postal innovation prompted by the Civil War: money orders, so that Union soldiers could send their money home safely.