People of Agency

Ep. 2 - Westward Bound

Listen Later

Winter, 1895. Cascade, Montana. A nearly sixty-year-old Black woman who was born enslaved leans into a blizzard, driving a U.S. mail wagon through drifts that have turned men around. Her name is Mary Fields, and she will become a legend. But before we meet Stagecoach Mary, we need to understand the system she bent to her will. In Episode 2, Aileen and Maia trace how the Post Office expanded westward, not just following the frontier, but actively creating it. From the 1845 postal reforms that slashed rates and made long-distance communication affordable, to star routes that stitched remote cabins into the national fabric, to the mythologized Pony Express (which lasted only eighteen months and probably never employed Buffalo Bill), this episode reveals how mail delivery became the infrastructure that justified federal expansion into Indigenous territories. We meet railway mail clerks who memorized ten thousand post offices and sorted at breakneck speed in wooden cars that killed them in wrecks. We meet Owney, the beloved terrier who rode the rails and never saw a single train accident in nine years. And finally, we meet Mary Fields: cigar-smoking, gun-carrying, gender-nonconforming postal contractor who won a federal star route, walked through wolf packs to deliver the mail, and forced an entire Montana town to rewrite its rules to make room for her. This is a story about who gets to represent America at someone's front door, and what it takes to change that answer.

Key takeaways to listen for

  • [00:00:00] Introduction
  • [00:05:06] Act I - Expansion & Contradiction: How the 1845 postal reforms rescued the Post Office from collapse, what star routes actually were, and the brutal truth about how mail delivery justified military occupation of Indigenous lands and turned contested territories into American towns
  • [00:14:46] Act II - Myth of the Pony Express: The real story behind the eighteen-month startup that lost money on every letter, why Buffalo Bill probably never rode for them but built a career pretending he did, and how a premium service for the wealthy became America's most romanticized postal legend
  • [00:25:55] Act III - Wired and Rail-Ready: The telegraph splits urgent from personal communication, railway mail clerks become human sorting computers memorizing ten thousand post offices, and Owney the postal dog travels the world protecting mailbags and bringing comfort to workers in the deadliest job in America
  • [00:44:05] Act IV - Stagecoach Mary: Mary Fields wins a federal mail contract at age sixty, becomes one of the first women and the first documented Black woman to carry U.S. mail, holds off wolves with her rifle, and earns a town's exemption from laws that excluded women from saloons
  • [00:54:35] Act V - The People of This Agency: Why institutions are tools we choose to keep or let rust, how Mary Fields widened the doorway of who could represent federal power, and a preview of next episode's drama involving mail-order babies and a Black postmaster who forced Roosevelt's hand
  • [00:57:56] Credits and Acknowledgements

    • Follow Us On Social Media

    Instagram @Peopleof_Agency

    TikTok @Peopleof_Agency

    YouTube @Peopleof_Agency

     

    Connect with Us

    Ready to explore how ordinary people built extraordinary public institutions? Subscribe to People of Agency wherever you listen to podcasts. Find us on social media @Peopleof_Agency. Have stories about how the mail shaped your community, or thoughts on protecting public services? We'd love to hear from you! [email protected]

    Quotes:

    • "Ice slicks the reins. The horses drop their heads and trust her voice. In the pocket, there is a little whiskey for warmth. Under the seat, a shotgun." - Maia (on Mary Fields)
    • "They take the tools meant to serve someone else… and use them to build something for themselves. A life. A livelihood. A place in the world." - Maia
    • "Manifest says obvious; Destiny says inevitable. Together, it's a permission slip." - Maia
    • "Enter the disruptors. Private letter carriers saw the chaos and said, what if we charge less and just do it. Like the Uber of envelopes." - Maia
    • "It's the nineteenth-century version of turning on unlimited texting. People wrote more. People moved, knowing they could still be reached." - Aileen
    • "The mail picks winners. Which makes me, spiritually, a product of a sorting decision." - Maia (on Denver)
    • "It's a startup built on oats and adrenaline. Pricey to use, spectacular to watch, designed to prove a point more than to turn a profit." - Maia (on the Pony Express)

      • Hashtags

      #PeopleOfAgency #AileenDay #MaiaWarner #StagecoachMary #MaryFields #USPSHistory #PostalService #PonyExpress #RailwayMailService #Owney #PostalDog #WesternHistory #BlackHistory #WomenInHistory #IndigenousHistory #ManifestDestiny #StarRoutes #BuffaloBill #QueerHistory #GenderNonconforming #AmericanWest #LaborHistory #PublicInstitutions #RailroadHistory #TelegraphHistory #CascadeMontana #UrsulineNuns #HistoryPodcast #CivicEducation #InfrastructureHistory #PostOffice #InstitutionalHistory #FrontierHistory #WesternExpansion

      Credits 

      People of Agency is created and written by Aileen Day, with additional writing by Maia Warner-Langenbahn. It is hosted by Aileen Day and Maia Warner-Langenbahn. This episode was edited by the amazing Kelsi Rupersburg-Day. Our beautiful cover art is by Sam Woodring. 

      Sources

      Here are some of our other sources (use the tab function to review different episodes). How the Post Office Created America, by Winifred Gallagher, served as a significant guiding light for this project. Many of our sources were pulled from online Smithsonian resources and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Thank you to our anonymous Historian fact checker who reviewed many of our scripts and provided invaluable feedback.

      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store
      People of AgencyBy People of Agency Podcast