--- description: LIFE.com offers a gallery of photos paying tribute to mail carriers through the years, and to the often-maligned postal service as a whole. title: USPS: Photos Celebrating ... Wait for It ... the U.S. Postal Service image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26ad7ae83a7d2866/69868583e53aba02094d17df/15_00748626.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [photography](/tag/photography/) ## photography Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # In Praise of . . . Wait for It . . . the U.S. Postal Service by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 16, 2013 7:58 PM CUT  Rural Vermont mailman Mark Whalon makes rounds in sub-zero weather. Rural Vermont mailman Mark Whalon makes rounds in sub-zero weather.Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jan 16, 2013 7:58 PM CUT The words have been referenced, mangled, misremembered, celebrated and (of course) parodied for decades, and while few people remember the full, accurate quote, the sentiment conveyed is unmistakable: _Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds._ Those ringing words are, of course, the unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service. They’re inscribed across the facade of what might be the most famous post office in the world: the monumental, Beaux-Arts James Farley building on 8th Avenue in Manhattan, right across the street from Madison Square Garden. The phrasing of the message might feel a bit archaic, but the message is clear: nothing stops the mail, and nothing stops those who _deliver_ the mail, from getting through. Over the years, however, the postal service’s image, and its employees, have taken a beating. Calls are forever emerging from Congress—and from the public—to fully and finally privatize the USPS and uncouple it from the feds. (The service is currently an independent arm of the U.S. government.) The phrase “going postal” is enshrined in the lexicon as a synonym for committing mayhem. One of the strangest figures in recent pop culture history, Newman on _Seinfeld_, was for years the most public—and most unfortunate—face of the modern mail carrier: bitter, lazy, quick to anger, forever put-upon. It wasn’t always like this. For generations, the postal service was embraced as an American treasure. The idea that one could slap an inexpensive stamp on an envelope in Maine and a stranger would, within days, safely and reliably _hand-deliver_ that letter to someone in California suggested a kind of national ingenuity and generosity that any citizen could take pride in. Even if the image of the intrepid mail carrier braving anything thrown his or her way—blizzards, rabid dogs, vampires, whatever—was largely based on a self-serving myth, the notion of that mail carrier was nevertheless something that we, as a country, wanted to keep alive. It fit in quite well with other long-ballyhooed traits and values—self-reliance, individuality, neighborliness, thrift—that Americans have always championed as their own (even if we haven’t always put them into practice). Here, LIFE.com offers a series of pictures made by LIFE photographers through the years—photos that pay tribute to mail carriers, other postal workers and to the postal service as a whole. (Especially striking, perhaps, in all of these photographs is that fact that—while today’s post office is as diverse a workforce as one is likely to find anywhere—the faces of the postal employees in this gallery are virtually _all_ white.) In an elemental sense, the pictures here recall a national myth in which hardly any of us still believe, while as a nation we struggle, consciously and unconsciously, to figure out what that one myth’s gradual disappearance says about the United States’ past, and its future. _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter_ [_@lizabethronk_](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk "undefined")_._  Mail carrier Clifford Bodine, Michigan, 1955. Wallace Kirkland—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  The postman delivers a letter to Indiana's Eder family from son Bill, serving in the Navy, 1944. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  In New York City, piles of Christmas packages meant for American servicemen who have been listed as missing or killed in action await "return to sender" stamp, 1944. Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Post office, Washington D.C., 1942. Myron Davis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Sorting mail, 1944. George Skadding—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Post office, Washington D.C., 1944. George Skadding—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Loading air mail on a cargo plane, 1946. Sam Shere—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Michigan, 1939. Carl Mydans—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Representation of the amount of mail Eastern Airlines delivered to and from the U.S. government, 1949. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Postmistress Mrs. Rae Publicover, New Hampshire, 1949. Yale Joel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Rockefeller Center Post Office, 1941. Bernard Hoffman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Singing cowboy Gene Autry (second from left) stands outside the post office in an Oklahoma town named for him, 1948. Michael Rougier—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Self-service, 24-hour automated post office, Maryland, 1964. Francis Miller—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Mrs. Arthur Mearns mails her weekly letter to her missing husband, an Air Force Major, who has not been heard from for three years, Los Angeles, 1969. Vernon Merritt III—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Rural Vermont mailman Mark Whalon makes rounds in sub-zero weather. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Postal worker, Connecticut, 1943. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Opening the family mailbox, Wisconsin, 1946. Wallace Kirkland—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Postal trucks, Washington, D.C., 1942. Myron Davis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3875547/usps-classic-photos-of-the-postal-service/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3875547/usps-classic-photos-of-the-postal-service/"},"headline":"In Praise of . . . 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