Love the dolphins. Write by WASTE

[Joseph Tracy]

Found the historic observation Erik brings us about mail in this time period  very insightful and powerfully relevant to
 P’s interest in communication systems and how they enable or at times cause problems for imperial plans like surveillance , messaging, directing, 
etc. while also enabling the idea of personal connection to become global in range. 
So the time covered by this historical insight is the time frame of ATD. I can recall many references in ATD to the role of trains in this regard, but am wondering if others might help me think about the role of the postal service. Questions arise: 1)what is means of communication for Chums and does it change? Who does Basnight report to and how? Vibe and Foley?  Private letters? What about telegraphy, rays, the quickly approaching speed of light communication, radio, telephone?  It’s not something I paid a lot of attention to but seems like grist for a great paper. Been a while since I read ATD.    



Erik T. Burns eburns at gmail.com  <mailto:pynchon-l%40waste.org?Subject=Re%3A%20Love%20the%20dolphins.%20Write%20by%20WASTE&In-Reply-To=%3CCAD4fSMhvCbygy6b0EN%3Do30ENNoRAx6xemn3kYQ80BM-veDWerA%40mail.gmail.com%3E>
Thu Apr 29 21:35:55 UTC 2021

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 By 1848, the United States laid claim to territory that stretched from
coast to coast. In reality, the western half of the country remained
Indigenous land, a vast expanse of territory that the US Government did not
actually control. Over the coming decades the West was utterly transformed.
The United States waged war against western tribes, forcing them off their
land and onto reservations. Millions of Americans swarmed across this
plundered territory, building towns and homesteads, mines and mills, dams
and railroads. How did this happen so quickly, in the span of a single
generation? The answer lies, in part, with an unlikely source: the US Post.
Between 1848 and 1895 the federal government wove together a “gossamer
network” across the West, a sprawling and fast-moving web of post offices
and mail routes that connected the region’s far-flung settlements into a
national system of communications. The US Post was the underlying circuitry
of western expansion.

from:http://gossamernetwork.com/ <http://gossamernetwork.com/>