Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Women and the Postal Service

March is National Women's History Month.

Women have played an important role in Postal History. We've come a long way.

In 1960, 104 just female letter carriers worked for the Postal Service. By 1983, the number had grown to 8,000 — four percent of the total number of letter carriers employed by USPS. By 2007, 59,700 women were working as letter carriers and 36,600 as rural carriers, representing 40 percent of the carrier workforce.

The percentage of women in the postal workforce has grown steadily over the years. The Postal Service’s workforce today includes more than 234,000 women. Today’s Postal Service also parallels the national growth of women in management roles. Approximately 30 percent of the Postal Service’s executives are women.
Jeannette Lee was Chicago's first female letter carrier in 1944.
Photo courtesy, Smithsonian Institute.



For information on women in the Postal Service, including the first  female Postmaster and letter carrier, click  here.
You can comment here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I started as a carrier in 1982 and was the only woman in a station of well over 100 routes. Not always fun, office time was sometimes frustrating with all those men around giving me grief, but I got to hit the street and see my customers. Being a letter carrier was WONDERFUL work. And I was thinner back then, too.

grannybunny said...

I started as a carrier, too, and continue to feel that our customers are the best part of any Postal job.

Anonymous said...

I started as an RCA and was amazed at how many men came in as RCA's and left after one day. They hated the work. I don't know why, but the women picked it up faster
and seemed to enjoy it. (To be fair, several women only worked one day also)

Anonymous said...

I started as a carrier, then went to a clerk and now am a Postmaster. I love my job, just don't know how secure it is right now. When I first started, everyone told me to go to the rural craft, that it was the best job to have. I have to disagree with them.