Ryan Ellis Wins National Scholarship Award for Postal History

Paper examines political and economic forces shaping the U.S. Postal Service

SAN DIEGO — University of California San Diego graduate student, teacher and local resident Ryan Ellis was honored for his scholarship in the field of United States postal history recently. His jury prize of $1,000 was presented by San Diego District Manager John E. Platt at the San Diego District offices located at Carmel Mountain Ranch.

Ellis is one of two award winners in this annual scholarship program. The other winner is Prof. David Gerber, Department of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The Rita Lloyd Moroney Scholarship Awards are designed to encourage scholarship on the history of the U.S. Postal Service and to raise awareness of the importance of the postal system from the earliest times in America until the present.

Ellis’ work, “Binding the Nation Together: The Politics of the Postal Service” examined the political and economic forces that shape the Postal Service, its policies and rate structure. Ellis presents a perspective that is sensitive to the Postal Service’s unique communications role in American life and its universal service obligation during its formative years when it received tax subsides and in the modern era where it is a self-supporting, independent government agency.

Ellis is working toward his PhD at UCSD where he has pursued all of his postgraduate studies.

Rita Moroney, the award’s namesake, began conducting research for the postmaster general in 1962 and later served as the U.S. Postal Service historian from 1973 to 1991. Additional information on the Moroney Awards and application instructions are at: usps.com/postalhistory/moroney.htm.

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation — 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.