Published: July 31, 2010

U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for August 1

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 1: FIRST MAILBOXES

Profile America -- Sunday, August 1st. This week in 1858, two major U.S. cities -- Boston and New York -- started an experiment. The idea was to put official mail collection boxes along the streets so people walking along could drop off their outgoing letters. Before that, they had to go to the post office or hope to catch the mail carrier on his route. The new collection boxes were an immediate hit. Now, even with the exploding growth in e-mail and cell phones, the postal service handles nearly 203 billion pieces of mail a year. To move this volume along takes more than 765,000 employees working out of nearly 37,000 postal facilities across the nation. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.

Sources: 440 International Calendar of Events, Those Were the Days

Statistical Abstract of the United States 2010, t. 1090

Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov, (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau