As settlement in the Far West increased in the years following the Mexican-American War, Americans began to call for a regular mail service to the Pacific Coast. In 1857, Congress authorized the creation of an overland mail service, run by private joint stock companies but subsidized by the federal government. The first of these companies, the Overland Mail Company, was founded by individuals already financially connected to express mail companies such as American; National; and Wells, Fargo and Company.
The postmaster general determined the two starting points that would be used for the transcontinental mail service. Routes leading from Memphis and St. Louis would meet at Fort Smith, Arkansas, where the route would extend through Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The service along this route was supposed to be semiweekly, with the round-trip completed in 25 days. This southern route was over 2,500 miles long. Before any mail service could commence, the entire route needed to be surveyed and the road conditions improved. The company needed to position way stations along the route, buy and transport Concord stagecoaches, and stock the route with supplies and horses. Preparing the route took over a year. The first stagecoaches departed in September 1858, successfully completing the journey in only 21 days.
Soon the procedure for transporting people and mail along the line was firmly in place. The company maintained the route very efficiently in the more settled areas but required help from station guards in isolated stretches where Indians were a threat. The road was much rougher in the isolated areas as well, making stagecoach travel a jarring, unpleasant experience. Coaches could carry nine passengers inside, plus a few riding on the outside with the drivers. Mail was stored in the rear of the coach and on top. Passengers who wanted a break from the jolting coach could stop at way stations, some of which had bunks for sleeping. For many passengers, the possibility for stopping did not make up for the poor toilet facilities, overpriced food, and occasionally drunk drivers.
Customers and other commentators complained even more forcefully about the company’s inadequate, circuitous route. Critics supported the construction of a new central route that would lead west from Missouri, through Denver, Utah, and on to CALIFORNIA. The Pony Express Company was created by backers of this new route, who promoted its greater speed and efficiency. Conflicts between Wells, Fargo representatives and Overland Mail Company president John Butterfield prevented the Overland Mail Com-
The overland mail starts from the East. Wood engraving from Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, October 23, 1858 (Hulton/Archive)
Pany from establishing a competing express service along the new central route. The company was reorganized in 1860 with Wells, Fargo shareholders occupying most of the seats on the board of directors.
Conflicts over which route to use were rendered moot with the beginning of the Civil War (1861-65). Because Texas was part of the Confederacy, overland mail operations had to be relocated to the central route. A new contract was awarded in 1861, granting both Pony Express service and stagecoach service to the Overland Mail Company. The company continued as sole operator of the line until 1864, when the contract was divided again between Overland Mail and the Holladay Overland Stage Company. Under the terms of the 1864 contract, only first-class mail and passengers would be carried overland, with newspapers and other documents transported by the much-longer sea route to California. Ownership of the line changed again in 1866, with Wells, Fargo assuming the control of all mail and transport operations in the West.
Stage travel to the West continued to be profitable until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869. The Wells, Fargo mail contract was canceled with the completion of the railroad line, thus ending the era of the Overland Mail Company. Stage travel continued to be viable for shorter trips for several years, but it eventually died out as railroads flourished. Until this point, the overland mail operation served as a key channel for communication, transport, and settlement across the continent.
Further reading: A. C. Greene, 900 Miles on the Butterfield Trail (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1994); Leroy R. Hafen, The Overland Mail, 1849-1869: Promoter of Settlement, Precursor of Railroads (Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1926).
—Eleanor H. McConnell
Owen, Robert (1771-1858) industrialist, social reformer
An industrialist and social reformer known for his radical and unorthodox views of society, Robert Owen was born in Newtown, Wales, on May 14, 1771. Although he attended local schools only through the age of nine, he was nonetheless bright and inquisitive and reputedly borrowed and read a book a day. At the age of 10, Owen left home for Manchester to work in a textile store. By 1791, Britain’s Industrial Revolution was starting to develop, and Owen was eager to play his part. That year, despite his youth, Owen became a partner in a small cotton mill. Shortly after, he was hired as the manager of a large cotton-spinning factory. An excellent organizer, his mill became renowned for high-quality work, and in 1795 he advanced to serve as manager and co-owner of the large Chorlton Twist Company. The owner was so pleased by his performance that he offered the 24-year-old Owen annual salary increases and a share of the profits.
In 1799 Owen married the daughter of industrialist David Dale and acquired his factories in New Lanark, Scotland. His wealth and position were now secure, but he became very aware of the dislocation and hardships occasioned by industrialization. Having now acquired the wherewithal, he was determined to address them personally. While at Lanark, he singlehandedly instituted wide-reaching reforms to ameliorate the usually horrid living and working conditions associated with the mills. Long hours and monotonous tasks created great unhappiness and a concomitant rise in alcoholism. Owen countered the drudgery with higher wages, better sanitation, and mandatory temperance. He also invested large sums of money in improving the housing situation for workers and providing schools for their children. Further, he purchased supplies in bulk and sold them to his miniature communities at very reduced prices. Consequently, the happy, healthy workforce at Lanark became one of the most productive in all of Britain. Owen had proved beyond all doubt that contented workers enhanced productivity.
In 1806 when his mills temporarily closed due to the American embargo, Owen furthered his reputation for benevolence by continuing to pay out wages. In 1813, he printed a pamphlet entitled A New View of Society, which called for all surplus profit to be spent for the benefit of workers and their children. His political influence crested with the passage of the 1819 Factory Act, which mandated improved working conditions, forbade children younger than 10 from working, and strictly regulated the hours of those under 18.
Owen’s reforms garnered him international fame, but his influence as a reformer was marred by a number of radical, seemingly anti-institutional ideas, which were enunciated to promote his vision of a perfect, utopian society. Foremost among them was a determined attack on the existence of organized religion that basically gutted his credibility as a reformer. He also strongly believed that poverty could be eradicated by concentrating the poor in small, self-sustaining villages based on agriculture. For such a strategy to succeed, he insisted, cooperation would have to supplant competition as a guiding human principle. In 1825, Owen acted out his beliefs by purchasing the settlement of New Harmony, Indiana, which he stocked with 900 followers. This was intended as a nonreligious, socialist community but, despite the best of intentions and investment of most of his personal fortune, the experiment failed and closed in 1828. Owen tried implementing a similar scheme in Mexico that year before political instability convinced him to return to England.
Owen returned home somewhat dejected, but he remained a vocal advocate of utopian socialism. Ever attentive to the needs of workers, he was active in the establishment of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union in 1833, which enjoyed half a million members. He also came to openly promote atheism and oppose the institution of marriage. By 1854, Owen had converted to spiritualism, which placed him even further on the fringes of the reform movement. He died in Newtown on November 17, 1858, a leading pioneer of social reform. Owen’s efforts were beset by a tendency toward radicalism that alienated political support, but he functioned simultaneously as one of industrialization’s greatest practitioners and its most strident critic. His pioneering views subsequently became the basis for socialist and cooperative ideologies of the later 19th century.
See also religion; Warren, Josiah.
Further reading: Charles Burgess, “The Boatload of Trouble: William McClure and Robert Owen, Revisited” (Indiana Magazine of History 94, no. 2 (1998): 138-150); Ian Donnachie, Robert Owen: Owen of New Lanark and New Harmony (East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 2000); J. F. C. Harrison, Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America: The Quest for the New Moral World (Aldershot: Gregg Revivals, 1994); Edward Royle, Robert Owen and the Commencement of the Millennium: A Study of the New Harmony Community (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).
—John C. Fredriksen
World History
