The ZIP code is less like a cold, clinical, ordered list of numbers, and more like a weird overgrown number garden. It started as a way to organize mail after WWII, but now it pops up all over our daily lives. You type it into the machine at the gas station to verify your credit card. You might type it into a rental search website if you're looking for a new apartment. Back in 2013, the ZIP Code contributed about 10 billion dollars a year to the US economy.On today's show, we turn our attention towards the humble ZIP code. Why was it born? How has it changed the mail? How has it changed the broader world? And... has it gone too far?This episode was hosted by Sally Helm. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Meg Cramer, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the purpose of ZIP codes?
This is Planet Money from NPR.
The other day, I went out into New York City with a mission. I wanted to travel the length of one entire zip code as fast as I could. Start the timer.
Okay. Three. Two.
Two, one, start. I got into an elevator with one of our producers, Willa, to start our journey from the bottom to the top of the Empire State Building. All right, we're passing through a hallway. Go, go, go. We had to run through a couple of hallways, take four separate elevators. And along the way, we passed by every single address ending in the numbers 10118.
Because this building, like other big buildings around the city and the country, it has its own zip code. Another elevator bank.
Welcome to the 86th floor observation deck.
My ears just popped.
Finally, we made it to the top, the 102nd floor. Gorgeous views of New York City all around us. Willa, how long did it take?
It took exactly three minutes and 40 seconds.
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Chapter 2: How did ZIP codes originate?
economy. And as I have learned more about the world of the zip code, I've come to feel that it is less like a cold, clinical, ordered list of numbers and more like a kind of weird, overgrown number garden. full of all these odd, surprising things, like a skyscraper with its own zip code. A couple more. The zip codes do not start at 00000.
The lowest is actually 00501, which directs mail only to the IRS in Holtzville, New York. The president apparently has his own secret zip code. I, of course, don't know what it is, and the White House declined to elaborate. Santa and Smokey Bear also have their own zip codes to deal with all the mail that they get from children.
And, and, there is a zip code in Michigan that is actually three boats?
The J.W. Westcott II, that is the boat that is, I guess you might say, the iconic piece that's known worldwide. It's a great handling boat. It's a single screw, diesel driven, and made for the trade.
The trade of delivering mail. That is Jim Hogan of the J.W. Westcott Company. They deliver mail via boat to commercial boats near the port of Detroit. Jim is the fourth generation in his family to do this. He told me back in the day, some of the letters they delivered were more than strictly business letters.
A lot of the first class letters, if they were going to guys aboard the boats, would certainly have some of them be scented with perfume and things of this nature.
You're saying love letters in the old days.
Love letters right there.
There you go.
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Chapter 3: What are the unique features of ZIP codes?
They're texting with their loves on shore, but they're like getting like a toothbrush delivered from CVS or Amazon or whatever. Yeah. Yes.
I got to say. It is amazing to me that packages are successfully being delivered to people aboard boats. Jim's mailboats, as I have mentioned, have their own zip code, 48222. He told me that zip code is crucial to his business, but he's never really thought about where it came from.
As the population grew, there needed to be a more streamlined system. And I'm basically surmising here because I've never thought about really looking into it.
Well, I got to tell you, Jim, I'm going to find out. So, you know, I'll report back.
I really hope you do.
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sally Helm. Today, we turn our attention towards the humble zip code. Why was it born? How has it changed the male? How has it changed the broader world? And has it gone too far? The zip code has its origins in a moment of crisis, World War II. I heard about this from Lynn Heidelbaugh. She's a curator at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum.
As people went into military service during the war, they had all that knowledge built up about the route that they worked every day. They knew how many stairs they were going to have to climb. They knew how many mailboxes were on that street. They knew the farm next door and how you sort the mail to prepare yourself.
When the war comes, all of those experienced employees disappear from the workforce at once. And this throws the post office into turmoil. The new recruits are slower, not as efficient. They don't have a deep knowledge of the landscape. And to be fair, the landscape has gotten more complicated. More and more people, more and more addresses. And sometimes people make a mistake.
You know, they just write on their envelope, Margaret, Oak Street, Detroit. Like, what the heck do you do with that? So to help these novice mail sorters, the post office creates some one and two digit codes and assigns them to different zones in some big cities.
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Chapter 4: How did Mr. Zip promote the use of ZIP codes?
Chapter 5: What challenges did ZIP codes face during their introduction?
But after the war, things escalate. By the 50s, the U.S. economy is booming. And in the years between 1940 and 1960, the volume of mail more than doubles. There are more and more mail order businesses. More and more political mail, catalogs, magazines.
And everything that goes hand in hand in generating. People sending in postcards to renew subscriptions and, well, and things like bills. As the economy grows, the bills keep coming in as well.
By the early 60s, the post office department is struggling to handle all this because a lot of the mail sorting is still happening by hand. Picture rows upon rows of people slotting mail into cubbyholes.
They're wondering, how do you handle this mail efficiently and accurately every day? Because you're simply going to probably run out of a labor force to be able to handle some of this.
Then in 1961, a new person takes over the post office. Postmaster General J. Edward Day. He's a newcomer to Washington. The New York Times calls him the least known cabinet member in John F. Kennedy's administration and then proves its own point by accidentally identifying him as Clarence Day. He'd served on a submarine in World War II. Then he was an exec at Prudential Insurance.
And he sets off on a mission to streamline the post office.
It's kind of a whole zeitgeist of ushering in this modern 20th century.
OK, so there's a big push like new, new, new machines, machines like that's the feeling.
Exactly. And also economize at the same time. Efficiency is really a key.
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Chapter 6: How have ZIP codes evolved over time?
So like, for example, the Empire State Building has the zip code 10118. That first one will direct a letter to a big area that includes New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Then the next two numbers, 01, help direct it to a particular processing center in that zone, In this case, the processing center is a couple blocks away in Manhattan, near Penn Station.
And then the last two numbers mark out a particular post office or neighborhood. This idea is elegant, simple, and very powerful. It takes this tangle of addresses and organizes it beautifully. For the post office, this is a huge relief.
You've got this way to be able to oh, just finally be able to put a number two into something that, you know, it's just going to get larger and larger and that population area is going to keep growing. But we'll always be able to put that under number five, number six, number seven, and be able to expand and contract as the world's changing.
But it'll only work if you can get people to use it. As the story goes, Postmaster General J. Edward Day is on a flight from Chicago to D.C. when he realizes just how difficult that task will be. He happens to be sitting next to the head of AT&T, and he mentions that the post office will be introducing this new system.
The AT&T guy is like, oh man, we tried to do that with area codes, and people hated it. Sure enough, when the zip code rolls out in 1963, the public is not wild about it.
Some people, they feel a little bit, it's impersonal. You've got one more number assigned to you and it's not just your name anymore. It's not just your street name anymore. It's now all this series of numbers.
Yeah, you know, institutions like the post office are trying to deal with this increasingly complex world by turning it into numbers. But ordinary citizens feel like they're being turned into numbers. One newspaper complains that this is a way to further subdue man with digits. But the post office had expected this. And they had a secret weapon, a little cartoon character named Mr. Zip.
By the way, I found a post office document confirming that Mr. Zip has no first name. Nevertheless, he feels like this warm, friendly guy.
He is an amicable, very smiley letter carrier who, just like his name, is always zipping somewhere. He is leaning forward and his mailbag is kind of flying out behind him as he is speeding towards you.
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