United States Post Office Department
Agency overview
Formed	February 20, 1792
Dissolved	July 1, 1971
Superseding agency	United States Postal Service
Agency executive	United States Postmaster General

The Post Office Department was the name of the United States Postal Service when it was a Cabinet department. It was headed by the United States Postmaster General.

The Postal Service Act signed by President George Washington on February 20, 1792 established the Department. Postmaster General John McLean was the first to call it the Post Office Department rather than just the "Post Office." The organization received a boost in prestige when President Andrew Jackson invited his Postmaster General, William T. Barry, to sit as a member of the Cabinet.[1]

During the Civil War, postal services in the Confederacy were provided by the Confederate States of America Post-office Department, headed by Postmaster General John Henninger Reagan.

The Postal Reorganization Act signed by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970, replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with the independent United States Postal Service. The Act took effect on July 1, 1971.

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