in Washington, D.C., while postmasters who earned more than $1,000 annually were nominated by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The system was often a patronage system, whereby the postmasters would get jobs in an informal way by the party in power.

Historically in the United States, women served as postmasters since the American Revolutionary War and even earlier, under British rule, more than a century before