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This is America in Pursuit, a limited series from NPR and ThruLine. I'm Ramtin Arablui. Each week, we bring you stories about

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in America that began 250 years ago this year.

As we count down to July 4th, I've been thinking a lot about the fact that when the founders

signed the Declaration of Independence,

they were literally starting a new country from scratch.

And it was a country based on ideas, ideas that had to somehow be shared widely.

The first U.S. government was really an information and communications network.

This is Winifred Gallagher.

I am a journalist.

My book is called How the Post Office Created America.

And like her book title implies, Winifred believes the Postal Service provided the technological infrastructure the American Revolution needed in order to succeed and then run a new

Democratic Republic.

We know that revolutions are often fueled by new technologies.

Take the role Twitter played in organizing and connecting uprisings that took place a little

over a decade ago in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria during this so-called Arab Spring.

The American Revolution might have taken place centuries ago,

and the post office might not seem anything like social media.

But consider that back then,

the post office gave people in the American colonies

a new way of sharing information more easily

...