Robert Moon (postal inspector)
Robert Aurand Moon (April 15, 1917, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, US – April 10, 2001, Leesburg, Florida, US), sometimes called "Mr. ZIP", is considered the father of the ZIP Code or Zone Improvement Plan, a mechanism to route mail in the United States.[1]
Biography
The U.S. Postal Service had been providing a premium level "air mail" service since the introduction of regular air transportation. As air transportation reliability improved and cost per gram of mail decreased, it began to make financial sense to transport larger quantities of mail via intercontinental airlines rather than ship, and interstate via the old airmail routes rather than via train. But this made the sorting of mail by hand the new "bottleneck" for mail service. Rather than leisurely hand sorting mail bound for various destinations while passenger trains traveled between town centers, there was a need for machine sorting speed that could match the increased volume traveling between communities by jet and direct trucking.
Rather than being sorted within a city, destined for another city, the structure of delivery had by necessity become sorting at regional sorting centers that were connected by various modes of transport (rail, air and road), with the regional centers responsible for routing mail and packages to each local post office in their region.
In 1944, Moon submitted his idea for the "ZIP Code" while working as a
The "Mr. ZIP" cartoon character that was seen on postal delivery vehicles across the United States was originally developed by ad man Harold Wilcox, whose father was a postman. Wilcox's agency, Cunningham & Walsh, originally displayed the image for a Chase Manhattan bank-by-mail campaign.[2]
ZIP codes have been proven to reducing delays and errors in processing mail while allowing increased postal service volume. The impact of the introduction of ZIP codes has led to decreased marketing costs per prospective customer, incrementally lowering costs of goods and services to every person in the country, because businesses can target their advertising and marketing to specific neighborhood demographics.
See also
References
- ^ New York Times. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
- ^ a b c New York Times: Robert Moon, an Inventor of the ZIP, dies at 83. Accessed 23 Sep 2022.