July 2, 1881. President James Garfield walks through a Washington train station. Charles Guiteau steps forward, raises a revolver, and fires twice. As Garfield falls, Guiteau shouts: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! Arthur is president now!" In his mind, this isn't murder, it's a job application. In Episode 4, Aileen and Maia trace how a broken system that rewarded political loyalty over competence created the conditions for presidential assassination. The spoils system, also called patronage, meant the winning party could fire and replace up to 80% of the federal workforce, turning government jobs into political prizes. The Post Office, employing three-quarters of all federal workers, was the biggest prize of all. Every congressman controlled 200+ postmaster positions to hand out as rewards, creating a surveillance network that reported on communities, distributed campaign literature, and maintained party power. But the system was catastrophic: postmasters were drunk in saloons, mail sat undelivered in bags, and the Star Route scandal drained millions through fraud. When President Garfield tried to reform it, Charles Guiteau, a spectacular failure who'd been rejected for a diplomatic post, decided murder was patriotism. Garfield should have survived the gunshot, but doctors who didn't believe in germ theory probed his wound with unwashed hands for 79 days, creating a 20-inch infected gash that killed him. Then something unexpected happened: Chester Arthur, the ultimate machine politician who became president, faced his own mortality and championed the Pendleton Act, dismantling the very system that made his career. The reform worked: delivery errors dropped 22%, mail volume increased 14%, and merit-based hiring created the professional civil service that enabled Rural Free Delivery, Parcel Post, and modern government. But in 2025, we're watching it all unravel. Trump's Schedule F and DOGE have purged 211,000 federal workers, the largest peacetime attack on American civil service in history, replacing expertise with loyalty and turning government back into a weapon for the powerful. This episode reveals why that fight matters, what we lose when institutions serve machines instead of people, and why we need to remember that we've beaten the spoils system before, which means we can do it again. Key takeaways to listen for [00:00:00] Introduction [00:01:40 Act I - The System That Created a Killer: How the spoils system turned 50,000-70,000 Post Office jobs into political prizes, why every election meant mass firings and drunk postmasters, and how rewarding loyalty over competence created catastrophic incompetence, then and now with DOGE [00:19:49] Act II - The Turkey-Gobbler vs. The Dark Horse: The 1880 Republican Convention battle between machine politicians and reformers, how James Garfield accidentally became the nominee, and why his attacks on patronage made him a target [00:32:41] Act III - The Malpractice That Killed a President: Charles Guiteau's methodical assassination plan, why Garfield should have survived the gunshot, and how doctors who rejected germ theory turned a survivable wound into a 79-day death sentence [00:38:50] Act IV - Merit Proves Itself: How Chester Arthur, facing his own mortality, became an unlikely reform champion, what the Pendleton Act accomplished, and why merit-based hiring measurably improved postal service with 22% fewer errors [00:45:52] Act V - The Fight Happening Right Now: Why DOGE's purge of 211,000 federal workers is the largest peacetime attack on civil service in history, how replacing EPA scientists and air traffic controllers with Fox News personalities creates measurable harm, and why defending professional government is the fight of our time [00:58:03] Next Episode and Credits Follow Us On Social Media Instagram @Peopleof_Agency TikTok @Peopleof_Agency YouTube @Peopleof_Agency   Connect with Us Ready to explore how ordinary people built extraordinary public instituti

October 6, 1866. Three men board a slow-moving train in Seymour, Indiana. They beat a messenger unconscious, steal $16,000, and throw a 300-pound safe off a moving train. It's the first peacetime train robbery in American history, and it accidentally invents federal law enforcement as we know it. In this action-packed episode, Aileen and Maia break from their usual format to deliver pure narrative chaos: train robberies, shootouts, vigilante lynchings, and the birth of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. From the Reno Brothers' brutal heist that ended in mob violence, to Jesse James wearing KKK hoods and building a mythology that protected him for nine years, to Butch Cassidy brought down by raspberry-stained bills and telephone coordination, this is the bloodiest chapter in postal history. But beneath the exciting outlaw tales lies a harder question: who do institutions serve? Aileen and Maia trace how corporate interests weaponized "protecting the mail" to get taxpayer-funded federal protection for their gold shipments, how Allan Pinkerton learned detective work as a postal inspector then became a union-busting corporate enforcer, and how brave postal inspectors like W.P. Houk risked their lives enforcing a system designed to serve the powerful. It's a story about mythology, violence, and the ongoing fight over whose interests our institutions protect.   Note: This episode contains discussions of violence, lynching, and white supremacy.  Key takeaways to listen for [00:00:00] Introduction [00:04:46] Act I - The Reno Gang and the Birth of Federal Power: How the first peacetime train robbery exposed the gaps in federal law enforcement, why express companies got taxpayer-funded protection by putting their gold in mail cars, and how vigilante lynchings of the Reno Brothers created an international incident [00:26:42] Act II - Jesse James and the Mythology Machine: Confederate guerrilla turned train robber wears KKK hoods, gets protected by Lost Cause propaganda, and becomes a folk hero thanks to his publicist while postal inspectors spend nine years trying to catch a white supremacist murderer [00:37:26] Act III - When Too Much Dynamite Met Modern Investigation: The Wild Bunch accidentally stains stolen bills with raspberry juice, gets tracked by the first telephone-coordinated manhunt, and learns that forensic investigation beats faster guns [00:45:09] Act IV - The Christmas Eve Shootout: Inspector W.P. Houk walks ten miles in freezing darkness to ambush the Rodgers Gang, raising questions about whose courage serves whose interests [50:22] Act V - The Fight Over Who Institutions Serve: Why mythology erases workers and celebrates outlaws, how institutions become contested spaces, and why giving up on public services means letting corporate interests win by default Follow Us On Social Media Instagram @Peopleof_Agency TikTok @Peopleof_Agency YouTube @Peopleof_Agency   Connect with Us Ready to explore how ordinary people built extraordinary public institutions? Subscribe to People of Agency wherever you listen to podcasts. Find us on social media @Peopleof_Agency. Have stories about how the mail shaped your community, or thoughts on protecting public services? We'd love to hear from you! peopleofagencypod@gmail.com Quotes: "They just accidentally invented federal law enforcement as we know it. They just created postal inspectors." - Maia "Express companies essentially outsourced their security costs to taxpayers." - Aileen "Get yourself a good publicist." - Aileen (on what Jesse James learned from the Reno Brothers) "He went from labor organizer to corporate enforcer." - Maia (on Allan Pinkerton) "When he wears a KKK hood while robbing a train in 1873, he's not just hiding his identity. He's signaling his allegiance." - Aileen "The mythology says he was robbing from the rich. But he wasn't. He robbed a mail train carrying letters from regular people." - Aileen "You can have all the federal authority in the world. If

Winter, 1895. Cascade, Montana. A nearly sixty-year-old Black woman who was born enslaved leans into a blizzard, driving a U.S. mail wagon through drifts that have turned men around. Her name is Mary Fields, and she will become a legend. But before we meet Stagecoach Mary, we need to understand the system she bent to her will. In Episode 2, Aileen and Maia trace how the Post Office expanded westward, not just following the frontier, but actively creating it. From the 1845 postal reforms that slashed rates and made long-distance communication affordable, to star routes that stitched remote cabins into the national fabric, to the mythologized Pony Express (which lasted only eighteen months and probably never employed Buffalo Bill), this episode reveals how mail delivery became the infrastructure that justified federal expansion into Indigenous territories. We meet railway mail clerks who memorized ten thousand post offices and sorted at breakneck speed in wooden cars that killed them in wrecks. We meet Owney, the beloved terrier who rode the rails and never saw a single train accident in nine years. And finally, we meet Mary Fields: cigar-smoking, gun-carrying, gender-nonconforming postal contractor who won a federal star route, walked through wolf packs to deliver the mail, and forced an entire Montana town to rewrite its rules to make room for her. This is a story about who gets to represent America at someone’s front door, and what it takes to change that answer.

What if the real glue holding America together isn’t laws or leaders, but the mail? In the premiere episode of People of Agency, Aileen and Maia kick off their deep dive into U.S. Postal Service history by exploring its revolutionary origins. Before independence, before the Constitution, the Continental Congress established the Post Office, making it older than America itself. From Benjamin Franklin’s efficiency obsession and William Goddard’s colonial tech-bro energy, to the remarkable Mary Katharine Goddard printing the Declaration of Independence with all the signers’ names (a potential death warrant), this episode reveals how the mail became democracy’s secret weapon. But this isn’t a sanitized origin story. Aileen and Maia confront the brutal contradictions baked into the foundation: postal roads built on stolen Indigenous trails, revolutionary ideals funded by enslaved labor, and a system that promised connection while enforcing exclusion. It’s a story of genuine innovation and profound injustice, visionary courage and devastating hypocrisy, and it’s more relevant today than ever as billionaires and politicians work to dismantle what remains of this public good.

The Post Office is older than the United States, and that's not a coincidence. From the American Revolution to Rural Free Delivery, the Post Office has been a silent, foundational institution that literally built the roads and airways of modern America.  Join Aileen Day and Maia Warner-Langenbahn as they dig up the receipts and reveal the untold, radical history of this essential public good. This is a story about the unseen power that truly holds the country together, and why we all need to understand what's at stake when public institutions are under attack.The first two episodes drop on November 10th, then a new episode every Monday.