The tome, The Postal age is broken down by Henkin into two distinct sections. “Joining Network” which primarily focuses on the systematic nut and bolt spread of the postal system, how and what did people mailed and mail in a developing urban environment. The second section is “Postal Intimacy” which takes a look at the cultural aspect of letter writing styles and the clichés associated to its respective culture.
Chapter Two, “Malleable matters” went on to discuss what people really mailed and how it was molded and evolved during his era of study. Henkin spoke about the History of Transient newspapers were periodicals that were passed along by the post by someone other than the main publisher. People of that time used newspapers to relay information to recipients in very faraway places. This practice was fairly inexpensive as opposed to sending a regular letter. The postal bureaucracy didn’t agree with this practice and proceeded to shut it down. Sometime by the year 1845 Congress had actually passed an act the reduced the price of letters. This price reduction made it more attractive to send Letters as opposed to using Transient Newspapers. Henkin really didn’t cover much of the political legislation regarding such reforms. Covering such topics might have been helpful in completely understand the nuts and bolts of Joining a Network.
Furthermore, Henkin addresses the rising transitory movements that were taking place during that time of the century. He addressed in particular how the migrant men of the Gold Rush and those of the Civil War wrote