The Storied History of the United States Postal Service

Under Duress
Beginning in the 1980s, the postal service endured a spate of workplace shootings. In the public imagination, the violent acts were symbolic of the increasing pressure in American offices and factories to do more, in less time, at less cost and the term "going postal" became associated with any act of extreme anger that led to violence. The photo above was taken in the aftermath of one of the more prominent early postal shootings, in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986, when Patrick Sherrill, a part-time letter carrier, entered the local post office and fatally shot 14 employees.

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