How mail forged an industry.

 Before the mail came.

Before the mail service took interest in the aviation industry it was mostly a military technology. By the year 1918 aircraft were mostly used for the war effort during the first World War, a stage which it dubiously entered onto to begin with. The Germans had been using Zeplins as bombers and modified aerial platforms to rain attacks down upon its enemies in the trenches and some cities before the advent of the more streamlined airplanes of the time. But these were all essentially large balloons with carriages attached to them similar to a hot air balloon but with rudimentary rudders for steering and rough ballast devices to allow it to raise into the air or descend, these Zeplins were filled with Helium instead of hot air. But they weren't true airplanes, those didn't come in until later in the war. Once they did enter though, countries scrambled to make as many of these planes and advance them as much as possible. However, in 1918 the war ended and all of those aircraft which were produced needed a new task.

Enter, the United States Postal Service.

After World War I the new flying machines needed purpose, and one of those ready to put them to use was the United States Postal Service (Smithsonian National Postal Museum). The idea of US Airmail began when the Wilson administration added a new senior staff to the Post Office Department, among these was Postmaster General Albert Burlson and Second Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger. Burlson and Praeger had the idea to make the post office faster, more efficient, and more powerful, and put their idea to Congress (Smithsonian National Postal Museum). Congress liked the idea, and the postal service aligned itself initially with the United States Army, as the United States Airforce didn't exist at that time and aviation was actually a part of the Army. On May 15th, 1918, in front of President Woodrow Wilson himself, the first mail was given to Lieutenant George Boyle who flew it to New York in his JN-4H, fully birthing the airmail service (Smithsonian National Postal Museum). The Army flew the mail for only 2 months, after which jurisdiction issues caused the Postal Office Department to fully take over the service (Smithsonian National Postal Museum).

The Kelly Act.

By 1925 the Postal Service was ready for its next step with airmail, the initial goal had always been to have the mail carried by privately owned business which contracted through the Post Office Department. The Air Mail Act of 1925 allowed the post office to contract through corporations in order to carry the mail and begin carry passengers (A Brief History of the FAA). The Air Mail Act of 1925 was nicknamed the Kelly Act, and it contracted with several large travel corporations of the time among them being, Pan American Airways, Western Air Express, and Ford Air Transport Service (A Brief History of the FAA). With the advent of the new mail delivery system and fact that passengers could now be conveyed from destination to destination quickly, aviation began its journey into a booming industry that defines how we now deal with long distance parcels and passengers. 

References:

Birth of an Industry | National Postal Museum (si.edu) (Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Retrieved 12 August 2022)

A Brief History of the FAA | Federal Aviation Administration (A Brief History of the FAA, Retrieved 12 August 2022)

Postal Act Facts | National Postal Museum (si.edu) "Fad to Fundamental: Air mail in America" (Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Retrieved 12 August 2022)