Printer, inventor, and one of the best-loved figures of the Revolutionary War period, Dr. Benjamin Franklin was a founding father AND the future ‘father’ of the U.S. postal system.  Even before the states were united, Franklin was named postmaster of the American colonies, as much for his reputation for frugality as his interest in mail.

Franklin was known as a penny-pincher when it came to running the mail system, but he was not above using his status to send his own mail for free.  Frugal Franklin treated himself to what was known at the time as a “franking privilege.” 

Franking privileges—the ability to send mail with a signature rather than with postage—date back to the seventeenth-century English House of Commons. America’s Continental Congress adopted the practice in 1775 and voted it into law in 1789.  It was intended to improve the flow of information across a vast nation.

To send his missives on their way, all Franklin had to do was sign his name on an envelope and write the word “free.”  No fuss…no muss…and no pesky stamp either!  And so the term ‘Franklin Privilege’ was coined.