United Parcel Service
American international package delivery company
United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is an American multinational shipping-and-receiving and supply chain management company founded in 1907. Originally known as the American Messenger Company specializing in telegraphs, UPS has expanded to become a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest shipping couriers. UPS today is primarily known for its ground shipping services as well as the UPS Store, a retail chain which assists UPS shipments and provides tools for small businesses. UPS offers air shipping on an overnight or two-day basis and delivers to post office boxes through UPS Mail Innovations and UPS Ground Saver.
UPS is the largest courier company in the world by revenue, with annual revenues around US$85 billion in 2020, ahead of competitors DHL and FedEx. UPS's main international hub, UPS Worldport in Louisville, Kentucky, is the fifth busiest airport in the world by cargo traffic based on preliminary statistics from ACI, and the third busiest in the U.S. The company is one of the largest private employers in the United States. As of 2023, UPS is third in U.S. parcel volumes shipped since 2015, trailing the United States Postal Service and Amazon.
History
Foundation
On August 28, 1907, James E. Casey founded the American Messenger Company with Claude Ryan in Seattle, Washington, capitalized with $100 in debt. Most deliveries at this time were made on foot and bicycles (later streetcars) were used for longer trips.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “United Parcel Service” is american international package delivery company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, Parcel and Service, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q155026. VIAF identifies the subject as 130076624. The Library of Congress control number is n50057798. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1907, 2020, 2023 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “United Parcel Service” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.