Emotional baggage: how objects created family across the nineteenth-century British empire

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the exchange of objects between family members by studying the lists of items detailed in the Terry family letters, dated from 1842 to 1852 and sent between British empire locations. It argues that these objects were crucial to creating and maintaining family ties across the empire, primarily through their emotional value. Economic and social considerations, though present, cannot account for the full extent of the objects exchanged. They likewise do not explain the repeating lists of items, themselves bearing no little cost of postage. Yet both objects and lists reinforced routes of connectivity by emotional signalling, such as demonstrating parental care or assuaging guilt. Building on both anthropological and historical insight, this study shows how the act of sending the objects constituted the strongest signal, as it placed the effort to stay in touch centre stage. This effort was best displayed by sending excessive objects, objects with little social or economic benefit that nonetheless required ingenuity in sending. Concentrating on the Terry family case study highlights the significant role of objects in creating family across distance, while providing a paradigm for an analysis of similar material exchanges.