Marriage through the Mail: North American correspondence marriage from early print to the web

Letters across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants

Volumn , Issue , 2006, Pages 75-94

  Sinke, Suzanne M ^a  

^a FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84993662233     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1057/9780230601079     Document Type: Chapter

References (91)

1. Online at Accessed July 30, 2004.
2. John J. McCusker provides a similar perspective by looking at the rise of business newspapers in "The Demise of Distance: The Business Press and the Origins of the Information Revolution in the Early Modern Atlantic World," American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (April 2005): 295-321.
3. On this topic see Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourses, 1600-1950 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 1.
4. William Engelbrecht, Iroquoia: The Development of a Native World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p. 113. The practice of marriage as a means of alliance continued, for example in unions of fur traders and first nations women. See Sylvia van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983) and Jennifer S.H. Brown, Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983).
5. Camilla Townsend, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), pp. 122-123; 127-128.
6. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, pp. 113-114.
7. On this theme see Bernardo P. Gallegos, Literacy, Education, and Society in New Mexico, 1693-1821 (Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 1992),p. 63.
8. Philip Harrison and Mark Brayshay, "Post-Horse Routes, Royal Progresses and Government Communications in the Reign of James I," Journal of Transport History 18 (1997): 116-133.
9. Ian R. Lee, "The Canadian Postal System: Origins, Growth and Decay of the State Postal Function," PhD dissertation, Ottawa, Ontario: Carleton University, 1989, p. 38.
10. Frank Staff, The Transatlantic Mail (Lawrence, MA: Quarterman Publications, 1980 [1956]), p. 19.
11. Records of the Virginia Land Company, quoted in David R. Ransome, "Wives for Virginia, 1621," William and Mary Quarterly 48 (1991): 5.
12. Ransome, "Wives," p. 5; and Brown, Good Wives,p.82.
13. Brown, Good Wives,p.82.
14. See Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, Wives for Sale: An Ethnographic Study of British Popular Divorce (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981).
15. E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common (New York: The New Press, 1993), chapter 7 "The Sale of Wives."
16. Yves Landry, "Les Filles du Roi Emigrees au Canada au XVIIe siecle, ou un Exemple de Choix du Conjoint en Situation de Desequilibre des Sexes," Histoire, Economie et Société 11, no. 2 (1992): 197-216.
17. Clark Robenstine, "French Colonial Policy and the Education of Women and Minorities: Louisiana in the Early Eighteenth Century," History of Education Quarterly 32, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 205-206. On morality see also Nelson Dawson, "Les Filles du Roi: Des Polleuses? La France du XVIIe siecle," Historical Reflections 12,no.1 (1985): 9-38.
18. On mass recruitment of women as a strategy of empire see also Adele Perry, On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849-1871 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).
19. For English rates see David Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 73.
20. See Clark Robenstien, "French Colonial Policy and the Education of Women and Minorities: Louisiana in the Early Eighteenth Century," History of Education Quarterly 32, no. 2 (1992): 193-211.
21. Linda L. Arthur, "A New Look at Schooling and Literacy: The Colony of Georgia," Georgia Historical Quarterly 84, no. 4 (2000): 563-588.
22. Gallegos, Literacy, Education, and Society, pp. 68-71.
23. For a brief discussion of the meaning of signing rates see Bruce Curtis, "Some Recent Work on the History of Literacy in Canada," History of Education Quarterly 30, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 615.
24. F.W. Grubb, "Growth of Literacy in Colonial America: Longitudinal Patterns, Economic Models, and the Direction of Future Research," Social Science History 14/4 (Winter 1990): 453-455.
25. Gallegos, Literacy, Education, and Society, p. 53.
26. Ruth Wallace Herndon, "Literacy Among New England's Transient Poor, 1750-1800," Journal of Social History 29, no. 4 (1996): 963-965.
27. David Cressy, Coming over: Migration and Communication between England and New England in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 220.
28. See for example the description of Peter Klein's letters in Walter D. Kamphoefner, Wolfgang Helbich, and Ulrike Sommer, eds., News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 383-384.
29. News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home, pp. 217, 222-224.
30. Jane E. Harrison, Until Next Year: Letter Writing and the Mails in the Canadas, 1640-1830 (Quebec; Canadian Postal Museum/ Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1997), p. 65.
31. Roger Thompson, Mobility and Migration: East Anglian Founders of New England, 1629-1640 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), p. 209.
32. Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 26.
33. See Marianne S. Wokeck, Trade in Strangers: The Beginnings of Mass Migration to North America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).
34. Konstantin Dierks, " 'Let me Chat a Little': Letter Writing in Rhode Island Before the Revolution." Rhode Island History 53, no. 4 (1995): 120-133.
35. Kenneth L. Steward and Arnoldo de Leon, "Literacy among Immigrants in Texas, 1850-1900," Latin American Research Review 20, no. 3 (1985): 180-187.
36. J.J. MacDonald, The Nova Scotia Post: Its Offices, Masters and Marks 1700-1867 (Toronto: Unitrade Press, 1985), p. 9.
37. See Kamphoefner et al., News from the Land of Freedom, on this theme in emigrant recruitment generally, p. 20.
38. James Metcalf to Ann Gill, Maccan River, Nova Scotia, August 1772, in Barbara De Wolfe, ed., Discoveries of America: Personal Accounts of British Emigrants to North America during the Revolutionary Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 45.
39. Discoveries of America: Personal Accounts of British Emigrants to North America during the Revolutionary Era, p. 44.
40. Lee, "Canadian Postal System," p. 48.
41. John, Spreading the News, pp. 5,17.
42. Paul Starr, The Creation ofthe Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004), chapter 3.
43. Edward W. Sloan, "Collins Versus Cunard: The Realities of a North Atlantic Steamship Rivalry, 1850-1858," International Journal of Maritime History 4, no. 1 (1992): 83-100.
44. Susan Annette Newberry, "Commerce and Ritual in American Daguerreian Portraiture, 1839-1859" PhD dissertation, New York: Cornell University, 1999.
45. Kamphoefner et al., News from the Land of Freedom, p. 359.
46. Martin Weitz to Father et al., Rockville, CT to Schotten, Hesse, August 1, 1858, in Kamphoefner et al., News from the Land of Freedom, p. 364.
47. Martin Weitz to Father et al., Astoria, NY to Schotten, Hesse, July 16, 1854, in Kamphoefner et al., News from the Land of Freedom, p. 341.
48. Kamphoefner et al., News from the Land of Freedom, p. 350.
49. The United States Postal Service: An American History, 1775-2002 (Washington, DC: United States Postal Service, 2003), p. 11.
50. John C. Arnell, #1: Handbook on Transatlantic Mail (Transatlantic Study Group Handbooks: British North America Philatelic Society, 1987), pp. 5-17.
51. Frank Staff, The Transatlantic Mail (Lawrence, MA: Quarterman Publications, 1980 [reprint of 1956]), pp. 162-163. Letters crossing the Pacific from China around the same period were more expensive and more prone to delay. The rate from Shanghai to the United States for a single sheet was ten cents. Richard Pratt, Imperial China: History of the Posts to 1896 (London: Christie's Robson Lowe, 1994), pp. 168-170.
52. James H. Bruns, Mail on the Move (Polo, IL: Transportation Trails, 1992), p. 65.
53. David Vincent, Literacy and Popular Culture: England 1750-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 43.
54. Lee, "Canadian Postal System," p. 154.
55. The United States Postal Service, p. 20.
56. Susan McLeod O' Reilly, On Track: The Railway Mail Service in Canada (Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1992), pp. 26-28.
57. Frank Verbrugge, ed., Brieven uit het Verleden, Manuscript, Heritage Hall Collection, Calvin College, pp. 42, 78, 98.
58. A.W. Currie, "The Post Office Since 1867," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 24, no. 2 (1958): 244.
59. John Gillis, "Immigrants and the Postal Service," Canadian Museum of Civilization, . Accessed October 5, 2005.
60. Frank Staff, The Transatlantic Mail (Lawrence, MA: Quarterman Publications, 1980 [reprint of 1956]), pp. 110, 173-176; see also Allan Poulin, "Floating the Ocean Lines: Transatlantic Mail Subsidies," Archivist 17, no. 4 (1990): 5-7.
61. Kamphoefner et al., News from the Land of Freedom, p. 27.
62. Hans Knippenberg, Deelname aan het lager onderwijs in Nederland gedurende de negentiende eeuw. Een analyse van de landelijke ontwikkeling en van de regionale verschillen (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 1986), pp. 51-52.
63. Frank Verbrugge, comp., Brieven uit het Verleden, [manuscript letter compilation] Heritage Hall Collection, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI. pp. 156-172.
64. Suzanne M. Sinke, "Migration for Labor, Migration for Love: Marriage and Family Formation across Borders," OAH Magazine (Fall 1999): 17-21.
65. Drew Keeling, "The Transportation Revolution and Transatlantic Migration, 1850-1914," Research in Economic History 19 (1999): 39-74.
66. See for example, H. Dekker, "Immigration Laws," The Banner, July 9,1914, p. 422.
67. See John McLaren, "White Slavers: The Reform of Canada's Prostitution Laws and Patterns of Enforcement, 1900-1920," Criminal Justice History 8 (1987): 53-119.
68. See Denise Chong, The Concubine's Children (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 1994).
69. Tomoko Makabe, Picture Brides: Japanese Women in Canada, trans. Kathleen Chisato Merken (North York: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1995), p. 18.
70. Eileen Sunada Sarasohn, Issei Women: Echoes from Another Frontier (Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1998), p. 75. On the rise of matchmaking in Japan related to photography see Kei Tanaka, "Japanese Picture Marriage and the Image of Immigrant Women in Early Twentieth-Century California," Japanese Journal of American Studies 15 (2004): 115-138.
71. See for example Tami Nakamura's self-description in Makabe, Picture Brides, p. 131; Sarasohn, Issei Women, p. 30.
72. Sarasohn, Issei Women, p. 30.
73. Midge Ayukawa, "Good Wives and Wise Mothers: Japanese Picture Brides in Early Twentieth Century British Columbia" BC Studies 105-106 (1995): 103-118.
74. Y Drych, September 15, 1887,quoted in Aled Jones and Bill Jones, Welsh Reflections: Y Drych and America 1851-2001 (Llandysul, Wales: Gomer, 2001), p. 73 [their translation].
75. Suzanne M. Sinke, Dutch Immigrant Women in the United States, 1880-1920 (Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, 2002), pp. 22-23.
76. John, Spreading the News,p.63.
77. Frances Cairncross, The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997); on the role of communications in transnational migration see Peggy Levitt, The Transnational Villagers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), p. 22.
78. Sarah Mahler, "Transnational Relationships: The Struggle to Communicate Across Borders," Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 7, no. 4 (January 2001): 583.
79. "ISN Successful Matches," Accessed April 18,2001, p. 7 (of 10).
80. See Nicole Constable, Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography & "Mail Order" Marriages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
81. "Meet & Marry Foreign Single Women!" Online at Accessed August 4, 2003.
82. "Cherry Blossoms" Online at Accessed August 4, 2003.
83. See for example the discussions of linguistic problems in Lynn Visson, Wedded Strangers: The Challenges of Russian-American Marriages (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995), pp. 59-60.
84. Rosemary Breger and Rosanna Hill, "Introducing Mixed Marriages," in Cross-Cultural Marriage: Identity and Choice (Oxford: Berg, 1998), p. 22.
85. Chris Dueñas, "Coming to America: The Immigration Obstacles Facing Binational Same-Sex Couples," May 3, 2000, for Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples. Online at Accessed July 14, 2003.
86. Sudha Sethu Balagopal, "The Case of the Brown Esahib: Issues that Confront Working South Asian Wives and Mothers," in Emerging Voices: South Asian American Women Redefine Self, Family, and Community, ed. Sangeeta R. Gupta (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 1999), p. 153.
87. Larry Siems, ed., Between the Lines: Letters Between Undocumented Mexican and Central American Immigrants and Their Families and Friends (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992), pp. 161-165.
88. Roger E. Bilstein, "Technology and Commerce: Aviation in the Conduct of American Business, 1918-29," Technology and Culture 10, no. 3 (1969): 392-411.
89. F.J. Hatch, "Ship-to-Shore Airmail Services in the 1920's," Canadian Geographic 97, no. 1 (1978): 56-61
90. Mahler, "Transnational Relationships."
91. Richard K. Schrader, "Bridging the Atlantic," American History Illustrated 24, no. 3 (1989): 34-47.