Articles

Early American Commercial Property Marks: Reading According to Code, and Beyond

Farber, Hannah

It has recently become more common for literary scholars to engage with broader fields of study which bear names like "media," "other-than-text," and "graphic pluralism." Fitting comfortably within these capacious fields of study lie the shippers' marks employed by colonial Americans for the purposes of Atlantic commerce. These marks were signs whose most straightforward meanings could be ascertained by reference to relatively settled and widely apprehended codes. Durable, legible, and recognizable in law, marks made it possible for empires to grow and traders to prosper. Yet marks were never as stable as they were broadly perceived to be. The meanings of marks could shift across space and time, and the gradual accumulation of marks on property in transit opened up new possibilities for interpretation, allowing marked property to be "read" for meanings beyond those dictated by code. As the story of the Boston Loyalist printer John Mein reveals, mark reading was in itself a process bearing political meaning. It was precisely because marks were so durable and legible, and because the practice of mark reading was so widely associated with conformity to law and order, that changes to that practice could be politically unsettling.

Files

  • thumnail for Farber Hannah - Early American Commercial Property Marks - Reading According to Code and Beyond.pdf Farber Hannah - Early American Commercial Property Marks - Reading According to Code and Beyond.pdf application/pdf 1.58 MB Download File

Also Published In

Title
Early American Literature
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/eal.2022.0003

More About This Work

Academic Units
History
Published Here
January 29, 2025