The persistence of family: a study of a nineteenth-century Canadian family and their correspondence.
Beginning in the 1850s, the struggling farming family of Elijah Dunham (1810-1893) and Anna Maria Briggs (1813-1899) ceased to function as a single economic and social unit. The children left the family home to establish lives and families of their own in various parts of Canada and the United States. As the family dispersed, however; they continued to maintain contact through letters. In the letters, the family shared news, sought advice, received comfort, and, at times, vented their frustrations and exposed internal family tensions. The letters provided a means of requesting and extending financial assistance, especially as it came to maintaining the elderly parents back in Ontario. Although the family would never again inhabit the same geographic location, they continued to function as a kinship network even though separated by time and space.
Stott
Greg
G
McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
D002170:Canada; D015709:Correspondence as Topic / Q000266:history*; D005195:Family Relations; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States