Long epistolary latency shaped colonial family correspondence

Evidence

Their letters took a good month to arrive, with two long months to receive a response. His were on thick, embossed stationery, adorned with the family coat-of-arms, and hers on transparent paper, often written twice over, cross-hatched at right angles, perhaps to command his attention, or, as she claimed, to save postage. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1318

Categorization

• QUESTION: The physical letter-writing practices—cross-hatching, stationery choices—encode class and intimacy. Do these material choices correlate with the writer’s genre awareness of the letter as a documentary object?
• CANDY: Cross-hatched letters (writing twice over at right angles) to save postage is a charming, shareable period detail.