Paper short abstract:

Sailor's Valentines are souvenirs that were made by women in Barbados during the 1800s. Sold to sailors, they dispersed across the Atlantic, and came to serve as reminders of 19th Century globalization—objects of memory that connect family histories to the Black Atlantic and ocean imaginaries.

Paper long abstract:

Sailor's Valentine are souvenirs that were made by women in Bridgetown, Barbados during the mid to late 1800s. They were octagonal wooden diptych boxes, constructed mostly out of mahogany. When opened, the small boxes exposed meticulously and artistically placed pastel-coloured seashells, spelling out Victorian sentimental phrases such as "Forget Me Not." Most were sold out of the New Curiosity Shop owned by two English-settler brothers, B.H. and George Belgraves, to sailors and fishermen who then dispersed them across the Atlantic as material reminders of 19th Century globalization. My great grandfather, James Reid of Carbonear, Newfoundland and Labrador, traveled to Barbados in the 1880s on a fishing schooner and returned home with one for his wife. This wooden box continues to remind me of great grandfather's oceanic travels. It is a tool that reveals and reimagines a community's narrative and intersections with the Black North Atlantic. It symbolizes connection between a community that considered itself insular and isolated and the reality of the perpetual globalization and movement happening throughout the Atlantic Ocean. The Sailor's Valentine represents the historic ocean imaginaries—in my case, an empowering sense of family pride of working and living on the sea—that were unfolding across the Atlantic, and the conversations that were perhaps unattainable to recognize until now.