“Killing Time,” or Mrs. Braby’s Peppermints: The Double Economy of the Family Herald and the Family Herald Supplements

The article is a case study centring on the mass-market fiction weekly the Family Herald and its Supplements. It argues that affect and its possibilities for political and economic critique are often ignored as "supplements" in the study of periodicals. After a methodological introduction, the piece suggests that the Family Herald Supplement may have resulted from the intervention of an advertising agent keen to address new markets. Counter to this capitalist vision, the piece then explores the only sustained discussion of the periodical's use by readers. It circulates there in a feminine gift economy as a resource of hope.