Jesuit Mission Products and Object Biography: The St. Inigoes Manor Weaver’s House, St. Mary’s County, Maryland

Christian missionary groups in the Americas chose to reduce expenses by manufacturing mission products at their properties. Object-biography approaches offer a means of tracing mission-product mobility by reconstructing life histories. Archaeological investigation of a weaver’s house at the Jesuit St. Inigoes Manor in southern Maryland reveals a mission-product manufacturing site. An object-biography framework offers a means of understanding human-object relations at mission properties through the distinction between powerful “inscribed objects” vs. the everyday “lived objects” that predominate at this weaver’s house. An object itinerary of clothing portrays this site as one node among multiple points along the life histories of mission products. Finally, a critical approach to biographical writing would reassert the role of the enslaved and free women who transformed raw materials into cloth and clothing at Jesuit missions.