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Based on the registration and account records of students, this study provides a portrait of the population of a Catholic college in Montreal between 1789 and 1860. A picture of strong heterogeneity thus emerges, particularly in the orientations. A situation resembling that of the French provincial institutions from the Old Regime is thus found. In fact, the College of Montreal is seen to be home to multi-purposed education, open to a diversified clientele and capable of offering education adapted to multiple expectations and abilities. In all, the image of a boarder engaged in long study periods pursued in the shadows of the walls of austere seminaries appears to need major revision. *La traduction du résumé est de Hélène Boutin et de Isabelle Bayha, sous la supervision de leur professeure d’anglais, Diane Pigeon.

Recounting the history of everyday life in its various forms poses different problems in regard to the time period under examination and the scholarly approach being taken. While French "histoire des mentalités" remained on the level of the abstract, other schools - Italian, German and British - returned the emphasis to the individual, the ordinary citizen confronted by the many trivial necessities of everyday life. The telling of Quebec's religious history became part of this social historical trend. Exploring archives which evoked the ordinary life of the parishes, these historians described a concrete religion, inseparable from forms of local sociability. Another kind of history of everyday life is possible, however: one that seeks not to make sense of ordinary events, but to produce a history of the category itself, and of its incorporation. It involves, in fact, a renewed emphasis on structure and its evolution, a history of defined time, represented and experienced through repetition. Taken from this perspective, religious history has much from which to benefit.

An article from Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, on Érudit.

À partir de la bipolarisation méticuleuse introduite par la liturgie rigoriste québécoise dans l’espace paroissial s’élabore une construction de l’espace social marquée par la ségrégation. Il s’agit, dans le cadre de cette contribution, le poser quelques balises en vue d’une étude systématique de la distribution des corps dans l’espace durant les événements cultuels et d’évaluer la portée heuristique, pour l'histoire sociale, d’une telle étude. On pose en premier lieu les structures culturelles, matérielles et symboliques qui donnent sens à l’espace liturgique paroissial : il est divisé (sacré/profane) et orienté par la présence du saint sacrement. Puis on prend appui sur quelques espaces religieusement connotés pour dégager la construction sociale produite par l'usage : le choeur comme lieu masculin, la nef comme représentation de la société paroissiale, le cimetière comme dispositif de construction de l'altérité. Les lieux sacrés permettent une répartition des individus dans l'espace et contribuent à représenter et instituer les appartenances, les positions et les exclusions. L’analyse historique des positions spatiales est donc en ce contexte le moyen d’une microhistoire sociale.

Is it possible to write a history of the “popular” ways of telling one’s story in periods prior to the democratization of writing ? Due to a scarcity of source material, this is no easy task. However, there are sophisticated self-representations available to the historian, produced by certain literate individuals from modest backgrounds. An analysis of part of the literary output of a representative of this category, Antoine Gérin-Lajoie, may be used to follow the process of shifting from an autobiographical narration to a sociological reflection. This reveals that the very fact of experiencing the problems involved in acquiring a scholarly culture, and in social mobility, provides part of the foundation for these writings on oneself and on the world.

The novel L'influence d'un livre by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé junior, published in 1937, blurred the “modern” categories of science, religion, and superstition, and in so doing constituted a critique of the establishment of a social hierarchy based in part on the domination of official scientific and religious culture. The author’s questioning of authority extended to pushing other limits in validating a religious culture existing outside the formal institution. The novel presents an untidy image, without clear boundaries between what belonged to the religion of the church and what to makeshift, invention, appropriation, word of mouth, or popular acceptance. One must consider L'influence d'un livre as a valid indicator of various apsects, practices, and representations, but especially of the social dynamic that is usually inherent in culture and that is so difficult for the historian to grasp. The novel allows us a better perception of a “religion” with much wider horizons than can be presumed from clerical sources.

The revival of cultural history, and religious history is obviously concerned, is likely to incur an ill-considered rejection of some of the fundamental principles of social history: the will to include the totality of historical actors, the practice of a critical history, the question of the changing nature of the social link. Thus, the return to the "text", a promising means of renewal, carries the danger of a simple updating, or re-legitimization, of what the Power said of its doings. Hence, the work of a cultural historian implies a certain theoretical effort in order to invent new ways of linking discourses with the social practices in history. This is why a revival of the dialogue among disciplines is needed. It is this step which I followed, during a research project dealing with religious rites in 18th and 19th century Quebec, by setting up a link with a sister discipline: anthropology.

An article from Études d'histoire religieuse, on Érudit.

This master’s thesis focuses on the Sudanese crisis coverage within Montreal popular press at the end of the 19th century. This comparative study of the narrations of the Anglo-French rivalry produced by La Presse and the Montreal Daily Star shows that, in the Quebec context, two main political cultures coexist: imperialism and nationalism. This thesis coverts a period starting in 1885 with the first report, by La Presse, about British interventions in the Soudan, leading toward the Fashoda crisis in 1898. The study period ends with the signature of the Entente cordiale in 1904, which bring an end to the main colonial rivalries between the United Kingdom and France. This research concludes that, first, the Montreal Daily Star shows an Anglophone political culture tied to Canadian imperialism; the newspaper preserves and even reinforces this perspective during all the study period. Then, on the other hand, La Presse tends to draw away from this ideology and reveal Canadian nationalism.

Présentation de l'éditeur : "En août 1657, quatre sulpiciens venus de Paris s'installent à Ville- Marie, au Canada. Ainsi commence, il y a 350 ans, l'aventure de Saint-Sulpice de Montréal. Éducation, charité publique, direction des âmes, organisation des paroisses, missionnaires et seigneurs de l'île, mécènes culturels : les Sulpiciens, hommes d'action et de goût, oeuvrent sur tous les fronts et sont étroitement associés à l'histoire de Montréal. Mais ils opèrent dans l'humilité et la discrétion propres à leur vocation religieuse. Aussi leur histoire restait-elle à écrire. C'est maintenant chose faite grâce aux travaux des historiens laïques ici réunis. Ceux-ci ont eu librement accès à des archives qui comptent parmi les plus anciennes au Canada. L'ouvrage fort documenté et richement illustré qui en résulte n'est pas seulement une référence. Il est aussi une invitation à entreprendre un périple dans une histoire méconnue, non exempte de soubresauts. C'est que tout en vivant leur sacerdoce sous le regard de Dieu, les Sulpiciens de Montréal entendaient aussi - entendent toujours - vivre ici-bas, parmi les hommes"

Les auteur.e.s posent les jalons d’un projet de recherche historique qui vise à étudier la culture coloniale euroquébécoise à partir de l’étude de la circulation de récits mettant en scène le missionnaire du Nord-Ouest canadien. L’historiographie internationale et canadienne de l’impérialisme a connu un renouvellement profond au cours des dernières décennies. Elle a révélé le rôle crucial des expériences impériales dans la construction des cultures nationales métropolitaines. Cette culture coloniale n’a pas fait l’objet d’une analyse systématique en ce qui concerne la société québécoise. Les auteur.e.s indiquent certaines raisons qui expliquent ce décalage avant de montrer que le sud du Québec peut pourtant être pensé comme une métropole reliée socialement et discursivement à diverses périphéries. Ils avancent de plus que le Québec évoluait à l’intérieur d’une vaste culture transimpériale et transconfessionnelle. Finalement, ils proposent que la propagande missionnaire produite par les Oblats de Marie-Immaculée dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle constitue une source pertinente pour l’étude de la culture coloniale québécoise.

Au XIXe siècle émerge une criminologie naturalisante qui définit l’empoisonnement comme un crime féminin. L’étude proposée explore le lien qui s’établit entre le sexe de la personne criminelle, son genre et le moyen de perpétration de son acte meurtrier par l’analyse des procès pour empoisonnement répertoriés au Québec pour la période allant de 1867 à 1900. Comparant les procès d’empoisonneurs aux procès d’empoisonneuses, confrontant les acteurs historiques à leurs situations vécues, la recherche parcourt les manifestations du genre dans les méthodes criminelles employées par les accusé-e-s ainsi que dans les discours produits à leur endroit tout au long du processus judiciaire. Les résultats sont révélateurs des normes sexuelles en vigueur dans la société québécoise à la fin de l’époque victorienne et s’insèrent dans la lignée des études sur la régulation sociale au Québec.

This master thesis qualifies the friendship of two college students of the collège de Valleyfield between the years 1900 and 1908. It analyzes the intimate journals of Erle G. Bartlett (1886-1945) and Émile Léger (1883-1908) and their correspondence. This thesis also studies their relationship with Lionel Groulx (1878-1967) who is their spiritual director. While studying friendship practises and intimate exchanges between the pupils it is possible to show that the friendships between Erle and Émile constitute emotional refuges in the college strict emotional community. Both students define their friendships as Catholic friendships, elitist relationships with union in prayer for ideal. Mentorship relationship between pupils of different ages constitutes an imitation of the practice of spiritual direction applied in their friendships. Lionel Groulx influence the student's conception of friendship by making them read romantic Catholics authors, particularly Charles de Montalembert (1810-1870). The « Montalembertisation » of Erle and Émile encourage them to adopt a romantic friendship vocabulary more characteristic of 19th century friendships. As for Lionel Groulx, his inexperience in being a spiritual director makes him nearly become Émile and Erle friend instead of director. Those relationships will merit him to be sent away temporarily from the college in 1902. Lionel Groulx and his pupils, first members of the Action catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française (A.C.J.C.) at the collège de Valleyfield, are not able to add a mandate of « Montalembertisation » at the A.C.J.C. The friendships of Erle and Émile are one of the last testimonies of romantic friendship between college students in an area where homophobia is more and more common thus rending this kind of homosocial friendship suspicious.

Cette recherche analyse les concepts de confiance et de réputation par l’entremise de procès intentés pour libelle diffamatoire entre les années l791 et 1815 dans le district de Montréal. L’étude montre que la réputation, protégée juridiquement, est un régulateur de l’espace public. Elle contrôle les discours, les correspondances et tout autre écrit qu’un individu pourrait juger diffamants. En plus d’encadrer la liberté d’expression, la réputation structure le marché économique montréalais. Elle se présente comme l’un des moyens mis à la disposition des créditeurs comme des débiteurs pour créer la confiance. Inversement, sa flétrissure compromet l’échange. La réputation sera donc analysée dans ce mémoire comme l’une des formes de régulation sociale des rapports interindividuels au tournant du 19e siècle.

Cannibals, caravans under the burning desert sun, “Wild Indians” of the Northwest… these were just some of the exotic images that Quebec schoolchildren were presented with in the 19th century. In addition to being a vehicle for socialization into the nation, the school was also a window onto the wider world and a place to learn about stereotypes. What images of the Other, and produced by which ideologies, did Quebec schools transmit? How did Quebec youth become conscious of “otherness”? What recreative and pedagogical functions did these images serve? This thesis is an effort to answer these questions. The first three chapters of the thesis explore the rhetorical construction of otherness in the school. How was the Other identified and depicted? The rhetoric of otherness took many forms, from cultural distancing to racial essentializing. European imperialism and the knowledge it produced facilitated the classification of the world’s peoples, from which were drawn those peoples who had different and “bizarre” cultural practices. Consistent with the history of Orientalism, such fascination was particularly reserved for the peoples of Asia. But, as radical as the otherness of the Oriental could be, it did not attain the level of essentialization imposed on the “Negro,” defined by their race, and to the “Savage,” whose body was the primary indicator of their identity. Finally, the significant role that the figure of the Indian played in primary-level education is a reminder that it was key to realizing the very possibility of a national existence for Canadians – who were themselves essentialized as belonging to the civilized world. Far from having only been in the background of history, the Indian was at the heart of the narrative as the figure most likely to capture the interest of children. Retaining the interest of children was precisely what the pedagogy of the era was most concerned with as a means to develop various capacities, such as the power of observation and emotion, both of which the latter chapters of this thesis examines. Fascinated by the images they observed, children were exposed to a stereotyped representation of the Other that manifested itself across multiple disciplines. In employing the travel narratives of the European explorers, geography called upon students to imagine themselves elsewhere. The schoolwork of students explored here reveals their curiosity about and imaginings of far-off regions and peoples. Finally, we also see how a missionary rhetoric manipulated the emotional reactions of schoolchildren to poor non-Christian children and thereby used the school to transmit its message. The school setting ensured that children acquired a sense of authority over the Others that the educational discourse presented to them. The knowledge of the Others gave them a sense of superiority and authority. The school also transmitted a hierarchical vision of the world in which Canadian children, even those of the popular classes, belonged to the more privileged categories, that is to say to the white race and civilization. This highlights one of the central findings of this research: children were not defined as French-Canadians or English-Canadians vis-à-vis the Other; rather, they were defined as white and civilized. This thesis also shows how otherness was a pedagogical tool that public education privileged amid its expansion in the 19th century.

This study analyses school theatre practiced at the Congrégation Notre-Dame between 1850 and 1920. We will explore this poorly studied phenomenon as well as its implication in the girls’ gender building at the Congrégation. It is divided in two main sections. In the first, we will look at the reasons why theatre was practiced, while discovering the pedagogic and material objectives which theatre fulfilled in the congregation, after figuring out the origins of this practice by going back to its foundation by Marguerite Bourgeoys. Despite its advantages, theater found a fierce opponent in Mgr Édouard-Charles Fabre. He played an influential role on the practice’s development curve. We will also discuss the morality of feminine school theatre, which was tolerated under some bishops but challenged by Mgr Édouard-Charles Fabre. In the second part of this study, we will seek to understand how theater was practiced by analysing its representations and relative available texts. We will analyze the themes and gender used as well as their reproduction through a study of staging, costumes and decors. By creating this general perspective, we will identify the gender’s elements being proposed to girls and the process by which theater allowed for the integration of these elements.