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  • Pays tribute to Bettina Bradbury's feminist historiography and how it influenced the author's own work on the household economy of residential prostitution as well as female tavern and inn keepers in 19th century Montreal. Concludes that Bradbury raised the bar for studies of social, economic, cultural, and political history in Canada and Quebec.

  • During a time of significant demographic, geographic, and social transition, many women in early nineteenth-century Montreal turned to prostitution and brothel-keeping to feed, clothe, protect, and house themselves and their families. Beyond Brutal Passions is a close study of the women who were accused of marketing sex, their economic and social susceptibilities, and the strategies they employed to resist authority and assert their own agency. Referencing newspapers, parish registers, census returns, coroners' reports, city directories, documents of Catholic and Protestant institutions, police books, and court records, Mary Anne Poutanen reveals how these women confronted limited alternatives and how they fought against established authority in the pursuit of their livelihoods. She details these women's lives not only as prostitutes but also as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters who reconstructed the bonds of kinship and solidarity. An insightful history of prostitution, Beyond Brutal Passions explores the complicated relationships between women accused of prostitution and the society in which they lived and worked. A social history exploring the intersections between those accused of prostitution, their neighbours, families, clients, and criminal justice. --Publisher's summary (WorldCat record)

  • Taverns and inns were centres of neighbourhood life, places for travellers seeking meals, drink, and accommodation and commercial and domestic spaces where keepers and their families earned a living and that they called home. Women figured largely in public houses as patrons, servants, family members, and publicans in their own right. The article focuses on a sample of 90 female publicans who held tavern licences from 1840 to 1860, arguing that keeping these establishments afforded them distinct levels of economic independence and power. It considers broadly those characteristics that constituted ideal female keepers in mid-nineteenth-century Montreal and how they maintained a respectable status precisely at a moment when alcohol consumption and associated licensed and unlicensed commercial sites were coming increasing under scrutiny by temperance advocates, authorities of the criminal justice system, and elites. To retain their licences, female keepers had to negotiate the landmines of respectability by following licensing regulations, maintaining a reputable demeanour, and regulating the public house’s culture and clientele.

  • In February 1913, when a teacher at Montreal's Aberdeen School made disparaging remarks about her Jewish pupils, five boys called a strike. Hundreds of Jewish children congregated in the park across from the school where they appointed strike leaders, established a negotiating committee, and resolved not to return to class until the teacher apologized. Some of them marched to the Baron de Hirsch Institute and the newspaper office of the Keneder Adler to demand that action be taken. The Aberdeen students showed maturity in their understanding of "the strike" as a strategic response to perceived injustice, their politicization with respect to relations between the Jewish and Anglo-Protestant communities, and class consciousness. The years 1912 and 1913 had been arduous for working-class Jews living along the St-Laurent Street corridor who experienced a lengthy tailors' strike followed by an economic depression. The youthful strikers were acutely aware of the difficulties of being both working class and Jewish. We argue that the collective actions of the Aberdeen School strikers reveal a close connection to the labour activism of their parents and to the downtown Jewish community. Their response to the teacher's anti-Semitic comments is an example of the historical agency of children.

Last update from database: 11/25/24, 4:10 AM (UTC)

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