Along a River: The First French-Canadian Women

by Jan Noel

Overview

French-Canadian explorers, traders, and soldiers feature prominently in this country's storytelling, but little has been written about their female counterparts. In Along a River, award-winning historian Jan Noel shines a light on the lives of remarkable French-Canadian women — immigrant brides, nuns, tradeswomen, farmers, governors' wives, and even smugglers — during the period between the settlement of the St. Lawrence Lowlands and the Victorian era.

Along a River builds the case that inside the cabins that stretched for miles along the shoreline, most early French-Canadian women retained old fashioned forms of economic production and customary rights over land ownership. Noel demonstrates how this continued even as the world changed around them by comparing their lives to those of their contemporaries in France, England, and New England.Exploring how the daughters and granddaughters of the filles du roi adapted to their terrain, turned their hands to trade, and even acquired surprising influence at the French court, Along a River is an innovative and engagingly written history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442698260
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	08/30/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	356
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jan Noel is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Introduction

MAPPING TRANSATLANTIC WOMEN'S HISTORY

Chapter 1. Transatlantic Trends 1600-1800

ALONG A RIVER

Chapter 2. River of Promise

Chapter 3. Women and the St.Lawrence Fur Trade

Chapter 4. Water, Woods, Earth: Making a Living

TRANSATLANTIC CODES

Chapter 5. Comparing Laws of Property

Chapter 6. Noble Codes, Colonial Translations

Chapter 7. Decoding the Eighteenth Century Convent

RIVER OF MEMORY

Chapter 8. Continuities in British Quebec

What People are Saying About This

Leslie P. Choquette

‘This important book provides the first real synthesis of scholarship on French women in the St Lawrence Valley from the early seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Jan Noel brings together the latest primary research on the topic, situating these findings within the historiographies of New France, France, England, and the American colonies. Her research on women and the St Lawrence fur trade is particularly notable.’

Sophie White

'A pleasure to read, Along a River, provides an engaging thematic analysis of the lives of female colonists along the St. Lawrence Valley from the 1630s to the 1830s. It makes an important contribution to our understandings of how the experiences of French Canadian women differed from those of women in France or the English colonies both during and after the British Conquest. General readers will appreciate Jan Noel's rich interpretive narrative and clear synthesis, while specialists will benefit from her command of a vast range of French- and English-language sources.'

From the Publisher

‘A pleasure to read, Along a River, provides an engaging thematic analysis of the lives of female colonists along the St. Lawrence Valley from the 1630s to the 1830s. It makes an important contribution to our understandings of how the experiences of French Canadian women differed from those of women in France or the English colonies both during and after the British Conquest. General readers will appreciate Jan Noel's rich interpretive narrative and clear synthesis, while specialists will benefit from her command of a vast range of French- and English-language sources.’

‘This important book provides the first real synthesis of scholarship on French women in the St Lawrence Valley from the early seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Jan Noel brings together the latest primary research on the topic, situating these findings within the historiographies of New France, France, England, and the American colonies. Her research on women and the St Lawrence fur trade is particularly notable.’

‘Noel has crafted a work of academic scholarship that is bound to become a part of the Canadian history cannon… Highly recommended.’

Editorial Reviews

‘Noel has crafted a work of academic scholarship that is bound to become a part of the Canadian history cannon… Highly recommended.’—B.F.R. Edwards, Choice Magazine; vol 51:05:14
‘Noel does an outstanding job of placing women in the context of familial fur-trade enterprises and within noble military families…The considerable strides made in the history of women in New France is evident from this well-written book.’—Dale Miquelon, American Historical Review - vol 119:03:2014

‘Noel’s extraordinarily rich book traces the experiences and contributions of women in Canada from the 1630s to the 1850s… This book is a fine work of scholarship that will no doubt prove highly useful to scholars of the colonial Americas and the history of women.’

—Micah True,, H-France vol 16:09:2016

‘A pleasure to read, Along a River, provides an engaging thematic analysis of the lives of female colonists along the St. Lawrence Valley from the 1630s to the 1830s. It makes an important contribution to our understandings of how the experiences of French Canadian women differed from those of women in France or the English colonies both during and after the British Conquest. General readers will appreciate Jan Noel's rich interpretive narrative and clear synthesis, while specialists will benefit from her command of a vast range of French- and English-language sources.’—Sophie White, American Studies, University of Notre Dame

‘This important book provides the first real synthesis of scholarship on French women in the St Lawrence Valley from the early seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Jan Noel brings together the latest primary research on the topic, situating these findings within the historiographies of New France, France, England, and the American colonies. Her research on women and the St Lawrence fur trade is particularly notable.’

—Leslie P. Choquette, Department of History, Assumption College

From the Publisher

'Noel's extraordinarily rich book traces the experiences and contributions of women in Canada from the 1630s to the 1850s... This book is a fine work of scholarship that will no doubt prove highly useful to scholars of the colonial Americas and the history of women.'

H-France vol 16:09:2016 - Micah True

‘Noel does an outstanding job of placing women in the context of familial fur-trade enterprises and within noble military families…The considerable strides made in the history of women in New France is evident from this well-written book.’

Dale Miquelonn Historical Review - vol 119:03:2014

‘Noel has crafted a work of academic scholarship that is bound to become a part of the Canadian history cannon… Highly recommended.’

Choice Magazine; vol 51:05:14 - B.F.R. Edwards

‘Noel does an outstanding job of placing women in the context of familial fur-trade enterprises and within noble military families…The considerable strides made in the history of women in New France is evident from this well-written book.’

American Historical Review - vol 119:03:2014 - Dale Miquelon