Canadian Social History

On April 16, 1911, in Sault Ste Marie, Angelina Napolitano killed her husband, Pietro, with an axe.  In the article, “Murder, Womanly Virtue and Motherhood: The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911-1922,” historians Karen Dubinsky and Franca Iacovetta explore the causes behind the murder, the resulting trial, and its fallout.  In doing so, Dubinsky and Iacovetta argue that “the social meanings attached to the woman’s life, and especially her crime, were profoundly shaped by prevailing assumptions about gender, race, and class.”  Dubinsky and Iacovetta draw this conclusion by taking what could be categorized as a “gender history” approach to their subject.  But what is gender history and how does it differ from women’s history?

Gender History vs Women’s History

Gender history while looking to understand the experience of women does so by emphasizing the interconnectedness and complexity of multiple categories such as gender, class, and race/ethnicity.  This differs from women’s history where the focus has been on understanding the historical role and identity of women as women.  As such, gender history, while being relatively new, has undoubtedly changed the historiography in regards to studying women.  I believe that the main reason behind the historiographical shift is the methodology driving gender history.  A gender history approach reframes our understanding the role of gender in constructing race/ethnicity and class identities.  This reframing, in turn, allows historians to explore the gendered nature of society.  For example, Dubinsky and Iacovetta in their article, analyze the ethnic/racial and immigrant background of Angelina Napolitano in relation to her gender.  While Dubinsky and Iacovetta note that “Napolitano was an atypical victim of abuse,” they argue that the resulting trial and subsequent social fallout, “sheds light on situations that, to varying degrees, many more immigrant and non-immigrant women faced during the period.”   In fact, as Dubinsky and Iacovetta saliently observe, their method of historical analysis not only helps understand the experience of women, their analysis also “contributes to the literature on immigration and to studies of racial ethnic prejudice.”

Domestic Violence

In this post, I will explore Dubinsky and Iacovetta article, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of gender history in studying the history of women.  Firstly, I would argue that by employing a gender history approach, Dubinsky and Iacovetta help reveal how gender-based ideologies are constructed.  They do so by considering the “theme of domestic violence.”  Through exploring this theme, Dubinsky and Iacovetta reveal “the varied meanings contemporaries attached to more general notions of marriage, womanhood, and motherhood, and to women who act as agents.”   However, in revealing how gender-based ideologies are constructed, Dubinsky and Iacovetta focus less on femininity and rather instead stress more the importance of males and masculinity in the lives of women such as Angelina Napolitano.  This, in turn, raises fundamental questions about the future direction of gender history and candidly asks how far away from the traditional emphasis of women’s history is too far.

Gendering class

Unquestionable, nevertheless is the significance of Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s article in broadening our understanding of the relationship between gender, class, and race/ethnicity.  The strength of the article stems from the way gender history offers multidimensional perspectives that ultimately produce new and fascinating directions for further study.  For example, Dubinsky and Iacovetta look to place the actions of Angelina Napolitano in a socio-economic context by analyzing class in relation to gender.  Firstly, they describe the deterioration of the Napolitano marriage “against a backdrop of acute financial insecurity and Pietro’s deepening sense of failure as the family’s chief breadwinner.”  By viewing this sense of failure, through a lens of what I would call “gendering class,” Dubinsky and Iacovetta are able to argue convincingly that, “[Pietro’s] crisis in masculinity appears to have been triggered by his inability to purchase a family home and manifested itself in bouts of drunkenness and increasingly cruel behavior towards his wife.”

Gender and race/ethnicity

Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s analysis of race/ethnicity and gender paints a similar picture, emphasizing the centrality of stereotypical male traits in understanding the social depiction of Italian immigrants.  Dubinsky and Iacovetta first note how Italians were “treated as a highly suspect group prone to drink, overly sexual, and highly excitable and temperamental.”  They then argue that these stereotypes when viewed through a gendered lens illustrate how contemporaries held “deep-seated concerns about the sexual threats that men, especially foreign men, posed to women.”  These connections between race/ethnicity and gender are telling, especially in the example of the Napolitano case where Dubinsky and Iavocetta note how “Pietro Napolitano provided a fitting villain: the ‘foreigner’ who preyed on women’s bodies.”

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from Dubinsky and Iacovetta’s article?  What are the strengths and what are the weaknesses of gender history when studying the history of women?  Firstly, we need to understand the methodology involved in writing gender history.  The emphasis on the interconnectedness of categories such as class and race/ethnicity arguably pushes the role of males and masculinity onto centre stage.  Is this a weakness when studying the history of women.  Perhaps, as seemingly this marginalizes the role of women in historical analysis.  However, I would suggest that by emphasizing the role of males and masculinity, we can begin to understand the power dynamics that women such as Angelina Napolitano faced.  The actions of Angelina Napolitano, although murderous, suggest an attempt confront the unequal gendered world she lived in.  As such, I would argue that future historians of gender should seek a balance between the working of masculinity as well as femininity.

References

Karen Dubinsky and Franca Iacovetta, “Murder, Womanly Virtue, and Motherhood: The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911-1922,” Canadian Historical Review, LXXII:4 (1991), 506, 507, 508, 509, 518, 522, 523.

Christopher Moore’s essay on the marriage of Marie-Louise Cruchon focuses on the harbour town of Louisbourg in Ile Royale, analyzing the marriage of Jacques Rolland, an apprentice merchant originally from the Breton village of Hédé, to Marie-Louise Cruchon, the elder daughter of widow Thérèse Boudier Cruchon.  In the essay, Moore carefully details Rolland’s initial interest in Louisbourg, as well as his courtship of Marie-Louise Cruchon.  This courtship soon turned to marriage in 1742, however, by the end of 1743 Rolland would humiliatingly flee Louisbourg without his wife and without a career.  While on one level, the value of Moore’s essay seems restricted to offering a history of the marriage of Marie-Louise and a glimpse into the society of Louisbourg.  However, at another level, I would argue that because the essay focuses on the institution of marriage and the wider social dynamics of marriage, Moore offers us an opportunity to firstly explore the factors that forged Marie-Louise’s marriage, and to secondly compare these factors with those that shaped marriages in New France.  By doing so, we can utilize marriage as a vehicle for understanding the essential characteristics of colonial society in eighteenth century New France.

Perception of Marriage

Before analyzing Moore’s essay, I want to explore the popular perception of marriage.  In North America, the popular perception of marriage is of a private domestic act.  Although customarily vows are exchanged in a public setting, the institution of marriage is seemingly a private matter that resides behind the closed doors of the family home.  However, I believe it is necessary to rethink this perception.  While the exchanging of vows has traditionally “tied the knot” between a man and a woman, the institution of marriage itself has always held larger social consequences.  Not only does the act of marriage change the martial status of the couple (and as such often their standing within the community), the saying of “I do” designates them into the role of being either a husband or a wife.  This role designation (becoming either a husband or a wife), has historically created a model for marriage where the husband is the head of the family and the “bread winner,” while the wife is defined as the submissive dependent.  This model, whether realistic or not, thus has become a template for establishing relationships within society.  Therefore, I would argue that rather than perceiving marriage as solely a private domestic act, marriage should also be seen as a public institution that reflects and shapes the essential characteristics of society.

Using this perception of marriage, we can begin to analyze the factors that forged the marriage between Marie-Louise Cruchon and Jacques Rolland.  As Christopher Moore notes, first and foremost the marriage was an alliance.  While Rolland’s merchant activities meant that he was becoming more well known in Louisbourg, Rolland was more than aware that marriage into a local family would help him develop as a businessman.  Prior events in Louisbourg demonstrated to Rolland that marrying a local girl made good business sense.  Novice merchant Blaise Lagoanere had married the eldest daughter of wealthy employer Michel Daccarette, accruing a good number of clients in the process.  However, a fellow Daccarette employee, Jean-Baptiste Lascorret, without any martial ties or social connections failed in his business ventures in Louisbourg.  Lascorret would leave Louisbourg and die attempting to make a new start in the Caribbean.

Social standing in New France

At the same time that Rolland sought to establish himself in the social circles of Louisbourg, Marie-Louise Cruchon’s mother, Thérèse Boudier Cruchon, was seeking to maintain the family’s social standing.  Thérèse Boudier had become the head of the Cruchon household after the death of her husband, Jean-René Cruchon.  Jean-René’s death had left the family struggling on the poverty line, getting by on a low income garnered by their limited craft work.   To maintain their social standing the Cruchons presented a façade. However, clearly the struggle to keep up the façade took its toll on Thérèse Boudier.  After being introduced to Jacques Rolland a social function in 1741, Thérèse Boudier built up a relationship with Rolland, ultimately ending up with Rolland marrying the widow’s eldest daughter.  While Rolland was neither a socially desirable military officer or civil official, he was in the eyes of Thérèse Boudier a wage-earner with potential.  The alliance and thus the marriage was born.

Socio-economic forces in New France

But were the socio-economic forces that forged the Rolland-Cruchon marriage alliance in Louisbourg typical for New France?  Allan Greer’s book, The People of New France, presents an overview of the social history of New France that offers a similar picture of marriage as Moore’s essay.  While Greer suggests that arranged marriages “were almost unheard of,” he argues that “in finding a husband and setting up a household might be considered a ‘benefit,’ given the difficulties attached in this society to the single life.”  Indeed the people of New France sought to avoid the single life, realizing that marriage became a means to surviving the pioneering difficulties of New France.  As Greer notes, “it was difficult to imagine pioneering without a mate and without the prospect of children.”  This stressing of importance in marriage for human survival meant for the women of New France marrying earlier and having more child-bearing years than their European counterparts.  For the men, marriage meant becoming the “breadwinner” to support a burgeoning family.  However, this socio-economic duty often meant time away from the family home on fur-trade expeditions or military operations.

Conclusion

So what can we conclude from the history of Marie-Louise Cruchon and Jacques Rolland marriage as well as the marriages of the people of New France?  Firstly, by adopting an understanding of marriage as an institution that had wider social dynamics, we can place marriage at the centre of both Louisbourg and New France societies.  As such, through an analysis of marriage we can identify the essential characteristics of colonial society in eighteenth century New France as being rooted in socio-economic factors.  However, perhaps most significant of all, the value of studying the institution of marriage for social historians is the opportunity to focus on subjects with agency that navigate through a world structured by material conditions.

References

Christopher Moore, “The Marriage of Marie-Louise Cruchon,” in Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth-Century Town, (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), 55-117.

Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).

Allan Greer, The People of New France, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009).

American pediatrician whose work changed child and family dynamics in the 1950s and 1960s. His most well known book, Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care sought to address the concerns about juvenile delinquency during the 1950s. Families whose parenting skills had been severely undermined by the drive for conformity during the 1950s, turned to Spock’s book for advise and reassurance.