"En terre promise": The lives of Franco-Albertan women, 1890-1940.

This study, based on 253 oral histories, examines the life stages of Franco-Albertan women during the period 1890-1940. Migrating from other Canadian territory or immigrating from Europe or from the United States, Franco-Albertans settled across the province, but especially in northern areas, around Edmonton, St. Paul and Peace River, where they formed substantial communities. Their immigration was promoted by the western Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and the clergy took an active role in overseeing the foundation and development of new settlements. Within francophone communities, women played an active role. This study argues that their experiences of migration and settlement, and of daily life, were shaped especially by their gender and ethnicity, although class and region also played a role. All francophone women, whether of European or of North-American origin, came under the influence of the Victorian construct of separate spheres and the accompanying gender ideals which defined women's place and roles in society. Franco-Albertan women's gender identity was further fashioned by culturally determined ideals, especially by the conservative clerical-nationalism promoted in franco-Catholic communities. Gender and ethnicity shaped every stage of Franco-Albertan women's lives. In childhood and youth, Franco-Albertan girls played games and engaged in work which taught them adult female roles. The need to contribute to the family economy placed on them heavy work responsibilities, especially since francophone households tended to be poorer, larger, and more rural, on average, than other Albertan families as a whole. Work, in turn encroached on their schooling opportunities. The number of years spent at school increased as frontier conditions receded, but francophone girls, both rural and urban, continued to receive less schooling than young women of British-origin and Albertan girls as a whole. Ethnicity contributed to some of the disparity. Francophone girls also tended to marry earlier than English-speaking Albertans. In rural areas, the narrow social space in which they moved meant that they mostly chose marital partners within their own locality, socio-economic, religious and linguistic group. In urban areas, the territories of courtship were wider. There, francophone women were also exposed to the ideals of romantic love, but on the whole, they, like rural Franco-Albertan women, continued to marry for traditional reasons. Once married, their lives centred around home and family. They were wives, mothers, keepers of the home, and auxiliaries to husbands. Although their activities were not confined to the private sphere, their lives were very much circumscribed by the domestic ideals, espoused in Franco-Albertan communities