'Shame upon you as men!': Contesting Authority in the Aftermath of Montreal's Gavazzi Riot

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
'Shame upon you as men!': Contesting Authority in the Aftermath of Montreal's Gavazzi Riot
Abstract
The June 1853 appearance of Alessandro Gavazzi in Montreal provoked a violent sectarian riot that left ten dead and many more wounded. The city’s French-Canadian and Irish elites were outraged that the charismatic anti-Catholic lecturer had been invited to the city by local Protestants. British Protestant elites, meanwhile, perceived the riot as an attack on free speech and on their vision of an orderly city. The author argues that the debates that occurred in the aftermath of the riot provide a glimpse into the contested nature of identity in mid-nineteenth-century Montreal. Clashing conceptions of public decorum, urban space, and masculine and feminine respectability played a pivotal role in these discussions. French-Canadian, British Protestant, and Irish Catholic elites in the city negotiated the aftermath of the riot in ways that justified their competing claims to power and authority in a period of intense cultural and demographic change.
Publication
Histoire sociale/Social History
Volume
Vol. 44
Issue
no. 87
Pages
29-52
Date
2011
Language
en
URL
Notes

Reprinted in: Willeen Keough and Lara Campbell (eds), Gender History: Canadian Perspectives. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Citation
Horner, Dan. “‘Shame upon You as Men!’: Contesting Authority in the Aftermath of Montreal’s Gavazzi Riot.” Histoire sociale/Social History Vol. 44, no. 87 (2011): 29–52. https://hssh.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/hssh/article/view/38813.
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