Merchant and Plebeian Commercial Knowledge in Montreal and Quebec, 1760-1820

Conventional cultural constructions of French Canadians hold that they were dressed in homespun clothing. Analyzing advertisements from Quebec's three leading newspapers, as well as a vast number of depositions from the rich criminal court records of this colony, the author argues that French Canadians were steadily incorporated into British trading and consumption networks. This was not simply an urban phenomenon, she maintains. By 1800 a large proportion of rural inhabitants actively consumed imported manufactured goods. In turn, the author claims, French Quebec's increasing desire to acquire British ready-made clothing became part of a broader assimilative process at work in the colony following the British Conquest.

Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal

Vol. 13

no. 4

856-880

Fall 2015

en