Erin I. Bishop Historical Research and Narrative

"The Ladies began to be spirited and interest themselves in the Expedition, which had a great Effect on the Young men," wrote George Rogers Clark in 1778. The American hero had just seized the French village of Kaskaskia from the British and now turned his sights on Vincennes. Clark appealed to the local French habitants for help. He found support in an unlikely place. With the encouragement of Kaskaskia's women, he had no trouble in finding male recruits eager to join him on his journey. The pivotal town of Vincennes fell to the Americans a short time later. Thanks, in part, to the women of Kaskaskia, Clark emerged victorious once again.

The role of French women in post-Colonial Illinois plays out in small sentences like this. There are very few studies on the women living in the area known as the Illinois Country between the years 1778 and 1818, the year Illinois achieved statehood. Yet French women played an important part in the history, settlement, and development of early Illinois. French settlers had come to the Illinois Country in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, migrating south from Canada and north, via the Mississippi River, from lower Louisiana. Through trade and intermarriage, the French cultivated effective working relationships with native tribes. By 1778 French families on both sides of the river dominated the commercial, political, religious, military, and cultural frontier of early Illinois. The regional economic and social foundations constructed by the French were inextricably linked by their extensive family networks. French women, in their roles as mothers, daughters, and wives, were crucial players in the development and maintenance of these family networks.

In general, a woman's role in society was much more limited than that of a man's. Unlike her brothers who might go off to boarding school for their education, French girls generally learned at home. Under a mother's tutelage, girls learned the basics of domesticity: washing, sewing, cooking, cleaning, gardening, and the many other tasks that accompanied running a household, including managing slaves. There were a few girls' schools established in St. Louis in the early 1800s. There, formal instruction included the study of languages, mathematics, history, poetry, art, music, and even some simple philosophy. However, distance made the schools inaccessible to many girls, and the cost was prohibitive to nearly everyone except the wealthy.

The primary purpose of any girl's education—formal instruction or home schooling—was to help her catch a husband. Since marriage was considered the societal norm, there were very few other options for women in early Illinois. Women could find work as governesses or teachers. Some women worked as mid-wives or healers, but generally, these women had been married before. Most of the French women who managed businesses on the Illinois frontier did so as widows who took over their husband's dealings upon his death. A final alternative to marriage was entering a convent, although before 1833, this required leaving the Illinois Country altogether.

With so few choices, it is not surprising that the women of the American bottom tended to marry in their teens, while their counterparts in Northern New England and the Mid-Atlantic farming communities during this period married between age twenty and twenty-two. Most French women married into multi-family households, which were common on the Illinois frontier where death often claimed spouses and

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Pierre Menard House

remarriage was a necessity for survival. Husbands often came with children from previous marriages.

When Angelique Saucier married Pierre Menard in 1806 at age twenty-three, she was only ten years older than her eldest stepdaughter, thirteen-year-old Marie-Odile, one of four surviving offspring from Menard's first marriage. Angelique and Menard went on to have eight children together. In 1798 Nicholas Jarrot married Julie St. Gemme de Bauvais, with whom he had six children. Jarrot's daughter from his first marriage grew up in the family home with the rest of the Jarrot children. Most French homes had multi-family units. It was common to live with many "step-people" and extended family members.

The presence of many women of varying ages (mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, etc.) in large French households provided many role models from whom girls could learn and pattern their behavior. For example, there was twenty-nine years age difference between Sophie Menard, born in 1822, and her eldest stepsister Marie-Odile, born in 1793. Her second eldest stepsister was twenty years her senior. These women acted as second mothers to Sophie who, at age seventeen, lost her own. At the same time, large families could bring conflict, living as they did in cramped quarters where both space and privacy was at a premium. The Pierre Menard Home, for example, located just outside Ellis Grove, Illinois and built between 1815 and 1818, measured only 71 x 43 feet. Although large for its day it contained only three sleeping chambers and housed between ten and sixteen people, not including slaves.

Birth order was an important factor in when a woman could enter the marriage market. Usually daughters were married off in order from eldest to youngest. If an elder daughter made a good (i.e., lucrative) match, the next in line was not under so much pressure to promote the family's aggrandizement. Moreover, the successful match of the first daughter signaled to the world that the family was up and coming. Oftentimes, a well-matched older sister provided an important entree into society for her younger siblings. If, on the other hand, the first daughter chose a less than adequate mate, the pressure intensified upon the next offspring to marry well.

Nicholas Jarrot House

Selecting a husband, however, was no easy task. The choice of a marriage partner was, in the early nineteenth century probably one of the most important decisions a woman would make. The right husband offered financial support and physical protection from harm. A husband's good name (or lack thereof) determined a woman's status within the community If she made the wrong choice—if she selected an abusive husband, a drunk, a lie-about who would not work, or a man of low regard in the community-her place in life would suffer as well.

Men vastly outnumbered women on the Illinois frontier in the early nineteenth century. Consequently, a young French woman faced a wide variety of men, not always desirable, from which to choose. On the east coast and in more settled areas of America, a woman could rely on the good name and reputation of a long-established family when sizing up her potential beaus. But in post-colonial Illinois, very few of the eligible young men came from established families. As the nineteenth century progressed, Americans and Germans migrating from the east began to replace the old French families. How could one know if these mobile, young men, who drifted in from parts and families unknown, whose accents, mannerisms, and even religions were so very different from the local customs, would make good husbands? To help them in their selection of a husband, women turned to family friends, and their community for assistance. Parents, while not

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always arranging marriages, still held a great deal of control over their offsprings' choice in a spouse. Women, in particular, were often very active in the courtship process, arranging events where young people could meet and orchestrating the events to see that only the "right" people mingled together. Thus, while in many cases a woman was virtually free to choose her own spouse, family and friends made sure that the pool from which she selected was limited and that only suitable partners were considered.

Just as the social elite could close their ranks on one less worthy, they eagerly embraced those they saw to be beneficial to their own position. Therefore, a man's social and business connections were extremely relevant to his suitability as a husband, perhaps more important than religion or nationality. Conversely, in many cases, a man's success was inextricably linked to the women they married, the daughters they married off, and to the networks these women helped them establish throughout the country. The ever-changing power struggles on the Illinois frontier required settlers to adapt to ensure political and financial survival. One way of adapting was to marry into the powerful political families of the day. Thus, ambitious newcomers to the Illinois country found the fastest way to ingratiate themselves with the local French elite was to marry their daughters. Pierre Menard, for example, came to Illinois in 1790 and quickly ingratiated himself into the local elite by marrying Therese Godin, whose family had lived in the area for nearly one hundred years. This marriage put him in the center of a ruling French elite, and what better place to be for a young entrepreneur like Menard? His second marriage was just as beneficial, and Menard went on to become a successful merchant, trader, Indian sub-agent, and the first lieutenant-governor of Illinois.

This pattern of marrying into the elite was also adopted by Nicholas Jarrot who, within a year of his arrival in Cahokia, confirmed his increasing stature in the community with his marriage to Marie-Louise Barbau, who came from a very well known and respected family. Her father, Jean-Baptiste Barbau had served as the first judge of St. Clair County. The witnesses at the wedding were from some of the most prominent families of Prairie de Rocher, including the names Janis, Dubuque, and Barbau. Jarrot's second wife, Julie St. Gemme de Bauvais, also hailed from a prominent well-established family. In another example, Pierre Martin, having migrated from Canada to settle at Cahokia, married a Cahokia widow whose inheritance from her father and first husband made her a lucrative catch. He later sold off her family property to pay his debts.

Likewise, long-established French families found that they could maintain their standing in the community—a community increasingly overrun by Americans—by allowing their daughters to take these men as their husbands. Pierre Menard's daughter Marie-Odile married Irishman Hugh Maxwell, a successful businessman. Alzire Menard married George Hancock Kennerly, a close relation to William Clark, the famous explorer, whose political ties helped further her father's business interests. A woman's choice of marriage partner, then, meant personal security as well as securing the future wealth and position of her entire family.

Despite the emphasis placed upon choosing a marriage partner who would provide well and promote the family aggrandizement, there is evidence of love matches taking place. Indeed, as the nineteenth century progressed, love, as a requirement for marriage, increased in importance. Extant letters between couples often reveal much affection and tenderness between husbands and wives.

Depending upon when and whom she married, a woman could find herself bound by one of two distinct legal systems. A set of French laws, called the Custom of Paris, governed marriage contracts and inheritance in the Illinois Country long after the United States took control. Under the Custom of Paris, both husband and wife made monetary contributions to the marriage. A widow generally received half of her husband's estate upon his death. The other half was divided equally between the couple's children, both male and female. This system protected women from her husband's financial carelessness.

As increasing numbers of American settlers moved into Illinois, English Common Law replaced the Custom of Paris. Under this system, when a woman married, her husband became the owner of her property, land, or money. This greatly affected inheritance practices. While the interests of wives, sisters, and daughters were often protected, rarely were they given actual control over land because this land would become the property of her spouse who might squander it away or allow it to pass out of the family's bloodline. From 1750 to 1820, however, dower laws expanded to offer more protection to women. These laws held that upon the death of her spouse, a woman retained one-third of her

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husband's real property and one-third of his personal property. The rest was divided, rarely equally, among the children, usually favoring the eldest son.

Since the primary purpose of marriage was to procreate and extend the family line, many years of childbirth and child rearing awaited women after marriage. Large families were a way to secure the bloodline and to provide numerous workers for the farm or business. Children could promote the family interests by marrying well and by caring for their elderly parents.

Most women usually had their first child within two years of their marriage, and on average they continued to give birth in two year intervals over the next fifteen or twenty years. Yet having large families posed a significant risk to women. Pregnancy and childbirth were life-threatening endeavors. Multiple pregnancies depleted women's strength and nutritional stores, making each consecutive pregnancy, especially at close intervals, that much more difficult. Numerous medical problems, un-sterilized instruments, and the resulting infections and complications during birth also plagued these women, who lived without the benefits of modern medicine. Many French women and their babies died in childbirth on the Illinois frontier. Those who survived relied on other woman to help them through the pregnancy and the delivery. Women often traveled to be together during their period of lying in, and they continued to turn to each other to help with the trials and tribulations of child rearing.

In addition to raising numerous children, most women spent their time running their households. For many women, the domestic sphere was the only place in which they could gain the satisfaction and power unavailable to them in the public work place. Daily chores were endless, and even wealthy women found themselves overseeing the kitchen and gardens, ordering supplies for the home, planning menus, directing cleaning, refurbishing or decorating, sewing and repairing garments, and supervising the family slaves. When business or trade required a man to travel far from home, women picked up the slack, acting as their husband's agents and taking over many of his managerial duties at home and in his business life, sometimes for months at a time.

For the well-to-do French wife, promoting the right public image became the hallmark of her role. A smoothly run household raised a family's standing within the community. Some wealthier women took up philanthropic activities, acting as benefactors for orphanages or religious schools. Angelique Saucier Menard was very active in the establishment of a girl's school in Kaskaskia, and she continued to support the Sisters of the Visitation over the course of her lifetime. This too lent an aura of prestige to the family name. Displays of hospitality, meant to further business and social aims, also fell to women.

A further job of women was "kin keeping" or "kin work." Women, more than men, actively cultivated contacts amongst families and relatives, which in turn, tied households together. For many women, marriage meant leaving their homes and settling elsewhere. Separated from family, women on the Illinois frontier had to work to retain kinship ties and family networks. Through letter writing, mutual aid, visiting, and orchestrating societal functions women allowed extended family relations to flourish. Women were key players in births, baptisms, weddings, confirmations, illnesses, death, and funerals. By providing social, emotional and even medical support to their kin, these women constructed and maintained the family ties upon which nearly all business and political pursuits were based in post-colonial Illinois.

The genteel society of the French elite— a society and culture cultivated and propagated by and through French women—provided a model for civilization and social order on the frontier. As a result, many incoming American settlers sought alliances with the native Illinois French. Americans saw this French society, so similar to gentility systems in the East, as a place to begin advancing their own political, economic, and social agendas. Marrying into these French families gave a boost to newcomers and at the same time allowed the old French families to maintain their place in the powerful circles of a new American government.

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Overview

Main Ideas
The discussion of French women in post-colonial Illinois as traced in the narrative and studied in this lesson calls on students to recognize that gender dictated the way that women could participate in society. The narrative challenges students to broaden their ways of measuring participation to include those designated "female." The narrative explains how female paths to power afforded considerable opportunity for the ambitious woman with a good family name. By making the most of family connections and by cultivating her own position within an extensive network of relationships, a French women in the Illinois Country could achieve a measure of financial security for herself and go a long way towards securing the same for her children. Yet the narrative is a measured study: while it presents convincing evidence that women were indeed important historical actors in their communities, the narrative also shows that female participation in society was tightly circumscribed by a series of limits drawn by custom and tradition, beyond which the paths to wealth, prominence, and power were for men only. Certainly the French women in this study could advance and perpetuate their financial and social status through the skillful navigation of familial networks, yet their success was not automatic. The families they were born into provided the opportunity, but, as George Rogers Clark recognized in the opening of the narrative, it was the Kaskaskia women's initiative that made them remarkable.

Connection with the Curriculum
The activities in this lesson may fulfill the requirements for the following Illinois State Learning Standards 16. A. 3a; 16. A. 5a; 16. D. 3b;16. E.3a;18. A.3b; 18. A.4;18. B. 2a; 18.5; 18. C.3b.

Teaching Level
The activities in this lesson are intended for high school students.

Materials for Each Student
Students will use the narrative to complete Activity One. The exercises in Activity One measure reading comprehension. Activity One also asks students to evaluate and draw conclusions about the information in the narrative, and thus requires some critical thinking. In Activity Two, students will use a State of Illinois website to generate a chart, which they will then analyze through a series of questions.

Objectives for Each Student
• Students will use the narrative to identify and describe the opportunities and the limitations afforded to women according to societal standards in French post-colonial Illinois. (Activity 1)
• Students will use an Illinois history museum website to complete a chart in order to draw a comparison between Native American, African American, and French settlers living in the Illinois Country region during the eighteenth century. (Activity 2).
• Students will describe and explain the significance of the role played by French women in maintaining traditions and values post-colonial French Illinois.

SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING THE LESSON

Opening the Lesson
One possibility is to engage the students in a brainstorming type of question, which can then be channeled into a consideration of the lesson. To the students: When you think of the French in North America, what image comes to mind? Follow up by prompting them to refine their answers: What did the French do, where did they live, and what was the significance of their role in the development of American society during the colonial era? This line of questioning allows them to draw on popular images of the French in the Americas to appear as a backdrop for the French settlements in the Illinois Country. The narrative is fairly long, and it may work best as a homework assignment. If the students read the narrative on their own, it would be useful to open the lesson by asking the students to help create a profile on the chalkboard for the French women in the narrative. This list of characteristics could function as a starting point for either Activity 1 or Activity 2.

Developing the Lesson
The two lessons are essentially independent of each other. The first activity provides a fairly detailed introduction to a specific group of women, living in a specific place, during a specific period of time. The second activity introduces students to the non-French residents of the Illinois Country, and asks students

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to consider a variety of experiences and identities among the Illinois Country residents. This complicates the picture of French women from Activity One.

Concluding the Lesson
To conclude this lesson, students might exchange their letters from Activity One with another member of the class in order to compare their own conclusions with those of a classmate. By considering how their letters differ, they might offer suggestions about the role of interpretation in the presentation of history (everyone read the same narrative, yet our letters are different). The comparative nature of Activity 2 would benefit from a discussion of the factors that determine the role played by women and the ideals to which she aspires in her society. Depending on the level of the students, a discussion about gender and women's history that draws on the experiences of the French women in the narrative for illustrative example is another option.

Extending the Lesson
One possibility is a comparison between the society of post-colonial Illinois as discussed here and that of the French settlements organized around the fur trade, such as St. Charles, Missouri or Green Bay, Wisconsin. The topic of African-American slavery in the Illinois Country is a second possibility especially since there are several good State of Illinois web sites to consult for resources. A third possibility that also makes use of State of Illinois web resources is an inquiry into French legal codes, which are described in the narrative portion of the article.

To develop this lesson further, it would be useful to incorporate visual images. Photographs of the Pierre Menard Home are easily accessed on the web at http://www.iltrails.org/johnson/pml.htm. Also, the State of Missouri has extensive web resources available for educators. One that could work well with this lesson, for example, is a video called "A Meeting of Cultures," which focuses on Ste. Genevieve and gives a succinct overview of the French settlement in the Illinois Country. There are several videos in this particular series; each video runs about ten minutes in length and is accessed over the web for use in the classroom. http://emints.more.net/resources/moheritage/index.shtml.

Assessing the Lesson
Assessment in Activity 1 is based on how well, in writing, a student formulates a position, the effectiveness of his/her argument, and the supporting evidence he/she provides from the narrative. Classroom discussion, however, would provide a second mode of evaluation. In Activity 2, the quality and relevance of the information the student has compiled for his/her chart is a good indicator or how well the student understood the assignment and/or reading comprehension.

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PART ONE:

Imagine that you live in the Illinois Country during the post-colonial period. Write a letter to Marie, your teen-aged cousin in France, in which you do one of the following:

1. Encourage her to leave France and move to the Illinois Country.

2. Discourage her from coming to the Illinois Country and suggest that she stay in France.

You will need to think of several reasons to convince Marie to accept your position. To get you started, here are a few things Marie asked about in a previous letter:

Marie wanted to know if any of your friends were American, if there was a church nearby, and what people her age in the Illinois Country might do for fun. She also asked about finding a suitable husband in the Illinois Country: would she find a husband from a good family? How well might a husband provide for her? Should she be widowed, what might her prospects be for supporting herself or finding a new husband?

What else do you think cousin Marie should know about the Illinois Country before she makes her decision?

PART TWO:

Imagine that instead of Marie, your cousin in France is a young man. Answer the following questions:

1. Could you send him the same letter that you sent to Marie? If not, suggest a few of the most important changes you would make.

2. How would being male change your cousin's prospects in the Illinois Country?

3. Would you encourage him to move to Illinois Country? Was this the same recommendation you gave to Marie (your female cousin)?

4. Would a male cousin likely fair better or worse that Marie in the Illinois Country?

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PART ONE

Use "At Home on the French Frontier: 1700-1800," an Illinois State Museum on-line exhibit, to complete the following chart. http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/athome/1700/sideby/index.html.

	Native Americans	French Settlers	African Americans
Describe their houses—what did their houses look like?
What were the most prominent characteristics of their houses and living arrangements?
Describe their clothing. What did women wear? What did men wear?
What were the main staples of their diet? Use the "Family Life" section to describe the composition of a typical family.
Describe their religious practices.

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PART TWO (of Activity Two):

Find two other students and compare the information on your charts. Then, together, answer the following questions:

1. In which categories were the differences between the groups the greatest? How do you explain this?

2. Based on the information on your chart, which group had the highest standard of living? Explain how you came to this conclusion; that is, which categories did you look to for this answer.

3. What do the clothes favored by each group tell us about their values, access to trade goods, and the type of work the people did? Be sure to use both the written descriptions and the visual images when you answer this question.

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4. Read over your description of the housing arrangement of each group. In your opinion, what was the most striking characteristic of their housing designs? What might you learn about these people by looking at their choice in home design?

5. In which categories and in what context do women figure in the description provided by the web site? Where do you have information about women on your chart? How might you use this information? What are the limitations of the information about women on your chart? On the web site?

6. Compare your conclusions about French society in the Illinois Country as you wrote in your letter to cousin Marie with the information you have compiled on the chart. Do the two sources (the narrative for your letter and the web site for your chart) coincide, or are there points of contradiction? How do you account for the variance in the information between the two?

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