Through an examination of nineteenth-century familial correspondence and the records of various Protestant charitable organizations in Quebec City and Montreal, this article explores the changing culture of family care during illness and old age. It posits a new interpretation for the foundation of asylums for women that emphasizes changing perceptions of the family, especially the attitudes regarding the care of servants within the household. Furthermore, it argues that the treatment of servants as both caregivers and those in need of medical care is an important yardstick by which to measure the waning of the patriarchal household and the emergence of more explicitly contractual relations between the classes.
Archives Nationales du Quebec (hereafter, ANQ)
, Ladies' Protestant Home of Quebec Papers (hereafter, LPHQ), vol. 1, “Rules of the Society,” 1858, 1.
2.
ANQ, LPHQ, “Rules of the Society,” 2; and ANQ, LPHQ, “Minute Book,” 29 November 1858.
3.
ANQ, LPHQ, “Minute Book,” 13 December 1858 and 16 December 1858.
4.
Stormie Stewart
, “
The Elderly Poor in Rural Ontario: Inmates of the Wellington County House of Industry, 1877-1907
,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association3 (1992):
217-33
; at this house of industry, 80 percent of the inmates were male.
5.
The literature in these fields is vast and cannot be noted in full here. For an analysis of the revisionist historiography that has refined the theories of Foucault, see
James Moran
,
David Wright
, and
Matt Savelli
, “
The Lunatic Fringe: Families, Madness, and Institutional Confinement in Victorian Ontario
,” in Mapping the Margins: The Family and Social Discipline in Canada, 1700-1975, ed. Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau (
Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press
, 2004),
276-304
; and
David Wright
,
Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum, 1847-1901
(
Oxford: Oxford University Press
, 2001).
6.
On this point, see
Jane Humphries
and
K.D.M. Snell
, “Introduction ,” in Women, Work and Wages in England, 1600-1850, ed.
Penelope Lane
,
Neil Raven
, and
K. D. M. Snell
(
Woodbridge
, UK:
Boydell
, 2004), 11-13;
Pat Thane
, Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues (
Oxford: Oxford University Press
, 2000), 151, 165-93;
Susannah R. Ottaway
, The Decline of Life: Old Age in Eighteenth-Century England (
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press
, 2004 ); and
Lynn Hollen Lees
, The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948 (
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
, 1998).
7.
Mary Anne Poutanen
, “
The Homeless, the Whore, the Drunkard, and the Disorderly: Contours of Female Vagrancy in the Montreal Courts
,” in
Gendered Pasts: Historical Essays in Femininity and Masculinity in Canada
, ed. Kathryn McPherson, Cecilia Morgan, and Nancy M. Forestall (
Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press
, 1999),
29-47
;
Janice Harvey
, “
Dealing with `the Destitute and the Wretched': The Protestant House of Industry and Refuge in Nineteenth-Century Montreal
,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, new series, 12 (2001):
73
; and
Sharon Anne Cook
, “
A Quiet Place . . . to Die: Ottawa's First Protestant Old Age Homes for Women and Men
,” Ontario History81, no. 1 (March 1989):
25-40
. The focus of this article is on Protestant charity. One of the most cogent discussions of Catholic charity is Bettina Bradbury, “
Elderly Inmates and Care-Giving Sisters: Catholic Institutions for the Elderly in Nineteenth-Century Montreal
,” in On the Case: Explorations in Social History, ed. Franca Iacovetta and Wendy Mitchinson (
Toronto: University of Toronto Press
, 1998),
129-55
. For other discussions of old age homes, see Cheryl DesRoches, “
Everyone in Their Place: The Formation of Institutional Care for the Elderly in Nineteenth-Century Ontario
,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association , new series, 15 (2004):
49-70
.
8.
Margaret Pelling
,
The Common Lot: Sickness, Medical Occupations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England
(
London: Longman
, 1998),
4
,
125
,
132
; and
Margaret Pelling
, “
Apprenticeship, Health and Social Cohesion in Early Modern London
,” History Workshop Journal37 (1994 ):
33-56
.
9.
Nancy Christie
, Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada (
Toronto : University of Toronto Press
, 2000 ).
10.
Mary Anne Poutanen has quite rightly noted the need to “inculcate steady work habits” as one of the cornerstones of Montreal's vagrancy laws. See
Mary Anne Poutanen
, “
Regulating Public Space in Early-Nineteenth-Century Montreal: Vagrancy Laws and Gender in a Colonial Context
,” Histoire Sociale/Social History35, no. 69 (May 2002):
53
.
11.
Report of the Committee for the Relief of the Poor and Destitute of the City of Toronto (
Toronto
, January 1837), 14.
12.
On this theme in the British context, see
Steve Hindle
, “`Waste' and Children? Pauper Apprenticeship under the Elizabethan Poor Laws, c.1598-1697 ,” in
Lane
, Raven, and Snell, Women, Work and Wages in England; and Steven King, “ `Meer Pennies for My Baskitt Will Be Enough': Women, Work and Welfare, 1770-1830 ,” in Lane, Raven, and Snell, Women, Work and Wages in England. Hindle's article in particular “restores work to its appropriate place at the heart of any consideration of the historical provision of welfare” (17). See also Ottaway, The Decline of Life, 68; and ANQ, LPHQ, “Minute Book,” 18 May 1863.
13.
Sandra Cavallo
, “
The Motivations of Benefactors: An Overview of Approaches to the Study of Charity
,” in
Medicine and Charity before the Welfare State
, ed. Jonathon Barry and Colin Jones (
London: Routledge
, 1994),
48-51
; and
Sandra Cavallo
, “
Patterns of Poor Relief and Patterns of Poverty in Eighteenth-Century Italy: The Evidence of the Turin Ospedale de Carita
,” Continuity and Change5, no. 1 ( 1990),
65-98
. On the importance of specific religious groups and charity, see
Mary E. Fissell
, “
Charity Universal? Institutions and Moral Reform in Eighteenth-Century Bristol
,” in
Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689-1750
, ed. Lee Davidson, Tim Hitchcock, Tim Keirn , and Robert B. Shoemaker (
New York: St. Martin's
, 1992),
121-44
. For a broader synthesis of the historiography that Cavallo so perceptively critiqued, see “
Introduction: The Reactive State: English Governance and Society, 1689-1750
,” in Davison et al.,
Stilling the Grumbling Hive
,
xi-liv
.
14.
On this link, see
Brian Young
, “Revisiting Feudal Vestiges in Urban Quebec,” in Transatlantic Subjects: Ideas, Institutions and Social Experience in Post-Revolutionary British North America, ed.
Nancy Christie
, pref. by
J. G. A. Pocock
(
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press
, forthcoming). On the paucity of servants and its link with gentry status, see
Nancy Christie
, “`The Plague of Servants': Female Household Labour and the Making of Classes in Upper Canada,” in
Christie
, Transatlantic Subjects.
15.
Pelling
, The Common Lot , 1.
16.
On the nineteenth-century perception of the diseases of the poor necessitating state intervention, see
Roy Porter
, Disease, Medicine and Society in England (
London: Macmillan
, 1987), 57.
17.
Guelph University Archives, Jardine Papers, Art to Brother, 9 August 1909.
18.
LAC, Jarvis Papers, MG224I47, W. B. Jarvis to S. Sherwood, 1 August 1832.
19.
Toronto Public Library (hereafter, TPL), Baldwin Room, Band Papers, Anne Band to Nettie, 12 January 1888.
20.
Ontario Archives (hereafter, AO), Jarvis-Powell Papers, Sam Jarvis to Mary, 21 November 1823.
21.
Library and Archives of Canada (hereafter, LAC), Jeffrey Amherst Papers, Microfilm A-1824, Eliza to Billy, 27 June 1769.
22.
AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, Richard Cartwright to W. D. Powell, 18 June 1804.
23.
Emily Abel
, Hearts of Wisdom: American Women Caring for Kin, 1850-1940 (
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
, 2000).
24.
For example, see
Powell Papers
, Mary to Mama, 9 November 1826 . For similar views of pauper emigrants, see
Wendy Cameron
,
Sheila Haines
, and
Mary McDougall Maude
, eds., English Emigrant Voices: Labourers' Letters from Upper Canada in the 1830s (
Montreal: McGill-University Press
, 2000), passim.
25.
AO, Mary O'Brien Journal, October 1829.
26.
Powell Papers
, Mary Jarvis to Papa, 8 March 1827.
27.
LAC, Col. Walter O'Hara Papers, MG 24 I162, Diary, 8 June 1827. On the persistence of self-diagnosis from the early modern into the modern era, see
Stephen Wilson
, The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe (
London: Hambledon
, 2000 ), 317. See also
Abel
, Hearts of Wisdom .
28.
LAC, Robert Bell Papers, William Bell Journal, October 1825, 88-89.
29.
The Home Cookbook (
Toronto: Hunter Rose
, 1878), 370-80.
30.
Powell Papers
, Elizabeth Wheaton to Anne Powell, 13 September 1832 . This letter contained advice on taking cayenne in brandy “to bake the Stomach bowels” for those with cholera.
31.
LPHQ, Maton's Daybook, 4 March 1864, 22 July 1864, and 21 November 1864; AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, George Murray Jarvis to Mother, 17 November 1863; and AO, Sarah Welch Hill Papers, Sarah Hill Diary, 19 March 1827. On the medical use of alcohol for the aged, see Ottaway, The Decline of Life, 28.
32.
Powell Papers
, Anne Powell to George Murray, 28 August 1839.
33.
AO, Ardagh Family Papers, Anna Ardagh Diary, 22 May 1849; and AO, Boyd Papers, Virginia Cutler to Aunt Lilly, 18 December 1873.
34.
Powell Papers
, Anne Powell to George Murray, 17 June 1839 and 22 May 1843.
35.
William Spencer to Francis Cooper, father-in-law, 16 September 1832, observing how his wife departed this life attended by neighbors.
36.
LAC, David Keenan Papers, MG 24I163, W. Campbell, Belfast, to David Keenan, 4 August 1853; and Powell Papers, Mary Browne to Eliza, 14 July 1856.
37.
AO, John Wilson Papers, MS 199, Matthew Waite to Uncle Jonathon Wilson, 1 September 1838.
38.
Powell Papers
, Mary Browne to Eliza, 4 January 1835.
39.
Powell Papers
, Sam Jarvis to W. D. Powell, 30 April 1829.
40.
Janine Wiles
, “Home as a New Site of Care Provision and Consumption,” in Aging and Place: Perspective, Policy, Practice, ed.
Gavin U. J. Andrews
and
David R. Philips
(
London : Routledge
, 2005), 82. On the importance of female kin, see
Abel
, Hearts of Wisdom .
41.
Powell Papers
, Sam Jarvis to W. D. Powell, 4 July 1827.
42.
AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, Sam Jarvis to Mother, 14 October 1867; Powell Papers, Sam Jarvis to W. D. Powell, 30 April 1829; and Mary O'Brien Journal, 29 December 1828.
43.
AO, Sarah Welch Hill Papers, Sarah Hill Diary, 22 July 1832 and August 1832.
44.
LAC, Dougall Family Papers, Margaret Fowlie to Brother, 21 August 1865, describing how both the brothers and sisters cared for their dying brother. On the exceptional nature of husbands as nurses, see LAC, Gowan Papers, Annie Gregg to James Gowan, 20 December 1905; and TPL, Baldwin Room, Band Papers, Elizabeth Tully to Aunt, 24 September 1844. Tully described her husband's attendance during her seasickness as an “extraordinary course of action” even under the circumstances. On male nursing, see Pelling, The Common Lot, 182. On home care in England, see
Samantha Williams
, “Caring for the Sick Poor: Poor Law Nurses in Bedfordshire, c.1770-1834,” in
Lane
, Raven, and Snell, Women, Work and Wages, 143-44.
45.
Anne Powell to George Murray, 22 October 1842.
46.
LAC, Jarvis-Peters Papers, Hannah Peters to Father, 4 April 1824; and AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, 8 May 1847.
47.
LAC, McGilvray Papers, MG24I3, vol. 17, church discipline case of Isabella McKenzie.
48.
Catherine Parr Traill Journal, quoted in
Carl Ballstadt
,
Elizabeth Hopkins
, and
Michael A. Peterman
, eds., “I Bless You in My Heart”: Selected Correspondence of Catherine Parr Traill (
Toronto: University of Toronto Press
, 1996), 119.
49.
AO, Ardagh Family Papers, Anna Ardagh Diary, 2 March 1840, in which she describes the death vigil.
50.
AO, Ardagh Family Papers, Martha Gowan to Dear Bess, 31 March 1840.
51.
On this point, see
Pelling
, The Common Lot. This gender division of labor appears to have survived into the nineteenth century.
52.
Powell Papers
, George Muray to Anne Powell, 26 November 1835.
53.
On the patriarchal family, see
Carole Shammas
, A History of Household Government in America (
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press
, 2002);
Sarah C. Maza
, Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century France: The Uses of Loyalty (
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
, 1993), 14-15; and
Cissie Fairchilds
, Domestic Enemies: Servants and Their Masters in Old Regime France (
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
, 1984), 17. Whereas Maza and Fairchilds argued that this patriarchal social regime withered away at the end of the eighteenth century, Tim Meldrum forcefully demonstrated how the elision of family and household persisted into the nineteenth century, thus contributing to the now lengthy historiography on the long eighteenth century. See
Tim Meldrum
, Domestic Service and Gender, 1660-1750 (
Essex, UK: Longman
, 2000). For my own contributions to this debate that upholds Meldrum's position, see
Christie
, “`The Plague of Servants,'” in Christie, Transatlantic Subjects; and Christie, “Theorizing a Colonial Past,” in Christie, Transatlantic Subjects.
54.
LAC, Amherst Papers, Jeff to Jen, 21 August 1756.
55.
LAC, Crerar Papers, Gilbert Crerar to Brother, 19 February 1846.
56.
Memoire of Esther Chantler, in
Cameron
,
Haines
, and
Maude
, English Immigrant Voices, 376.
57.
Joy Parr
, Labouring Children: British Immigrant Apprentices to Canada, 1869-1924 (
Toronto: University of Toronto Press
, 1994).
58.
Charles Rapley to Family, 14 October 1838, and James Cooper to Family, 26 May 1838, in
Cameron
,
Haines
, and
Maude
, English Immigrant Voices , 271-74.
59.
Autobiography of Charles Adsett, in
Cameron
,
Haines
, and
Maude
, English Immigrant Voices, 378.
60.
Pelling
, “ Apprenticeship, Health and Social Cohesion,” 41.
61.
For a typical example of an apprenticeship contract, see LAC, Gowan Papers, Gowan to Mrs. McVettie, 29 June 1849.
62.
LAC, Jarvis-Peters Papers, Hannah Jarvis to Father, 21 October 1793. On the legal dimensions of health care in the early modern period, see Pelling, The Common Lot, 124; and
Pamela Sharpe
, “
Poor Children as Apprentices in Colyton, 1598-1830
,” Continuity and Change, 6, no. 2 (1991):
254
,
256
.
63.
Christie
, “`The Plague of Servants.'”
64.
LAC, Jarvis-Peters Papers, Hannah Jarvis to Father, 25 September 1793.
65.
LAC, Robert Bell Papers, William Bell Journal, August 1825.
66.
LAC, Robert Bell Papers, William Bell Journal, December 1826, a phrase used to describe the positive apprenticeship experience of his other son, Robert Bell.
67.
Simeon Titmouse to Jackson, 11 September 1832 , in
Cameron
,
Haines
, and
Maude
, English Immigrant Voices, 47.
68.
Christie
, “`The Plague of Servants.'”
69.
Guelph University Archives, Mickle Papers, William Mickle to Revd. Sir, 6 November 1782.
70.
AO, Ardagh Papers, Samuel Whitney to Dear Sir, 29 August 1848.
71.
Thane, Old Age in English History, 125.
72.
TPL, Baldwin Room, Biggar Correspondence, Isabella Biggar to John Hodgins, 31 January 1849.
73.
AO, John Wilson Papers, Matthew Waite to Jonathon, 30 April 1841.
74.
Powell Papers
, Mary Jarvis to Mama, 30 July 1827 and 12 October 1828.
75.
Powell Papers
, Mary Browne to My Dear Niece, 27 October 1816.
76.
LAC, Thomas Sibery Papers, MG 24 I 165, William Foster to Brother, n.d.
77.
AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, 27 May 1843.
78.
AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, Sam to Mary, 7 March 1853 and 14 March 1853.
79.
Powell Papers
, Mary Jarvis to Mama, 24 July 1826.
80.
Mary O'Brien Journal, 30 October 1830 and 2 November 1830.
81.
AO, Sarah Welch Hill Papers, Sarah Hill Diary, 7 November 1830.
82.
Pelling
,
The Common Lot, 125; and Mary E. Fissell, “`The Sick and Drooping Poor
' in
Eighteenth-Century Bristol and Its Region,” Social History ofMedicine2, no. 1 (April 1989):
52
,
58
.
83.
Ottaway
, The Decline of Life, 12-13. See also
Carole Haber
, Beyond Sixty-Five: The Dilemma of Old Age in America's Past (
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
, 1983); and
Megan Davies
, Into the House of Old: A History of Residential Care in British Columbia (
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press
, 2003).
84.
Pelling
, The Common Lot , 125; and
Fissell
, “`The Sick and Drooping Poor,'” 52, 58.
85.
Steve Hindle
, “`Waste' and Children,” 44; and
Steven King
, “ Meer Pennies for My Baskitt Will Be Enough,” 126.
86.
Christie
, “ `The Plague of Servants.'”
87.
,
Ardagh Family Papers
, “Clippings Scrapbook” and “History of Simcoe County”; and ,
Ardagh Family Papers
, K. Ardagh to Ned , 20 July 1934. See also
Ao
, Sarah Welch Hill Papers, Sarah Hill Diary, December 1838, on a charity concert for the benefit of “aged and distressed housekeepers.”
88.
C. P. Traill to Francis Stewart, 4 September 1853, quoted in Ballstadt, Hopkins, and Peterman, “I Bless You in My Heart,” 87.
89.
There needs to be much more extensive analysis of the women's wills, but thus far, only women made special bequests for servants. See TPL, Baldwin Room, Band Papers, “Will of Harriet Brandreth,” n.d.
90.
LPHQ, Annual Report (1860) Annual Report.
91.
LPHQ, “Minute Book,” 29 August 1859 and 3 October 1859.
92.
LPHQ, “Admissions 1864-90.”
93.
LPHQ, “Minute Book,” 10 January 1863 and 4 April 1864.
94.
Arthur G. Penny
, The Hundred Years of the Ladies' Protestant Home, Quebec City, 1859-1959 (n.p., 1959), 11;
Lphq
, Annual Report (1860), 6; and “Minute Book,” 11 July 1861. There were large numbers of Irish Catholic female servants in both Quebec City and Montreal, but because charities were organized along confessional lines, the Ladies' Protestant Home and the WCTU Sheltering Home housed a clientele who was largely Protestant. We need further study of Catholic institutions for female servants to provide a fuller understanding of the charitable endeavor.
95.
Lphq
, Annual Report (1860), 14.
96.
Lphq
, “Minute Book ,” 27 February 1860.
97.
Judith Walkowitz, Prostitution
and
Victorian Society
: Women, Class and the State (
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
, 1980).
98.
Lphq
, Annual Report (1862), 14.
99.
Lphq
, “Matron's Day Book,” 16 January 1867, 14 June 1867, and 4 August 1867.
100.
Lphq
, “Matron's Day Book,” 15 May 1874.
101.
Pat Thane, OldAge in England; Carole Haber and Brian Gratton, Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Society History (
Bloomington: Indiana University Press
, 1994); and Haber, Beyond Sixty-Five.
102.
Lphq
, “Minute Book ,” 10 August 1863.
103.
Lphq
, “Register of Admissions,” 1891. Although several old women were being supported at between two and five dollars a month, in only two instances is it noted that a relative was involved.
104.
Lphq
, “Matron's Day Book,” 3 March 1873.
105.
Lphq
, “Minute Book,” 8 June 1873 and 1 June 1874.
106.
Ibid., 12 February 1894.
107.
Ibid., 18 April 1892.
108.
LAC, Crerar Family Papers, James Crerar to son, John, 25 June 1831; and Guelph University Archives, Dougall Family Papers, Margret to brother: “Hear a man can make himself independent of the world and have something for old age of to leave to his famlie.” On systems of family charity, see
Nancy Christie
, “` A Painful Dependence': Female Begging Letters and the Familial Economy of Obligation,” in
Christie
and
Gauvreau
,
Mapping the Margins
, 69-102.
109.
Powell Papers, Anne Powell to George Murray, 16 March 1840, noting that one of her greatest comforts in old age was her continued independence from “personal assistance.” See also Powell Papers, Mary Browne to Eliza, n.d., on the “inconveniences” of co-residency.
110.
Guelph University Archives, Houston-McNeely-Blair Family Papers, Arthur Houston to Stewart Houston, n.d.
111.
Guelph University Archives, Jardine Papers, Martha Harris to father, John Jardine, 8 February 1859; and AO, Cronkite Family Papers, MU759, David to Brother, 10 May 1900. These Quakers were only willing to take in their father “for a time anyway.”
112.
Richard M. Smith
, “
The Structured Dependence of the Elderly as a Recent Development: Some Sceptical Historical Thoughts
,” Aging and Society4, no. 4 (1984):
409-28
.
113.
Lphq
, “Minute Book ,” 4 September 1893.
114.
Magda Fahrni
, “
`Ruffled' Mistresses and `Discontented' Maids: Respectability and the Case of Domestic Service, 1880-1940
,” Labour/Le Travail39 (Spring 1997),
69-97
.
115.
LAC, Gowan Papers, Janie Cherry to Gowan, 2 August 1897.
116.
McCord Museum
, Sheltering Home of Montreal Papers, P235.
117.
AO, Jarvis-Powell Papers, Sam to Caro, n.d.; and LAC, Amherst Papers, Mrs. Thomas to Jeff Amherst, n.d. 1762:
