Des exceptions qui confirment les règles? L'entrepreneuriat féminin à Montréal, 1920-1980

This doctoral thesis examines business women from Montreal in the 20th century, that is, the primary owners of at least one private business manufacturing or distributing goods and/or services. We will define and analyze these women’s individual characteristics and those of their businesses, consider the issues they face collectively, explore the the stories told about them, by themselves or others, and situate the transformations of these different elements in the urban context of Montreal in the years 1920-1980. In short, we will, take a critical look at the perception of this phenomenon as well as the discursive construction of its exceptional character. Quantitative analysis of Canadian censuses and of Lovell business directories show a minority presence of women, compared to men, in the management of businesses between 1920 and 1980, and a high concentration of women in retail businesses and services, as well as exponential growth of this group, starting in the 1960s. This tendency appears as a consequence of the massive arrival of women, especially married women, on the wage labor market, but also of the tertiarization of the economy, beginning during the Second World War. A small minority of these women in management positions were owners of their business.  They worked principally in small retail businesses, in the food, fashion, or beauty salon industries, were married and owned their businesses in French-speaking neighborhoods of Montreal, for less than 8 years. With the year 1940 as a pivotal date, the growth and decline of this group can be explained mainly by a temporary feminine business activity during the years of economic plight. An elite of this group of Montreal's businesswomen, together with other salaried women, formed the ranks of the Association des Femmes d'affaires de Montréal de la Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, of the Business and Professional Women’s Club or of the Committee of Trades, Business and Professions for Women of the Montreal Local Council of Women. These groups were essentially places of networking and socialization for their members. They were, however, also committed to improving the situation of women in business. The French-speakers, especially active during the first half of the century, fought for a business education for women and supported the milliners when they faced pressure from wholesalers, manufacturers, and employees in the sector. The English-speakers, for their part, focused mainly on defending wage labor for women and from the 50s onwards, positioned themselves in favor of access for women to management positions, both in the private and public sectors. After the Second World War, a few French-speaking women became members of the Chambre de commerce du district de Montréal (CCDM), a male stronghold. Between 1957 and 1971, this organization implemented a committee that brought together the driving forces of entrepreneurship, of company management as well as women wage-earners. The question of the dependence of this group to the male authorities of the CCDM quickly generated tensions and remained tangible throughout the fifteen years of existence of this CFM of the CCDM. Indeed, the analysis of the activities of the CFM of the CCDM offered exclusively to its members (female) or carried out together with the other (male) members of the CCDM and speeches made about the integration of women in this institution demonstrated the persistence, in this setting, of a strict gendered conception of roles in the Francophone business world. Finally, only a limited number of business women who were always «successful» and who suited the definition of «feminity» - in other words, «outstanding» businesswomen – had a visibility in popular magazines, papers of federations of women associations and of the CCDM. These women were only active in the «feminine» fields of fashion, beauty or of small specialized business. They were easily recognizable on the Montreal, provincial, national and even international markets. If they were not from this city, they usually received their training in France or in the United States and they stayed there often to get materials. They offered good quality products and services, adapted their prices to the origins of their (always female) clientele and managed a staff (often women).  They only rarely failed. They also combined their maternal and professional obligations perfectly, looked after their businesses “like housewives” and worked from home. When they dared to penetrate masculine “strongholds,” they experienced discrimination. The Montreal Chamber of Commerce, initially silent on women's entrepreneurship, added, at the turn of the 1960s, in a context favorable to Francophone entrepreneurship and family business empires, a characteristic additional to this ideal entrepreneur, that is, to be the heir of a flourishing business established by a father or a husband. Although this model was adapted to the specific context of Montreal French-speakers and evolved during the decades immediately following the Second World War, remained fundamentally similar throughout the 20th century and determined our perception of women's entrepreneurship. Ultimately, the analysis and the confrontation of these quantitative and discursive data force us to pose, more broadly, a critical look at the question of the supposed exceptional nature of women’s entrepreneurship. It emerges from this analysis that women who engaged in this type of professional activities were, themselves, deeply influenced by these different patterns of thought in order to define themselves and influence their actions, but above all, that the discourses that concerned Montreal's businesswomen were also deeply influenced by these patterns. This characteristic appeared above all as a discursive construct intrinsically linked to capitalist, patriarchal, and, for the Francophones of Montreal, nationalist ideologies. It therefore seemed necessary to put it into perspective and to demystify the discursive construct. This thesis is part of the North American and European historiographies that, by gathering reflections emerging from the study of economic and women's business history and gender theory, have, since the 1980's, revealed financial and commercial activities of women in other urban contexts until the middle of the 20th century as well as highlighted the gender bias in business history. These studies point out the specificities of the relationships that women have with private property and business management and, more broadly, their contributions to economic urban development. The thesis adds data from Montreal from the period 1920-1980, as well as a critical reflection about the discourses of the businesswomen themselves, by the commercial world or by others.

Keyphrases: femmes, affaires, Montréal, entrepreneurship, women, business, economy, gender, separated spheres, Montreal, twentieth century, history