Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal's Public Memories, 1891-1930 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal's Public Memories, 1891-1930 Ronald Rudin Making Public Pasts: The Contested Terrain of Montreal's Public Memories, 1891-1930. Alan Gordon. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001. Pp. xxxiv, 233 , illus. $49.95 This book constitutes an important addition to the now quite considerable literature dealing with issues of public memory in Quebec. Some [End Page 604] works deal with particular commemorative events from the past (such as H.V. Nelles's The Art of Nation Building) or with particular individuals from Quebec's history (such as Patrice Groulx's Dollard, les amérindiens et nous). However, Alan Gordon makes a unique contribution by addressing the evolution of public memory within a particular locale. His choice of Montreal in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries places his study alongside the many, published on both sides of the Atlantic, that have focused upon this heyday of widespread presentation of the past to the public. As the title suggests, Gordon focuses upon the contested nature of public memory in a city with two strong linguistic communities. In that context, he identifies a group of men, Montreal's 'heritage elites,' that were divided by language when representing the past to the public. He highlights such divisions in the construction in 1922 of a 'Cross of Sacrifice ... on the boundary of the city's Catholic and Protestant cemeteries ... Its shadow, beginning the day in one cemetery and ending it in the other, symbolized Montreal's attempt to bury the ethnic [conscription] crisis of 1917' (92). In the end, however, this effort at reconciliation failed. Gordon draws our attention to inscriptions that told different stories in each language and to different cultural understandings of the cross among English- and French-speaking Quebeckers. Gordon also draws attention to what he sees as a fundamental shift in the public memory of French-speaking Montrealers, a shift best symbolized in the changing public presentation of the Patriotes of 1837-8. While nineteenth-century tributes to the rebels generated little public enthusiasm, Gordon explains how the mammoth St-Jean-Baptiste Day celebration in 1926, constructed around the unveiling of a monument in honour of the Patriotes, was attended by 250,000 people. He argues that this massive turnout reflected a larger transformation of French-Canadian nationalism. In the nineteenth century, the Patriotes were championed in liberal circles, but were unacceptable to conservatives. However, by 1926 the ranks of the liberals had been depleted as 'anticlericalism [became] a marginal position'; at the same time, the more conservative forces, particularly clerical ones, had come to embrace the Patriotes, thanks to the reinterpretation of the events of 1837-8 by Lionel Groulx (158). Gordon identifies some significant shifts in the attitudes of the elite of French Canada towards the past. Nevertheless, he makes two specific claims in this regard that stretch beyond his evidence. First, he finds, on the basis of the 'homogenization of memory' (162) that by the 1920s 'French Canadian nationalism was remarkably unified ... Little remained of the divisive battles that had driven French Canadians against one [End Page 605] another ... in the nineteenth century' (101). In taking such a view, Gordon marginalizes a significant body of literature pointing to the complexity of French-Canadian nationalism in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While he argues that 'liberalism' by the 1920s had been badly injured, if not eliminated, authors such as Yvan Lamonde and Marcel Fournier have written extensively about the ongoing conflict between modern and more traditional views of the nation. Moreover, Gordon goes beyond his evidence in seeing shifts in popular attitudes towards nationalism through the attendance of the masses at commemorative events. Gordon's evidence reflects the views of 'heritage elites,' but tells us little about the perspectives of those who attended events such as the large-scale celebration of the Patriotes in 1926. He claims that 'enthusiastic crowds at monument unveilings ... suggest the depth of popular agreement with some aspects of public memory.' Nevertheless, he admits that 'we can never know exactly what spectators at commemorative spectacles thought or felt, but their presence at least suggests some receptiveness to the messages...