The Public Nature of Women's Work: Definitions and Debates during the Revolution of 1848

Abstract

On 21 May 1848 the revolutionary government held a festival in Paris to celebrate the Republic and to gather French citizens in a display of harmony and unity. Known as the Fete de la Concorde, the event took place on the Champs de Mars, which had been prepared by men employed in the National Workshops and was decorated with the results of competitions held among the nation's artists by the Bureau des Beaux Arts. Statues five meters in height representing Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity populated one end of the field, while allegories of France, Italy, and Germany, with arms extended in friendship, occupied the other. A reviewing stand held the National Assembly and other dignitaries who presided over a parade with thousands of participants: delegations of officials from the departements, the national guards of Paris and the provinces, and artisan corporations, as well as floats and choirs. A major feature of the parade was a band of five hundred young girls, dressed in white and crowned with oak leaves, who sang the Hymn of the Girondins. The presence of these working-class girls received considerable attention in press accounts and memoirs of the event, especially given both the circumscribed role they played in the overall festivities and the participation of other groups of women. Some accounts were favorable in their discussion of the girls; most were not. Commentators used gendered terms; their praise or criticism reflected their awareness of