Abstract
Abstract In October 1937, the Governor-General of AOF appointed Denise Moran Savineau to head a mission of inquiry into the social and economic situation of women and the family in the French West African colonies. Moran, one of the rare women to be employed by the French colonial administration, produced a remarkable study. This article attempts to place her document in its historical context. Attention is paid to the economic and social conditions of the 1930s and the French colonial policy of the 1936 Popular Front government. In the second part of the article, the document in question is examined by themes: women and production, trade, employment, rural and forced labor (especially the case of the Office du Niger), slavery and pawnship, women and the colonial justice System, education and medical facilities.
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