The Other Quebec: Microhistorical Essays on Nineteenth-Century Religion and Society (review)

The publication of The Other Quebec not only solidifies J.I. Little's position as the foremost historian of Quebec's Eastern Townships. Perhaps more significantly this edited collection of essays challenges the historical profession to recognize religion as a considerable social and cultural influence in nineteenth-century rural society. Although Little's earlier writings on this Anglo-Protestant enclave concentrated on the particulars of rural society and culture, his work relied heavily on demographic analysis to determine broad social patterns in the Eastern Townships such as wealth, gender, ethnicity, and social status. The Other Quebec eschews this approach to social history and instead utilizes religion as a prism to illuminate the complex nature of historical relationships. For Little, the intricacies of religious belief and religiosity are the primary focus of each essay in this collection, as religion is 'so important to shaping political ideology, social values, and cultural identities' (6).

In exploring the dynamics of religion and society among the anglophone Protestant minority in the Eastern Townships, Little employs the methodology of microhistory, an examination of select personal papers such as letters, diaries, and personal accounts. At its best, microhistory intimately dissects societal trends and practices, revealing the implications of historical 'interrelationships in constant movement within configurations that are in constant adaptation.' At its worst, as Little acknowledges, microhistory can retreat into pedestrian investigations of local communities, becoming mere case studies in expressions of 'anecdotal or antiquarian' historical analysis (7). Fortunately, The Other Quebec is an excellent source of microhistory, demonstrating the varieties and vagaries of religious experience in the nineteenth century, and how Protestant religion emerged as a crucial social force in the Eastern Townships.

The first half of the collection cuts across class and gender lines, and scrutinizes both the private and public religiosity of four families and how their religious practices and beliefs contributed to the fostering of domestic piety, class identity, gender formation, and economic behaviour. The reader is first introduced to the millenarian world of Ralph Merry, an itinerant tinware peddler, occasional farmer, and religious ecstatic. What emerges from this portrait of a religious radical is how popular religion and visionary quasi-mysticism differed completely from institutionalized belief systems of the Protestant churches in the district. Similarly, the familial bonds and fluid gender roles of 'genteel' members of the Lower Canadian ancien régime provide a startling contrast to the supposed impermeability of the separate spheres paradigm. The writings of Anglican clergyman James Reid and the diary of gentlewoman Lucy Peel emphasize the primacy of male domesticity and piety in the Christian home, along with a more public and cultured sociability of women than was previously imagined. Marguerite Van Die's article on the Colby family reveals that the post-Rebellion ascension of liberal-capitalism, with its industrial and commercial development and the discipline of the embryonic state, was not always a smooth transition, and religion became the anchor in a world of shifting economic, cultural, and social values. Thus, Charles Colby's moral leadership in the family and his commercial theology became intrinsically interwoven in the complete Christian life.

The thematic elements in the second half of the collection are more institutional, although religion remains an underlying focal point in all four articles. Essays on Eastern Township temperance societies and on noted school inspector Marcus Child illustrate that social reform was not always an imposition stemming from ruling elites. Rather, Child often utilized persuasion and negotiation, rather than coercion, in furthering school reform among his agricultural constituency, a process duplicated by clergy-inspired temperance societies. Little therefore concludes that, at the local level at least, the forces of 'state formation and religious motivation were far from antithetical' (127). However, as the century progressed, the forces of liberal modernity and religion would tend to collide, and the resulting conflict produced fascinating social dynamics in rural communities in transition. Little's study of Adventist camp meetings...