To explore the argument outlined above, I turn to the tenth anniversary rep­resentation and circulation of the memory of the Montreal massacre in the Canadian media. As Chun (1999,114) remarks, in the absence of any juridical forum, “the mediatization of the event” has become particularly important to “the task of comprehending the massacre and placing […]

Named as the “deadliest single-day mass shooting in Canadian history” (Charles Grandmont, National Post, 5 December 1999), the massacre in Mon­treal registered widely in the social domain in a manner unprecedented in Canada. These comments, fashioned in the immediate aftermath of the killings, characterize the shock and horror that many expressed: This week, the unimaginable […]

SHARON ROSENBERG [ 2 ] Although social power regulates what losses can be grieved, it is not always as effective as it aims to be. The loss cannot be fully denied, but neither does it appear in a way that can be directly affirmed. —Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power In the early evening […]

During the period between 1866 and 1954 the primary social role of women was to bear and rear children. Women who did not conform to this standard were made into outcasts. Childless women were, in fact, perceived to be poten­tially bad women. In the trials of Emily Sprague, Marie-Louise Cloutier, and Cordelia Viau in Quebec, […]

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, women were not legal persons in the eyes of the law. A woman had to be submissive and to obey her husband, and those who deviated from the norm paid dearly. Of course, women who were thought to have lovers and who were also con­demned for having […]

During the trials the femininity of the accused was put into sharp focus and questioned by emphasizing appearance, behaviour, feminine attitude, and mental instability. The physical appearance of the accused women was also central to press coverage. The most striking example of this is found in the media attention given to Evelyn Dick in Ontario […]

As I proceeded with the archival work, I found that a series of factors on the characterization of the woman played a role in the final outcome of the trial and were dominant in the petitioners’ request for mercy, commutation of the death penalty, and sentence reduction. Three narratives of appropriate gen­der roles emerged around […]

In many cases, these stories were described in headlines as being the most dis­gusting crimes in Canadian history. For example, in the case of Phoebe Camp­bell (1871, Ontario),9 the London Free Press wrote that proof “renders this woman the most atrocious criminal of our century” (8 August 1871). But more important, judges also participated in […]

The archival documents from Confederation to the abolition of the death penalty in 1976 include the files of some 1,300 men and fifty-eight women. Twenty-eight women were initially condemned to death for killing their hus­bands. The distribution of these homicides is as follows: seven in Ontario, seven in Quebec, four in Alberta, three in New […]

In this section41 explore the historical context of the years between 1866 and 1954 by studying the relevant trials and providing an analysis of gender con­struction in the public narratives of these trials. More than one hundred years after the execution of “La Corriveau,” between 1866 and 1954, twenty-eight Canadian women were found guilty of […]