Love in the time of the tramway: The “pragmatic romanticism” of the journalist Robertine Barry, alias Françoise (1863−1910)
Robertine Barry (1863−1910), alias Françoise, was one of the pioneers of women’s journalism in Quebec. In the course of her prolific career, Barry developed a highly personal vision of love in her “Chronique du lundi,” published in the 1890s in the daily newspaper La Patrie as part of the paper’s “Coin de Fanchette” section, featuring both a women’s page and a love advice column; in the magazine Le Journal de Françoise, which she founded and directed during the 1900s; and in her fictional writings, such as the collection of short stories Fleurs champêtres (1895). Widely disseminated, her vision, as romantic as it was pragmatic, was part of the emotional turmoil that reshaped the norms and expectations of love and marriage in an era marked by the great socio-economic upheavals of industrialization and urbanization. Analyzed, here, from a historical perspective, Robertine Barry’s discourses on love provide a rare window on romantic relationships at the turn of the 20th century in Quebec.