'Villa Girl': Youth Culture and the Student Experience at a Single-Sex
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Becoming a ‘Villa Girl’: Youth Culture and the Student Experience at a Single-Sex Private School in Montreal, 1916-1980 Lisa Moore A Thesis in The Department of History Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (History) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada December 2014 Lisa Moore, 2014 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Lisa Moore Entitled: Becoming a ‘Villa Girl’: Youth Culture and the Student Experience at a Single-Sex Private School in Montreal, 1916-1980 and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (History) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: __________________________________ Chair Shannon McSheffrey __________________________________ Examiner Barbara Lorenzkowski __________________________________ Examiner Mary Anne Poutanen __________________________________ Supervisor Peter Gossage Approved by __________________________________________ Chair of Department or Graduate Program Director _________________________________________ Dean of Faculty Date _________________________________________ iii ABSTRACT Becoming a ‘Villa Girl’: Youth Culture and the Student Experience at a Single-Sex Private School in Montreal, 1916-1980 Lisa Moore Historians have often characterized Catholic private schools for girls exclusively as privileged, homogenous, and strictly regulated institutions that provide little insight into the lived experiences of female adolescents. The following study aims to challenge this perception by providing a microhistorical analysis of the youth culture that thrived at Villa Maria, an all-girls private school in Montreal, from 1916 to 1980. While the private school is acknowledged as a socializing force that influenced students’ development, this examination demonstrates that teenage girls actively produced meaningful adolescent experiences within institutional settings. Far from assuming positions of passivity, students at Villa Maria played an important role in shaping and transforming their school. More specifically, this study illustrates the ways in which students borrowed from the normative messages of their superiors, from popular culture, and even from broader social changes occurring within Quebec society to produce a youth culture that reflected their age-based needs and desires and that often challenged institutional values. By foregrounding Villa girls’ daily rituals and activities as the foundational basis of this youth culture, this study also tests conventional notions of historical agency, which have largely excluded young women as historical actors. Through its investigation of the student experience at Villa Maria during the twentieth century, this analysis questions established understandings of private schools and calls for the reconsideration of educational institutions as spaces for observing female adolescent agency. Acknowledgements While this thesis is the product of two years of hard work and perseverance, it would not have been possible without the help of those who acted as invaluable mentors and advisors. I am sincerely grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Peter Gossage, for devoting his time, for sharing his extensive knowledge, and for providing me with continuous guidance and support. Our meetings and conservations were always enlightening and contributed immensely to the success of this project. I would also like to extend a special thanks to the examiners, Dr. Barbara Lorenzkowski and Dr. Mary Anne Poutanen, for their judicious comments and helpful suggestions. For their valuable assistance and for their commitment to helping students in their academic endeavours, I must express my gratitude to the Archives Services of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame (especially Ms. Marie-Josée Morin). For helping me to locate oral history subjects and for their words of encouragement, I would like to thank the members of the Villa Maria Alumnae Association (especially Mrs. Marina Ferro). To the eight women I interviewed, thank you for your cooperation, enthusiasm and willingness to share your high school experiences. I am also indebted to my alma mater, Villa Maria, where I first developed my passion for studying history, and which inspired me to examine the agency of privately educated girls. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my seminar professors and classmates for enriching my experience as a graduate student. To my family, my friends, and my boyfriend, you can never know how much your patience, love, and support carried me through the last two years. For that, I am eternally grateful. Table of Contents Introduction .....................................................................................................................1 A. Historiography ..............................................................................................3 B. Theoretical Framework .................................................................................9 C. Research Questions and Hypotheses ............................................................12 D. Methodology .................................................................................................15 E. Chapters ........................................................................................................19 Chapter 1: A Profile of Villa Maria and Its Student Population, 1916-1980 .................21 A. Educational Philosophy ................................................................................22 B. Schedule and Curriculum ..............................................................................27 C. Student Population ........................................................................................33 Chapter 2: Mirroring their ‘Mothers’: Villa Maria’s Student Culture as a Reflection of Institutional Values, 1916-1946 .............................................................40 A. Homesickness and the Search for Stability ...................................................41 B. Religion and Faith as Markers of Student Culture ........................................49 C. Citizenship and Women’s Role in Society ...................................................55 Chapter 3: Breaking the Mold: Redefining the Student Culture through Resistance and Rites of Passage, 1947-1965 ....................................................................................67 A. The Struggle to Modernize ...........................................................................68 B. Resistance through Rule-Breaking ...............................................................70 C. Appropriating Institutionally-Sanctioned Activities .....................................79 D. Resisting Female Social Roles ......................................................................87 Chapter 4: Navigating Boundaries: Producing a Student Culture within the Villa’s Institutional Setting, 1966-1980 ......................................................................................95 A. Accommodating the School Philosophy .......................................................99 B. Engaging in Adolescent Discourse and Rituals at School ............................106 C. Interacting with Teachers ..............................................................................117 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................123 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................128 Appendix I: Oral History Interview Guide .....................................................................137 List of Figures Figure 1: Undergraduate students, 1954 .........................................................................113 Figure 2: Secondary two students, 1974 .........................................................................114 Figure 3: Caricature of a teacher, 1973 ...........................................................................119 Figure 4: Teachers caught in an embrace, 1976 .............................................................119 List of Tables Table 1: Students’ Daily Routine ....................................................................................29 Table 2: Distribution of Students ....................................................................................34 Table 3: Students’ Places of Residence ..........................................................................35 Table 4: Tuition Fees ......................................................................................................36 Table 5: Students’ Ethnic Backgrounds, 1971-1979 ......................................................37 1 Introduction Located on a vast estate 1 that borders Montreal’s prestigious neighbourhood of Westmount, Villa Maria was founded in 1854 by the Congregation of Notre-Dame, a Catholic order of nuns dedicated to the education of young women. 2 Operating as a convent boarding school, Villa Maria initially served the interests of privileged girls, preparing them for arguably the only paths available to young respectable women at the time: the novitiate and motherhood.3 In its early days, the student population consisted of the daughters of francophone and anglophone elites, including those from wealthy American