12 The French-speaking rural family seemed to fit the cliché that farmers were rich in land and livestock but poor in cash. Agricultural families had considerable amounts of foodstuffs on hand, but most had less money to spend on consumer goods than urban residents.12 Farming families invested less than half the amount the average household devoted to furnishings and in spite of a small increase after 1807, their furniture holdings remained below average during the first part of the nineteenth century. Having little spare specie, the farming population invested a smaller percentage of their incomes in leisure pursuits, furniture, kitchen utensils, heating devices and clothes than other social groups and, as one would expect of rural inhabitants, they raised more livestock.

13 The relatively minor alternations occurring in the home environment suggest that the rural population invested considerably less than other groups in making the interiors of their residences comfortable. The fact that almost ninety-five percent of farming families in the late eighteenth century owned stoves is a clear indication, however, that a measure of comfort was deemed essential, and although they lacked many of the artifacts of domesticity, they more than likely invented games, as well as other means, to help them enjoy long, cold winter days.13

14 Judging from their inventories, urban artisan houses were more comfortable than those belonging to farming families, but far less affluent than mercantile or professional residences. Thus, artisans had twice as much of their assets in furniture, clothing and kitchen utensils than habitants.

15 Because of the importance of technology to craftsmen, they invested more in tools than other groups. On the whole, however, the percentage of movable goods invested in tools dropped dramatically, from 24 percent in the late eighteenth century to 10.3 percent in the third decade of the nineteenth century. Although difficult to answer with certainty, one wonders if craftsmen were depending more on masters and merchants to furnish them with tools,14 or if, as artisans acquired more wealth, they invested a smaller percentage of it in new machinery.

16 Rural and urban merchant families in the areas of both Montreal and Quebec City devoted a greater percentage of their movable assets to household linen and kitchen utensils, as well as to leisure activities, than other social groups.15 Not only merchants, but also notaries, lawyers and doctors, possessed far more musical instruments, games and books than artisans and farmers.

17 The emphasis in the mercantile community on significant artifacts of sociability and domesticity, such as tea caddies and china tea sets, stoves, kitchen utensils and glassware, sofas, card tables and hardwood furniture, pianos, backgammon sets, microscopes, camera obscura, magic lanterns and reading material, suggests that this group was using the home to entertain themselves and their guests in increasingly refined, affluent and occasionally, ostentatious, surroundings. Consider, for example, the stove, this formerly essential and very expensive piece of furniture, which became in the early nineteenth century merely another luxury item for merchant families. No longer, for example, was one stove, traditionally located in the kitchen, used to heat the house. Whereas two-tiered stoves with built-in ovens were now found in the kitchen, as many as ten and even fourteen heating units were located elsewhere in the merchants' large, stone residences.16 Merchants undoubtedly set the trend towards multiple heating units, and were in this respect ahead of professionals.

18 During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries political and economic opportunities opened to notaries and lawyers, providing them with the necessary financial resources to acquire visible indicators of prosperity.17 Like many of their counterparts in New England,18 this upwardly mobile group put more emphasis on appearances, as well as comfort than commercial and labouring groups: professionals had a greater proportion of their personal estates devoted to kitchen utensils, furniture, clothing and personal objects. It is important to note the relative differences between merchants and professionals. For example, whereas the latter devoted a greater percentage of their personal estates to furniture and clothing, the actual value of these goods was far higher in mercantile households.

23 Since clothing followed similar trends as those previously outlined for other commodities, it is not difficult to imagine that members of the elite had the largest wardrobes. The average percentage of assets devoted to clothes varied according to socio-economic and chronological factors. Thus, although all groups saw their clothing assets rise significantly in the economically prosperous years of 1807-1812 and stabilize between 1820 and 1825, only the wardrobes of the professionals and merchants increased significantly during the early 1830s.

24 These fluctuations seem to be directly related to those occurring in the economy. For example, the reason farming families experienced the most significant increase occurring in clothing ownership in the early 1820s was linked to the strong demand for grain.24 The drop in grain prices in the following decade was accompanied by a similar decline in the habitants' wardrobes.

25 Not only did professionals spend a greater portion of their incomes on clothing, they also appeared to be the most style-conscious. Judging from the percentage of their incomes invested in clothing, urban woodworkers also demonstrated a similar concern for appearances. Merchants often owned more articles than others, but the proportion of movable goods they devoted to their wardrobes was only slightly higher than that of blacksmiths and farmers. The investment of almost twenty percent of their personal estates in clothing made the professionals among the best dressed in the colony, as well as leaders in fashion.

26 Professionals owned the largest percentages of common articles like socks, shoes and shirts and clothing accessories, such as gloves and hats, than other groups. Items typically found in labouring homes, such as locally made coats (capots) and coverlets (courtepointes) were rarely present in professionals' inventories.

27 An analysis of certain items, such as boots and vests, provides insights into the way consumer goods evolved and how they were transferred from the elites to other social groups. Clothing worn by important actors on the historical stage was often exploited by merchants who publicized items such as Wellington and Brunswick boots, in both English and French newspapers, as being the latest styles in footwear.25 It was this type of advertising that succeeded in selling boots, which became popular after the Napoleonic Wars, especially among the style-conscious members of the professions.

28 The fact that clothing trends were often set by members of the upper social strata, is further indicated by the delay in the adoption of articles normally associated with them by labouring groups. For example, as vests made of imported cloth lost their popularity among merchants and professionals, they gained in importance in the wardrobes of labourers' families in both the country and city. Research on the possible existence of a secondhand trade in clothing might help explain the lag in the acquisition of certain items by members of labouring groups.26

29 One of the ways in which the transfer of styles from Great Britain to Lower Canada took place was through the importation of patterns. While tailors, dressmakers and milliners used them to make fancy clothing for urbanites, young women and rural housewives asked their friends and husbands to bring patterns home from the city so that women could reproduce them.27 Similar tendencies were also evident in the evolution of the ownership of hats and coats.

30 Artisan families invested less of their movable assets in clothing than merchants or professionals, but they owned similar articles. In effect, the concern for comfort and appearances among the families of specialized tradesmen increased at a similar pace as that set by merchants. Thus, in the 1820s, artisans had almost attained the same level of consumption of furniture and clothing as merchants.

31 Urban woodworking families, a relatively high percentage of whom owned dressing gowns (33 percent), corsets (40 percent), shawls (42 percent) and dresses (50 percent), were similar to professionals in their clothing habits. This confirms a trend which is already obvious, that urban fashions were eventually transferred from the upper to the lower social strata.

32 While artisans possessed more common clothing articles and accessories than habitants, they also owned such essential rural items as hooded and short coats (mantelets), and homespun household linen.28 Shared clothing traditions were particularly evident among the families of farmers and artisans, such as blacksmiths who had moved to the city carrying with them a strong concern to preserve old clothing, as well as similar interests in styles and materials as country folk.29

33 Compared to urbanites, most country people owned limited wardrobes. An analysis of donations provides a portrait of the ideal wardrobes of mature rural couples (forty to fifty years of age) who had given their farms to sons in return for maintaining them during the remainder of their lives.30 According to these notarial documents, the traditional portrait of a well-dressed habitant in his hooded coat, striped pants, colourful woven belt and shoes is supported by the description of items found in these records. However, since only twenty-six belts were listed in the inventories and notations of striped pants were rare, the traditional image represents not the everyday garb of the habitant, but the prosperous farmer in his Sunday best.

34 Similarly, although the woman's ubiquitous short coat or gown, long homespun skirt and moccasins, seen so often in contemporary water-colours and historical accounts, was the primary female outfit, it was often in an advanced state of repair.31 Since women, many of whom possessed sewing needles, also demanded a variety of cloth, they obviously made and repaired a lot of their own clothing.32 In fact, some requested that cloth and wool be provided in place of socks, skirts, short coats and cloaks and headdress. A few women were so conscientious about prolonging the life of their goods that they requested wool to replace the lower parts of used socks.33 Obviously the way people dressed was directly linked to farming: prosperous years gave the rural family the means to purchase imported cloth and French shoes from the local merchant; in lean years they wore their clothes thin and depended on homespun cloth to replace threadbare garments.34

35 When the various economic realities of rural life are considered, they help explain why so few items were listed in inventories. Practices such as constant cleaning, repairing worn-out items and replacing them only when they were no longer useful resulted, by the end of one's life, in a rather threadbare wardrobe.35 Moreover, by the time an individual's inventory was made, clothing was often hardly worth noting.36 In conclusion, portraits of well-dressed country residents, even when complemented by a study of donations, tend to obscure the fact that the wardrobes of most were usually limited and in various states of repair. In seeking to understand the discrepancies between these sources and the inventory data, we must learn more about the economic realities of rural life and the role of homespun in it.

40 The capacity of agricultural families to make their own clothing varied considerably between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and from region to region. Although spinning wheels were prevalent during both the French and British regimes, the single most important piece of textile equipment, the loom, was rarer. According to a study of agricultural implements in the Saint-Hyacinthe region, one of the few areas for which a study of eighteenth century data is available, looms were non-existent prior to the period 1778-1782 when a mere four percent of households possessed them. Spinning wheels, however, increased from 36 percent during the decade 1740-1750, to 46 percent by 1782, and to 71 percent for the period 1795-1804.

41 Figures for the latter period correspond with the presence of spinning wheels in the Quebec and Montreal districts. For example, in the Quebec region, rural women owning spinning wheels increased from 63 percent during the late eighteenth century to a high of 80 percent in the early nineteenth century, dropping thereafter to 70 percent in the 1820s. The pattern was similar for the Montreal region; 82 percent of households had spinning wheels in the late eighteenth century: 85 percent owned them in the early nineteenth century, with a decrease to about 70 percent in the early 1820s.

42 Although the frequency of ownership of spinning wheels was similar for all regions, loom ownership differed. In the Quebec region 31 to 47 percent of the rural families in the period 1792-1825 owned looms, while only 18 to 21 percent of the country people in the Montreal region possessed this tool. It is evident that not only had the capacity to produce textiles increased throughout different areas in Lower Canada, but also that the amount produced varied considerably from region to region. More research is needed to discover why settled areas around Quebec and Montreal differed so much in the ownership of looms. Moreover, since most loom-owning households in the Montreal area had on average one loom and only five families possessed more than one, it seems unlikely that farming families were producing quantities of cloth for external markets. A few weavers sold small reserves of wool and linen fabric in local, rural markets but these quantities did not seriously affect the large amounts of imported textiles sold by urban merchants.40

43 Rural domestic textile production may not have had much of an impact on city markets, but it was becoming a significant factor in the household economy of rural areas. The above analysis of cloth-making equipment suggests that the trend towards self-sufficiency in domestic textile production began in the latter part of the eighteenth century and continued to gain strength in the early nineteenth century. The figures of the Saint-Hyacinthe region may not be representative of the entire countryside,41 but the existence of a substantial number of wheels without accompanying looms appears to be indicative of a general situation, that the home production of cloth (i.e., weaving) was insignificant during the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries.

44 Judging from an analysis of movable assets, farming families owning looms appear to have been poorer than those without. In other words, many of those farming families who were making their own wardrobes may have been doing so because they could not afford to buy clothes.42

45 What role does the possession of sheep play in textile production? Consider first the presence of sheep, and second, the relationship between the ownership of flocks and textile equipment. By the late eighteenth century, sheep ownership is a fact of life in the Montreal area: almost ninety percent of habitants own flocks.43 Census returns show that the number of sheep per farm had grown slowly from an average of 2.4 in 1765 to 4.4 in 1784 and 7.5 in 1831.44 These figures are similar to those found in the Quebec city area inventories, which show a fluctuation of between six and nine sheep per farm, between 1792 and 1835. Figures for the Montreal area were much higher: the average number of sheep per owner increased from twelve during the late eighteenth century to seventeen in the early 1820s.

46 What was the relationship between weavers and their primary material, wool? Did most weavers own large flocks? Although sheep are only one of a number of farm animals, their presence was indicative of a rural family's relative wealth; families without sheep were generally poorer than those possessing these animals. Families with looms, however, did not own large flocks. Less than half possessed more than twenty sheep and of the five owners of two or more looms, only two had more than twenty sheep.45 Owners of over twenty sheep, many of whom were probably raising them for their meat, were the most prosperous. Although the lack of looms in many of the households owning the largest flocks suggests that the relationship between textile equipment and sheep was not significant, additional analysis is needed before conclusions can be drawn. For example, since weavers made material for people who provided them with fibre, they did not need to own sheep to be productive.

47 However, because families with looms owned sheep and most rural households that possessed spinning wheels also had flocks,46 they likely used much of the wool in the fabrication of products for their own use, such as knitted items. Moreover, given the poor quality of Canadian wool, it was probably used more for such things as stuffing mattresses and pillows than in producing fibre for the loom.47 The presence of large numbers of spinning wheels in both the Quebec and Montreal regions suggests that much of the wool was being used in knitting.

48 How many sheep were being kept for wool compared to the number raised for meat is difficult to evaluate, but obviously an important percentage was used for food. Like the situation in parts of the United States, Canadien farmers may have been selling their best sheep for meat.48 Although pork and beef were traditionally the most popular meat in Canada, mutton began to be consumed in larger quantities in the early nineteenth century.49 Were Canadien farming families, like their American counterparts in the eighteenth century, adopting the British taste for lamb?