All historians at York, I’m sure, will want to congratulate Bettina Bradbury on the appearance of her latest book, Wife to Widow: Lives, Laws, and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Montreal.
Just published by UBC Press, it studies two generations of women who married either before or after the Patriote rebellions of 1837-38 to explore the meaning of the transition from wife to widowhood in early nineteenth-century Montreal. Bettina weaves together the individual biographies of twenty women, against the backdrop of collective genealogies of over 500, to offer new insights into the law, politics, demography, religion, and domestic life of the time. She shows how women from all walks of life interacted with and shaped Montreal’s culture, customs, and institutions, even as they laboured under the shifting conditions of patriarchy. Immensely readable, Wife to Widow provides a rare window into the significance of marriage and widowhood during key historical moments in the history of Montreal and Quebec.
UBC Press are offering a special discount on the volume until July 31, 2011. See the attached order form, which has more details about the book. A sample chapter can be accessed viahttp://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299173224.
This is a marvellous achievement, Bettina, not least since you have brought the project to fruition during your four-year term as Chair of Women’s Studies. Please accept the Department’s heartiest congratulations.