Contexts

In order to play your role of historian-detective effectively, you will find certain elements useful, perhaps even indispensable. In this section of the site, you will find, for example, brief biographies of the people involved in the Gagnon affair, as well as a chronology of the major events. Since the language of the judicial system is sometimes difficult to understand, we have also included a glossary of expressions found in the documents from the trials of the Gagnon couple. Moreover, an extensive bibliography is available for those who want to follow Aurore’s story “Beyond This Site.”

You will also find a number of short essays prepared by the creators of the site; these texts are designed to familiarize you with various dimensions of the historical context in which the “martyrdom” of Aurore Gagnon took place. Thus in the subsection “Historical Contexts,” you will find overviews of the way women were treated by Quebec courts, of the Quebec family at the beginning of the 1920s, of the role of the press in Quebec popular culture in the twentieth century, and of the position of a village like Fortierville in the history of urban-rural relations in Quebec.