Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
Africa, Europe, transnational, modern, colonial/imperial, feminist, indigenous
Abstract
When Henriette Benaben died in 1915 in Algiers, an Arab-style tombstone was erected in the European cemetery declaring “She devoted her life to Muslim art and to the welfare of the indigenous woman.” Thirty years earlier when her grandmother, Eugénie Luce, died in the French provincial town of Montrichard, an obituary noted: “For forty years ... she pursued her œuvre: the regeneration of the Arab woman through work and instruction.” This paper considers the trajectories of this pair in the context of Algerian colonization, exploring how these women's life work intersected with and contributed to evolutions in colonial policies toward indigenous women.
Founded in 1845, Luce's school for Muslim girls in Algiers inspired the educational laws of 1850 that pursued the French “civilizing mission” through the teaching of French, arithmetic, and needlework to an indigenous female population. The vicissitudes of French colonial politics did not sustain this effort to promote girls' education. The concern to placate local Arab notables brought an end to this experiment, but not the determination of Luce and then Benaben to provide indigenous women with some professional skills. Between 1861 and 1910, they operated an embroidery workshop that trained girls and produced luxury embroideries that circulated between Algeria, Europe and the U.S.. The paper considers how gender, race, and issues of work and consumption affected the lives of both European and Algerian women in this specific colonial context. It also investigates the political interpretations of these women's form of activism both by contemporaries and later.
Keywords
Algeria, education, vocational skills, embroidery, women
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Promoting the Welfare of Indigenous Women: Franco-Algerian Itineraries (1845-1915)
When Henriette Benaben died in 1915 in Algiers, an Arab-style tombstone was erected in the European cemetery declaring “She devoted her life to Muslim art and to the welfare of the indigenous woman.” Thirty years earlier when her grandmother, Eugénie Luce, died in the French provincial town of Montrichard, an obituary noted: “For forty years ... she pursued her œuvre: the regeneration of the Arab woman through work and instruction.” This paper considers the trajectories of this pair in the context of Algerian colonization, exploring how these women's life work intersected with and contributed to evolutions in colonial policies toward indigenous women.
Founded in 1845, Luce's school for Muslim girls in Algiers inspired the educational laws of 1850 that pursued the French “civilizing mission” through the teaching of French, arithmetic, and needlework to an indigenous female population. The vicissitudes of French colonial politics did not sustain this effort to promote girls' education. The concern to placate local Arab notables brought an end to this experiment, but not the determination of Luce and then Benaben to provide indigenous women with some professional skills. Between 1861 and 1910, they operated an embroidery workshop that trained girls and produced luxury embroideries that circulated between Algeria, Europe and the U.S.. The paper considers how gender, race, and issues of work and consumption affected the lives of both European and Algerian women in this specific colonial context. It also investigates the political interpretations of these women's form of activism both by contemporaries and later.