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Who wanted the crèches? Working mothers and the birth-rate in France 1900–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Siân Reynolds
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Continuity and Change , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , August 1990 , pp. 173 - 197
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Kamerman, S. B., ‘Work and family in industrialized societies’, Signs 4 (1979), 642.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 There were only about 17,000 full-time places in 1960, and less than 30,000 in 1970: David, M. and Lézine, I., Early child care in France, (New York, 1975), 72Google Scholar. The latest figures available at the time of writing are from Femmes en chiffres (INSEE, Paris, 1986)Google Scholar and refer to the situation in 1982: there were 78,704 places in classic crèches collectives; a further 40,270 were in crèches familiales, a smaller and more flexible formula which is expanding rapidly; 196,000 children with child-minders and about 12,000 in private kindergarten. Over 50 per cent of children under three were being cared for at home with their mothers. The number of live births per annum in present-day France is about 750,000, and the highest single total was 872,800 (in 1949) so there would normally be upwards of 2 million children under three in the country. For detailed figures of the French population since 1914, see Dupâquier, J. et al. , Histoire de la population française, vol. 4 (PUF, 1988).Google Scholar

3 Riley, Denise, ‘The free mothers; pronatalism and working women in industry at the end of the last war’, History Workshop Journal 11 (1981), 101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

4 For analysis of the period before 1940, see Daric, Jean, L'activité professionnelle des femmes en France, étude statistique (Cahier no. 5 de 1'INED, Paris, 1947)Google Scholar. The main figures are presented in accessible form by Sullerot, Evelyne in her chapter ‘Condition de la femme’ in Sauvy, Alfred ed., Histoire économique de la France entre les guerres, vol. III (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar, and by Bouchardeau, Huguette, Pas d'histoire les femmes (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar. See also Tilly, Louise and Scott, Joan, Women, work and family (New York, 1979)Google Scholar and for recent trends, Thébaud, Françhise, ‘Sexual inequality in France in the 20th Century’, in Morris, P. ed., Equality and inequalities in France (Nottingham, 1984).Google Scholar

5 McMillan, James F., Housewife or harlot, the place of women in French society 1870–1940, (Brighton, 1981), 38.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 39.

7 Tilly, and Scott, , Women, work and family, 91.Google Scholar

8 On the question of marriage and waged work in France, see ibid., and Hilden, Patricia, Working women and socialist politics in France, 1880–1914, a regional study (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar especially appendix. This paper had already been written before I had a chance to read Jenson, Jane's important article ‘Gender and reproduction: or babies and the state’, Studies in Political Economy, 20 (Summer, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which usefully draws attention to differences between Britain and France, although I do not entirely agree with her interpretation of the French case.

9 Hilden, , Working women, chapter 2Google Scholar; Tilley, and Scott, , Women, work and family, 194–5.Google Scholar

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11 Thébaud, Françoise, La Femme au temps de la guerre de 14 (Paris, 1986), 271. See also previous note.Google Scholar

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14 For a survey of the literature on this question; see Huss, Marie-Monique and Ogden, Philip, ‘Demography and pronatalism in France in the 19th and 20th centuries’, Journal of Historical Geography 8 (1982), 283–98.Google Scholar

15 On the earliest crèches, see Marbeau, J. B. F., Manuel de la crèche, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1886)Google Scholar, copy in dossier ‘Crèches’ at Musée Social (MS). Figures from Lédé, F., Les crèches, budget et utilisation (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar; see also L'Héritier, J., ‘Le jour où l'on mit les enfants à la crèche’, Histoire, no. 67 (1984)Google Scholar; and on the work-place crèches in the north, Smith, Bonnie, Ladies of the leisure class, the bourgeoises of northern France (Princeton, 1981), 142–3 and index references.Google Scholar

16 L'Héritier, , ‘Le jour’Google Scholar, cites 222 deaths among 512 children at 14 crèches in. 1853. See also David, and Lézine, , Early child care, 68.Google Scholar

17 Cf. McDougall, Mary L., ‘Protecting infants: the French campaign for maternity leaves, 1890s–1913’ in French Historical Studies, 1983, 79–103CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Tilley, and Scott, , Women, work and family, 172 ff.Google Scholar

18 Fuchs, Rachel G., ‘Morality and poverty: public welfare for mothers in Paris 1870–1900’, in French History 2 (09, 1988), 288–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Marbeau (fils), quoted in Le Petit Parisien, 23 09 1899Google Scholar, cutting in dossier ‘Crèches’ at Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand (hereafter BMD), Paris.

20 Lecture given in aid of the Société Maternelle Parisienne, on 15 12 1901, published as brochure, 1902Google Scholar; in MS dossier ‘Crèches’.

21 Cf. for example Donzelot, Jacques, La police des families (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar, Eng. trans., The policing of families (London, 1980)Google Scholar, a book which has stimulated debate. Its ready identification of the working-class wife as an ‘accomplice’ of the forces of intervention calls for more discussion than it has yet received.

22 Knibiehler, Yvonne and Fouquet, Catherine, L'histoire des mères, 260.Google Scholar

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25 La Fronde, 26 10 1899.Google Scholar

26 Prospectus in BMD dossier ‘Crèches’, dated 1 October 1906.

27 A pre-war circular to all town halls in the Paris region from the prefect pointed out that crèches did not have the right to use municipal stationery (BMD, dossier ‘Crèches’).

28 Bernard, L., La défense de la santé publique pendant la guerre, (Paris, 1920), 297Google Scholar (quotation on pregnancy) and 303. See also McMillan, , Housewife, 133ffGoogle Scholar; Dubesset, M. et al. , ‘Les munitionnettes de la Seine’, in Fridenson, Patrick ed., L'Autre front (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar, and Thébaud, , La femme, 169ff. and 270 ff.Google Scholar

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30 Dubesset, M. et al. , ‘Quand les femmes entrent a l'usine. Les ouvrières des usines de guerre dans la Seine 1914–18’ (Master's thesis. University of Paris-VII, 1974; copy in BMD).Google Scholar

31 Frois, , La santé, 132ff.Google Scholar; Dubesset, et al. , ‘Les munitionnettes’, 207–8Google Scholar; Thébaud, , La femme, 273.Google Scholar

32 Dubesset, et al. , ‘Les munitionnettes’, 207–8Google Scholar; Crissac, Abel, Rapport sur l'allaitement maternel au magasin et a l'atelier (Paris, 1916)Google Scholar, brochure in Archives Nationales, Paris (hereafter AN) F 22 447. Cf. also Thébaud, , La femme, 273.Google Scholar

33 Thébaud, , La femmeGoogle Scholar, and Dubesset, et al. , ‘Les munitionnettes’Google Scholar Cf. McMillan, , Housewife, 191Google Scholar, and Knibiehler, and Fouquet, , Histoire des mères, 308 (Puteaux).Google Scholar

34 Ross, Ellen, ‘Survival networks, women's neighbourhood sharing in London before World War One’, History Workshop Journal, no. 15, (1983), 4–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Dubesset, et al. , ‘Les munitionnettes’, 208Google Scholar; Crissac, , RapportGoogle Scholar; Bernard, , La défense, 309Google Scholar; Dubesset, et al. , thesis 236–7Google Scholar; Thebaud, , La femme, 274 and note.Google Scholar

36 Thébaud, , La femme, 272Google Scholar, quoting Cetival, Marceline, La Française d'aujourd'hui.Google Scholar On childbirth during and after World War I, see Thébaud, Françoise, Donner la vie (Lyon, 1986).Google Scholar

37 Cf. McMillan, , Housewife, 131Google Scholar and note, on the debate. On the question of motherhood between the wars see Offen, Karen, ‘Women and the politics of motherhood in France 1920–1945’, working paper no. 87–291, European University Institute, Florence (1987).Google Scholar

38 On post-1918 crèches, de Maisonneuve, P., Les institutions sociales en faveur des ouvrières d'usine (Paris, 1923), esp. 158 ff. Cf.Google ScholarLewis, Jane, Women in England 1870–1950 (Brighton, 1984), 56Google Scholar on the closing of crèches in England, and Riley, Denise, ‘The Free Mothers’, and ‘War in the nursery’, Feminist Review, no. 2 (1979), 82–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 ‘Les crèches des PTT’, Le Temps, 29 03 1930, cutting in AN F22 447. All the references in this paragraph are to documents in this carton.Google Scholar

40 For details see Boulonnais, L., La municipalité en service social l'oeuvre municipale de M. Henri Sellier à Suresnes, (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar, (dedicated to Sellier, who was minister of health under the Popular Front and to Jacques Lacan, at the time a young doctor participating in the Suresnes experiment).

41 Reported in Bouchardeau, , Pas d'histoire, 74 and 189.Google ScholarLapidus, G. Warshovsky, Women in Soviet society, equality, development and change, (Berkeley, 1978), 128 ff.Google Scholar, argues that there was little expansion of crèche provision in the USSR, with the new emphasis on the family by the 1930s, until after World War II.

42 The articles appeared daily or almost daily from 21 November to 16 December 1935. Summarized in part in Bouchardeau, , Pas d'histoire, 127–9.Google Scholar

43 Ronsin, , La grève des ventres, 202Google Scholar, See ibid, on natalism in the communist party.

44 Humanité, 11 12 1935.Google Scholar

45 Ibid. 16 December 1935.

46 Ibid., 11 December 1935.

47 Lequin, , Histoire des François, vol. 1, 279.Google Scholar

48 Bouchardeau, , Pas d'histoire, 59.Google Scholar

49 Quoted ibid., 198.

50 Included in the documents for the UFCS conference, see note 13 above, (pp. 283–4).

51 Weiss, Louise, Combats pour les femmes, 1934–39, vol. 3 of Mémoires d'une Europeenne, (Paris, 1980 edition), 165Google Scholar, remarks that there were only 6,000 women members of the socialist party in France, and few of these would call themselves feminists.

52 Oeuvre nouvelle des crèches parisiennes, brochure of 1925, in Archives of the Paris Préfecture of Police, dossier ‘Crèches’, B/D203; Stauss's speech is on page 35. My italics.

53 UFCS, Le Travail Industriel, conference documents, 32.Google Scholar

54 Davidson, F., ‘Day-care centres in Paris and its suburbs’, in WHO Public Health Papers no. 24, Care of Children in Day Centres (Geneva, 1964).Google Scholar On the Code de la famille and the history of family policy, see historical introduction to Laroque, Pierre, La politique familiale en France depuis 1945 (Documentation française, Paris, 1985).Google Scholar

55 Mme Hertzog-Cachin, , L'importance décisive des crèches, Cahier no. 87, CERM (Centre d'études et de recherches marxistes), (Paris, 1970), 2.Google Scholar

56 Sullerot, E., ‘La démographie en France’, in Santoni, G. ed., Société et culture de la France contemporaine (Albany, 1981), 93.Google Scholar

57 Registers of the Crèche Sadi-Carnot, Vth arrondissement, for 1894–1895Google Scholar; registers of the Crèche Victor-Hugo (now the Creche de la rue des Lyonnais, Ve arrondissement), 1941–1942. The records are among the archives of the Crèche de la rue des Lyonnais, and were consulted thanks to the assistance of the directrice, Mile Patricia Sonnet (years in between missing).

58 Knibiehler, and Fouquet, , Histoire des mères, 233.Google Scholar

59 Cf. Bouchardeau, , Pas d'histoire, 156.Google Scholar

60 The crèche received rations and ‘secours du Marechal’, so local people may have been keen to send their children there for nourishment.

61 Journal Officiel, Lois et decrets, 22 12 1942 and 22 04 1945.Google Scholar

62 Thébaud, ‘Sexual inequality in France’.

63 Cited in Union Nationale des Caisses d'Allocations familiales, pamphlet ‘Réalisations sociales, les crèches’, 06 1948, 5.Google Scholar

64 Girard, A., ‘Une enquete’Google Scholar, art, cit., cf. note 13 above. Cf. his article in Le Monde, 30 01 1983Google Scholar, on ‘La politique familiale’.

65 Biraben, J. N. and Dupâquier, J., Les berceaux vides de Marianne (Paris, 1981), 147.Google Scholar

66 Spengler, Joseph, France faces depopulation (Durham N.C., 1976Google Scholar, re-issue of a book originally published in 1936), did argue that the crèche was one way of encouraging births, but it came well down the list of incentives.

67 Cf note 24 above; see also ‘Crèches, la porte ouverte’ in Le Monde de l'éducation, 12 1983Google Scholar, on the draconian hygienic regulations in force right up to the 1970s; the qualitative description in the manuscript history of the Crèche Victor-Hugo suggests that reality in the past was sometimes the exact opposite – complete chaos.

68 Davidson, , Day care centres, 150.Google Scholar

69 On family policy in the 1980s, ‘La politique de la famille’ in special number of Les cahiers français (01 1985)Google Scholar, ‘La population française de A a Z’.