A working-class neighborhood in Montreal, Saint-Henri has its history. It is largely that of the world below, of those left behind that Gabrielle Roy speaks so well in this great novel that is Second-hand happiness (1945). The neighborhood has changed, of course. And it is not without reason that the Pointe-à-Callière Museum devotes a beautiful exhibition to him entitled Saint-Henri, the heart at work.
Anne Élisabeth Thibault, the director of the museum, explains that she wanted to present various aspects of the history of a small society that was established from 1670. “From a main aisle, we enter into thematic spaces, a bit like entering homes. These are all doors that lead to aspects of the history of this district,” she explains. There is everything you need to give air and light to this district, long suffocated by factory fumes and the nauseating odors of tanneries.
During the Bye of 1970, the televised end-of-year review, the comedian Olivier Guimond clearly framed the fundamental place that this neighborhood plays in the Quebec psyche. Dressed as a Canadian army corporal, in a nod to the October crisis, Guimond is planted in front of a plush house in Westmount on New Year’s Eve. And Guimond explains to the rich owner whose security he ensures that he comes from the very bottom of the city, where the lights don’t shine. He signed up, he said, “to see the country”. And the viewer understands that there are several worlds in this country of which Saint-Henri constitutes a true standard of measurement.
In the land of Yvon Deschamps
It was in Saint-Henri that comedian Yvon Deschamps grew up. Its social sensitivities are not foreign to the life of this neighborhood. Believing in paradise after life in such places could not be enough for the living. So much so that a priest like Jacques Couture will settle there. He will work in the factory, like everyone else. Couture would eventually be elected to the Parti Québécois. He will be Minister of Labor, before returning to religious life.
Saint-Henri, the heart at work is based on several hundred pieces patiently collected or borrowed from various institutions. This ranges from the chrome rocking chair produced in the post-war period to the pretty porcelain whistle from the 19th century.e century found in archaeological excavations, including industrial objects mass-produced in the district’s factories.
The district was crossed by railways. The black community found there access to one of the rare professions open to them: sleeping car employee. She settles down for good in the neighborhood, that is to say close to work.
Between the Lachine Canal and these railways, Saint-Henri was well placed to see goods from all over the world pass by, without being able to really appropriate them. “Saint-Henri knows the smell of all the products of the world: the great pines of the North, Ceylon tea, Indian spices, Brazil nuts,” writes Gabrielle Roy. When in 1947 his book won the Femina Prize, Saint-Henri found himself elevated to the height of a universal symbol.
The smell of tanneries
The visitor can appreciate for the first time several objects taken from archaeological excavations carried out during the renovation of the Turcot interchange. As Frank Rochefort, archaeologist for the Ministry of Transport, explains, never has a site where so many tanneries were located been excavated in Quebec. However, the tannery industry was a major one for a long time. It was first carried out by specialized craftsmen, then by industrial companies which took advantage of cheap labor which could be forced to work at will.
Saint-Henri-les-Tanneries, as it was called for a long time, was the living environment of a world of low wages, hired workers, ordinary employees doomed to show up, day after day, for lack of health insurance , towards the time clock which allowed them to calculate their pay and thus set up the numerical barriers to their misery.
It is not for nothing that a strong worker consciousness developed in the many factories in the neighborhood. The exhibition reminds us of this well. It also lets us hear the voices of two famous activists who dialogue with each other: Léa Roback and Madeleine Parent. “Why did I have to lose my health working,” asks Léa Roback. Is it really at the cost of life that profits should be generated? Yet there is something for everyone, she says.
The factories closed. Old industrial buildings have given way to real estate projects or new economic wastelands. This exhibition’s successful challenge is to provide a better understanding of life here through that of an emblematic district.