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Herminie and Fanny Pereire were sisters-in-law, married to the eminent Jewish bankers and Saint-Simonian socialists Emile and Isaac. They were also mother and daughter. This book, a companion to the author's acclaimed Emile and Isaac Pereire (2015), sheds new light on elite Jewish families in nineteenth-century France. Drawing on the family archives, it traces the Pereires across a century of major social and political change, from the Napoleonic period to the cusp of the First World War, revealing the active role they played as bourgeois women both within and outside the family. It offers insights into Jewish assimilation, embourgeoisement and gender relations, through the lens of one of the most fascinating families of the century.
'This is an excellent successor to Helen Davies’ very favourably-reviewed study of Emile and Isaac Pereire, published by Manchester University Press in 2015...This thoroughly researched and well-judged study, which sets out a very complex story clearly, is essential reading for specialists in nineteenth-century European and religious history and a vital and innovative detailed work of reference for anyone interested in the role of French Jews.'
Pamela Pilbeam, Modern and Contemporary France
'The lives of Herminie and Fanny Pereire as presented in this study amply illustrate some of the “broad and weighty themes” of nineteenth-century French history. Through their lives we observe the rise of a grande bourgeoisie in which women played roles vital to family success. We also observe the unfolding impact on the Jewish community of the emancipation extended by the French Revolution and the variety of ways in which Jewish families responded to its demands and possibilities… Yet the final image she leaves is that of the courage and resourcefulness of two remarkable women as they pursued its possibilities.'
Susan Foley, Napoleonica the journal
'Herminie and Fanny Pereire offers a window onto economic, technological, and political changes in France, as well as the social dynamics of the Jewish community and the role of women in nineteenth-century French society. Mobilizing a variety of archives and perspectives, Davies follows the trajectories of Herminie Pereire (née Rodrigues) and her daughter Fanny, deftly tracing how these two pioneering women navigated their families and social and economic responsibilities across two empires, the restoration of the monarchy, and two nascent republics... Davies’ research paints a portrait of two women whose contributions to French society and pioneering efforts serve as a testament to the evolving role of women in shaping modern French history, and to the significant, yet often hidden, influence of women in the history of French Jewish life.'
Gayle Zachmann, Journal of Jewish Identities
You can read a blog about Herminie and Fanny Pereire by the author Helen M. Davies on The University of Melbourne's SHAPS Forum website.
'A deeply researched book, Davies mined the archives to find a rich collection of letters that has allowed her to carefully reconstruct the lives of these two French and Jewish women. Davies’s refreshing exploration of a bourgeoise family in nineteenth-century France is a tremendously welcome addition to the literature on Jewish life in modern France and to her previous work on this family. Her research shows how family and kinship affected their religious and economic beliefs, practice, and work, and how Herminie’s and Fanny’s experiences, while different, illustrate how elite nineteenth-century French and Jewish women navigated upward mobility in the wake of the 1789 French Revolution and the role it played in the history of French Jewry. It is for these reasons that this book will be of interest to those working on European Jewish history, French Jewish history, and the history of the family, as well as to those interested in how individuals and families acculturated and/or assimilated, how gender affected those relationships, and how, in cases like Herminie and Fanny’s, they self-fashioned their scalabilities and relationships to their Jewish and French contexts.'
Nick Underwood, Journal of Modern History
Introduction
1 The Rodrigues family
2 Herminie and Fanny: mother and daughter
3 Relations and relationships
4 Sociability, entertainment, real estate, and servants: ‘Fêtes, because fortune obliges it’
5 Conspicuous consumption, again ‘because fortune obliges it’
6 Sedaca, charity, philanthropy
7 Children and marriage: becoming Christian or becoming Jewish?
8 Being Jewish
Conclusion
Index