ABSTRACT
A pair of vignettes helps introduce this exploration of patrician power in two North American cities. In 1871, two judges, prominent members of the families we meet below, were among 211 individuals who contributed to the City of Quebec Agricultural Society’s annual exhibition. Judge Jean-Thomas Taschereau paid two Dollars for his annual membership and gave five Dollars to the exhibition prize fund. More parsimonious, his fellow judge Thomas McCord contributed thirty cents for exhibition prizes.1 In 1789, almost a century earlier, the Society had been founded and among the ‘eight English and eight Canadian gentlemen’ chosen as directors were members of the same families: Gabriel-Élzéar Taschereau and a McCord ancestor, George Davidson. The exhibition had two goals that remained constant over a century: judging showcase stock produced on gentlemen estates and, for the popular classes, the ‘encouragement of Agriculture in all of its branches in this district’.2 Over 8,000 people a day attended the 1871 exhibition on the garrison cricket field, visiting an industrial display in the nearby skating and curling rinks, a regatta in the harbour, and a dog show, reputedly the first ever held in Quebec.
