Reportage“California, a French history” (3/6). In prospectors’ America, women make up the numbers. This is not the case with this Savoyard who landed in San Francisco in 1850.
Of Marie “Pantalon”, there is only one signature left, but it is a proclamation of bravery, a feminist challenge ahead of its time. The initials overwrite all others on the document. A petition, dated 1869: prospectors are calling for a better water supply system for gold mines, the kind of issues on which only men have a say. Not only has the Savoyard allowed herself to get involved, but she did it on a large scale. On the list of some hundred signatories, we only see her name, Marie Suize Pantalon. Gold digger (successful), pipe smoker, leader of men (but not eater). First woman to produce spirits in California. The badass original in a state at the forefront of feminism.
In the chronicles of the Gold Rush, women generally do the figuration. They are kind, charming and pampered. California is desperately lacking: 500 women arrive in the first half of 1850, compared to 23,500 men. Many are laundresses or domestic workers. The others make you dream, the French in particular (the Americans are “Long as halberds”, described the traveler Edouard Auger in 1853). The newspapers are on the lookout for female arrivals. The New York Herald even maintains a correspondent in Paris whose mission is to announce shipments for San Francisco (and measurements). If the wind is favorable, readers can hope to see Miss Frisette, a former actress of the Folies-Dramatiques whose “Reputation for friendliness” no longer to be done. And Miss Diane Vernet, “The most intrepid rider in the Bois de Boulogne”…
“Some say she looks better in male than female clothes. She is built like a sailor. “The newspaper” Alta California “, in April 1871
Marie Suize is not from that half-world. Not only did she drink, frequent saloons (where she was arrested!) And stood up, pistol in hand, in 1860, against a band of Canadians who believed they could attack her concession, but she also wore pants, a transgression condemned by the penal code – let’s not talk about the press. “ Some say she looks better in male than female clothes, insinuates theAlta California in April 1871. She is built like a sailor. ” She does not present “Not the usual softness of feminine features”, grins another newspaper. La Savoyarde is hard at work, but she has a good sense of marketing. Since the press talks about her clothes, she makes it her trademark. On the announcements of her wine cellar, she becomes Marie “Pantalon”. Or “Mrs Pants”, depending on the degree of bilingualism of the clientele.
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