1. The Monument-National in the City
2. A Community Under Threat in a Changing World
3. The Early Years: the Monument’s "Open Arms"
4. The Monument-National and the Women’s Movement
5. The Monument-National: A Breeding Ground of New Ideas and a Multiethnic Cultural Centre
6. On Stage at the Monument: Innovation and Avant-Garde
7. On Stage at the Monument: Eclecticism and Popular Success
8. The Long Slide Downhill
9. Renaissance: Rebirth, Centenary

4. The Monument-National and the Women’s Movement

Francophone Québec feminism was born at the Monument-National in the late 19th century. Grouped around Marie Gérin-Lajoie within a committee called the "Dames patronnesses de l’Association Saint-Jean-Baptiste," the most prominent Francophone women in Montréal at the time undertook a massive, vigorous campaign to promote French-Canadian women in all sections of the country’s social, cultural, economic, and political life. With the help of the Association Saint-Jean-Baptiste, these women would set up the first public training courses for women, encourage women to group within social and cooperative organizations, demand that women have access to post-secondary education, and create mutual-aid networks for women. This movement, which worked tirelessly towards the recognition of the legal status of women, also struggled, from the start, for women’s right to vote. Educator and journalist Idola Saint-Jean, a well-known single woman and a militant "from the get go" was the figurehead personality of Québec’s suffragettes.

For almost forty years, the Monument-National thus served as the seat of the Francophone women’s movement in Québec.