The Lost Code

Private Property and Self-Sufficiency

A Farmhouse in 1880

Musée de la civilisation, Séminaire de Québec collection, donated by Jean-Marie Thivierge. Canadian Farm House. Louis-Prudent Vallée. 1880. No. Ph1986-0572

For Québec's habitants, self-sufficiency lay in owning their own land, because it was from the land that they derived their sustenance and income. Without land, they were condemned to a life of labor on a farm or in a factory. In either case, they were at the mercy of the job market with only their wages to show for their work.