Very few women were involved in the early itinerant cinema business and Marie de Kerstrat was certainly one of the most singular figures in the field, having dropped from the social standing of a French countess to become the manager of a traveling show in eastern Canada and the United States. Her profile opens interesting questions to historians of cinema, as well as historians of the women’s life; for the Montreal based historian Chantal Savoie, women of this era had to constantly negotiate and compromise as a means  of acceptance within the field they wanted to develop (2003, 196). Marie de Kerstrat was a good example of this situation, as well as another early Montreal woman film pioneer Emma Gendron

Lacasse, Germain

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by Germain LacasseVery few women were involved in the early itinerant cinema business and Marie de Kerstrat wascertainly one of the most singular figures in the field, having dropped from the social standing of aFrench countess to become the manager of a traveling show in eastern Canada and the UnitedStates. Her profile opens interesting questions to historians of cinema, as well as historians of thewomen’s life; for the Montreal based historian Chantal Savoie, women of this era had toconstantly negotiate and compromise as a means  of acceptance within the field they wanted todevelop (2003, 196). Marie de Kerstrat was a good example of this situation, as well as anotherearly Montreal woman film pioneer Emma Gendron.Marie Joséphine Charlotte de Tréourret de Kerstrat was born in France in 1841, having among herancestors the famous Mirabeau family. These aristocratic families lost their position after theFrench Revolution and her father had to sell his domain and put his three daughters in a convent.Marie married an aristocrat from Brittany, Count Gustave de Grandsaignes d’Hauterives, a simplecustoms officer despite his impressive name. Marie received a donation from an old aunt anddecided to invest it in a then very new business: tourism. She bought properties along the Atlanticshore and built villas that she rented to tourists mainly from Paris or Great Britain. The place wasbeautiful and drew many important artists who came there to paint and helped bring othercustomers. Her life would probably have continued in this pleasant environment of greatlandscapes and distinguished guests if there had not been a young man around: her own sonHenry. Born in 1869, he later went to Paris to study law; but he loved leisure more than work and,after marrying, he spent the dowry of his wife who ran away with their son and then, in 1896,Also Known As:Marie Joséphine Charlotte de Tréourret de Kerstrat, Countess Gustave de Grandsaignesd’HauterivesLived:1841 - 1920Worked as:exhibitor, family business partner, independent exhibitor, manager, motion picture exhibitor,traveling exhibitorWorked In:Canada, France, United StatesMarie de Kerstratasked for a divorce. Like his mother, Henry had an imagination and he decided to travel toAmerica to try to earn money within the new cinema business. He had ideas, but not muchleadership capability and, when he soon came close to ruin, asked his mother for help.Meanwhile, the old Count had died and Marie made an audacious decision: go to America withher son and manage this new business that he wanted to start. She left her villas under themanagement of a notary and took the boat for Montreal.In the end of October 1897 Marie and Henry landed in Montreal where they started the firstexhibitions of the show they called the “Historiograph,” mounted by their venture, TheHistoriograph Company. Already well-informed about the then very religious culture of FrenchCanada, they had selected a program that would be pleasing as well as educational: the Lumières’Passion Play and other historical films. After a great success in Montreal they started touring thesmall towns around Montreal and Quebec City and they rapidly established a reputation for thequality of their show. Henry might have been a poor businessman, but he was a talented speakerand soon became a very skilled film lecturer. After touring the Quebec province they went toOntario and exhibited many shows in Toronto, Ottawa, and elsewhere. To obtainrecommendations from authorities Marie developed a model of philanthropic business: twentypercent of the revenues were donated to the institution that patronized the presentation: schools,churches, and other benevolent institutions.However, a traveling show cannot be managed like a tourist resort; the business has to be takenon the road to stay profitable. Soon she understood that the eastern United States could be abetter market for their business and thus they took their show to New York City, Boston, andAtlantic City. Going south offered another kind of relief, the Canadian winter being as bad forhealth as for revenues. So within a few years, the pattern was established: summer and fall inMontreal and the neighboring areas, winter and spring in the eastern United States where theHistoriograph Company became the Dreamworld Company and later the Parisian Mimodramas.New French films from Méliès and Pathé were added to the show every year and Henry, who alsospoke English, could perform in both the United States and in Canada. Quite rapidly Marie deKerstrat had established a reputation that allowed her to earn a good living and even pay backpart of her son’s debts. Traveling was difficult but had some consolations, among which was goingback to France every year. The peak of this business was said to be in 1904 when Marie and Henrypresented their Dreamworld show in St. Louis, supposedly on the site of the World’s Fair.However, for the “Motion Picture Countess,” as she was called in Montreal, the descent was close.In the spring of 1905, nickelodeons started to boom in the United States and this fever soonreached Montreal. The first “scope,” as it was called there, opened in Montreal in January 1906,and within a few months there were about twenty more. In New York City, Boston, and AtlanticCity, there were now hundreds of the same; the traveling show had to evolve rapidly to survive.Marie de Kerstrat had already shown that she was able to shift fast and did so again. In 1907, sherented two theaters in New York and transformed the traveling show into new refinednickelodeons. But the competition was very tight and new difficulties arose that were hard tosolve, as Marie testifies in letters to her notary in France:Business here is not like in France; here a man can ruin you if he wants and there is noway to defend yourself. (…) Film prices have raised from 10 to now 15 cents per foot,everything is now trusted and the distributors have the control. (…) We found itcheaper to rent three theaters and buy our films like we always did, this way wepreserve our high reputation in America and beat the competition. (Les affaires ici neressemblent pas à celles de France; un homme ici vous ruine à sa convenance, sansque vous puissiez vous défendre (…) Le prix des vues a renchéri beaucoup de 10 sous lepied, on nous fait payer 15, tout est en syndicat et les loueurs sont les maîtres. (…)Nous avons trouvé meilleur marché d’ouvrir trois salles et d’acheter nos vues commenous avons toujours fait et de cette façon nous gardons notre nom qui est le premieren Amérique et battons la concurrence).What she did not see or neglected to say is probably that the difficulties she encountered in thisbusiness were because she was a woman with character and determination. Men certainly did notlike too many women around in this new venue and most likely hated one who could opposethem.Marie stopped the exhibition in New York and moved to St. Louis where the conditions seem tohave been easier and allowed her to survive for a while as an independent exhibitor. But yet thiswould not make it easier and finally she gave up being part of the business in the United Statesand found other territories. She spent the autumn on the French island of Saint Pierre off of thecoast of Newfoundland where motion pictures became a good attraction for the numerous teamsof fishermen. There, she also started a new profitable sideline—he bought Brittany needlepointlace without the taxes that made it so expensive on the continent and brought it back to Bermudawhere she could sell it at a higher price to rich tourists while Henry operated the cinema that sheprobably supervised as before. This allowed them to survive from 1910 to 1913.In 1913, Marie reached her seventy-second birthday and decided the time had come to have asmoother life and returned to Brittany to try to start a new cinema that would allow Henry to earnhis living.  They established themselves in Dinard, a city popular among tourists and vacationersand opened a theater called Le St. Pierrais in honor of the people of the islands. But this was thesummer of 1914 and, a few weeks later, France and all of Europe was involved in World War I andthousands of businesses, among them cinema, closed. Henry became a clerk for the French armyin Rouen where his mother lived with him, but she returned to Brittany around 1920 to spend thelast months of her life with family and friends. She is buried in the cemetery of Pont L’abbé withher husband and son. For decades she was completely forgotten, but her story was rediscovered ashistorians started researching for the cinema’s centennial in the 1980s. First, we discovered theshows, then Henry as the first film lecturer in Quebec, then the importance of Marie de Kerstratas the real manager of this traveling show through which most Quebecers and thousands ofAmericans had discovered motion pictures. But being a woman pioneer is probably not even themain feature of this story; as important would rather be all the detours Marie took to become notonly a motion picture film exhibitor but also an independent one. The only dependence in her lifemight have been that of her beloved son, but that she knew, even if she never would acknowledgeit.See also: Emma GendronBibliographyLacasse, Germain. L’historiographe. Les débuts du spectacle cinématographique au Québec.Montréal: Cinémathèque québécoise, 1985.------. Histoires de scopes. Le cinéma muet au Québec. Montréal: Cinémathèque québécoise,1988.Lacasse, Germain and Serge Duigou. Marie de Kerstrat l’aristocrate du cinématographe.Quimper: Éditions Ressac, 1987.Savoie, Chantal, “‘Moins de dentelles, plus de psychologie' et une heure à soi: Les Lettres deFadette et la chronique féminine au tournant du siècle.” In Tendances actuelles en histoirelittéraire canadienne. Ed. Denis Saint-Jacques. Québec: Nota Bene, 2003. 183-199.Archival Paper Collections:Lettres de Marie de Kerstrat au notaire Francis Gaouyer, Fonds Pouliquen, No. 60 J 67. ArchivesDépartementales du Finistère.CitationLacasse, Germain. "Marie de Kerstrat." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and MonicaDall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. New York, NY: Columbia UniversityLibraries, 2015. <https://wfpp-test.cul.columbia.edu/pioneer/marie-de-kerstrat/>

Marie de Kerstrat

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