This is the story of an energetic Savoyard who in the 19th century became the first gold digger in the American West. Marie Suize, ahead of her time, has fallen into oblivion. With “Marie Suize Pantalon, route of a pioneer” François Gaillard pays homage to her. It is in France in True.
–
Marie Suize was 19 when she left her mountains. First for Paris, then for California. We are in 1850, in the middle of the gold rush. Associated with a French, she quickly took the head of a concession. The testimonies report that she worked like any other man, smoked a pipe and wielded with the same dexterity the shovel, the pickaxe and the revolver.
Three trials for a pair of pants
In a puritanical and macho America, if no one disputes her labor force, Marie Suize does not go unnoticed. She drinks, swears, shoots a gun, is single and in addition, she dresses like a man! ” She had swapped the dress for the much more practical pants, explains Suzan Butruille, American writer. But there was a law in America that prohibited cross-dressing and wearing pants for a woman was to cross-dress. It is a difference that she very quickly displayed and assumed. And, because she is wearing the pants, she will face three trials. The last, in the town of Jackson, in 1871, will change his life. The media will take an interest in this woman who stands up to institutions. She received the support of the first suffragettes and that of other women with less visible militancy. “Mary Pants” as it is nicknamed will succeed, in the State of California, to change the law. Here, at least, women can dress as they wish. And now her signature will be: Marie Suize Pantalon.
Image taken from the film “Marie Suize Pantalon”.
•
© François Gaillard
–
Celibacy over the shoulder, guarantee of freedom
Marie Suize Pantalon is not going to settle for gold mines. She’s going to trade, plant vines. A variety still exploited on his ranch “Secreta Gulch”. The wine produced there today bears his name. According to Anne Verjus, researcher at the CNRS, specialist in women’s citizenship and feminism “ She (Mary Pants) had guts and had to be damn resourceful and smart. But this freedom that she dared, that she was able to live, is also because she was single and owed nothing to anyone. »
Take Marie out of oblivion
On January 8, 1892, the American newspapers announced the death of Marie Suize Pantalon from pneumonia. The one who had amassed a colossal fortune dies ruined. The stock market games and chance got the better of his savings. Buried in anonymity in Jackson, it was not until 2004 that a stele bearing her name was erected.
In France, near Thones, a few are fighting to keep the memory of this pioneer alive in many areas.
An atypical journey recounted in François Gaillard’s film: ” I met Marie in an old magazine at my parents’ house. In my imagination, the gold rush was men with dusty beards. So I was missing part of the story. It is this part that I wanted to tell. »
“Marie Suize Pantalon, route d’une pioneer”, a film directed by François Gaillard (19 nights productions), broadcast on Monday March 8, 2021 at 10:50 p.m. in the documentary box “La France en V” on France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and in replay below until April 7, 2021.
–
