Career Advice for Women in Belle-Époque Paris: Gabrielle Réval's L'Avenir de nos filles (1904)

Abstract:This article examines how French novelist Gabrielle Réval's first non-fiction book, L'Avenir de nos filles (1904), functions as both an innovative career guide for young women as well as a showcase for Réval's forward-thinking ideas about women's work. Drawing on her experience as a teacher, writer, and single mother, Réval intersperses interviews with professional women with nuanced feminist commentary. By presenting real-life stories of working women, Réval exposes rarely shared details about a range of professions and offers a realistic, clear-eyed perspective on both the opportunities and challenges of the workplace for women in early 20th-century France.