Desjardins, Alphonse National Historic Person
Lévis, Quebec
![Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins (© Canada Post Corporation | Société des postes canadienne [2000]. Reproduced with Permission | Reproduit avec permission.)](Resources/Images/Image.aspx?id=77532)
Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins
(© Canada Post Corporation | Société des postes canadienne [2000]. Reproduced with Permission | Reproduit avec permission.)
Address :
59 Bégin Avenue, Lévis, Quebec
Recognition Statute:
Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)
Designation Date:
1971-10-14
Life Date:
1854 to 1920
Event, Person, Organization:
-
Caisse Populaire (Mouvement Desjardins)
(Event)
-
Desjardins, Dorimène
(Person)
Other Name(s):
-
Desjardins, Alphonse
(Designation Name)
Importance:
Founder of the Caisse Populaire Movement in Quebec
Plaque(s)
Existing plaque: 59 Bégin Avenue, Lévis, Quebec
The founder of the caisse populaire movement in Quebec, Desjardins was born at Levis. He had been a journalist, publisher of the Debates of the Quebec House of Assembly, and stenographer in the Canadian House of Commons before discovering his life's mission. Concerned about the financial betterment of the ordinary Québecois and the general lack of French Canadian banking institutions, he conceived the idea of co-operative savings and loan societies organized on a parish basis. He founded the first such society in Levis in 1900 and devoted the last 20 years of his life to the extension of this movement. He died at Levis.