Born in 1928 in Detroit and died in Toronto in 2023, Natalie Zemon Davis was an American historian specializing in the cultural and social history of France in the modern era. A professor emerita at Princeton University and the University of Toronto (Canada), she taught at the universities of Toronto, Berkeley, and Princeton and served as a visiting professor at numerous other universities in the United States and elsewhere. She was elected president of the American Historical Association in 1987.
It was in Lyon in 1952 that she discovered her calling as a historian—her “love of history,” as she often puts it—by regularly frequenting the reading rooms and interacting with the staff of the Municipal Archives and the Library, to which she frequently pays tribute in her writings and interviews. In the Lyon archives, she examined the world of book workers in the 16th century and researched Protestant printers in Lyon. She subsequently became one of the leading historians of microhistory with The Return of Martin Guerre and Leo Africanus, and also devoted herself to women’s and gender history.

The presentation of her career at the Lyon Municipal Archives focuses on her relationship with the Lyon archives, as well as her life as a student and young researcher in postwar France and her circle of acquaintances in Lyon, including archivists and librarians.

Natalie Zemon Davis returned regularly to Lyon between 1952 and 2015 for her research and various engagements, notably for the inauguration of the Municipal Archives’ new building, for which she contributed a text expressing her attachment to the institution.

The exhibition was curated by Elisa Andretta (CNRS-LARHRA), Ariane Bayle (IHRIM-Lyon 3, IUF), Sonia Dollinger-Désert (Lyon Municipal Archives), Michel Jourde (IHRIM-ENS de Lyon), Jean-Claude Zancarini (Triangle-ENS de Lyon), and Michelle Zancarini-Fournel (LARHRA-Lyon 1), with the support and inspiration of Hannah Davis Taieb.

It is coordinated by Elisa Andretta and Michel Jourde and produced by ENS Media.