This week we resume and conclude our overview of New Bedford’s Franco-American history. See Part I here. Franco-Americans’ institutional network continued to grow in the 1890s and early 1900s. The Francs-Tireurs, one of the earliest and largest fraternal and cultural societies in New Bedford, played a significant role in community building. Other groups appeared in […]
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Those Other Franco-Americans: New Bedford, Part I
New Bedford gets a raw deal. Its Franco-Americans even more so. The city is known for its whaling history and images straight out of Moby Dick—rough, hardy Yankee whalers who in time passed the torch to Portuguese fishermen. Seafarers are more compelling, more romantic figures, we might suppose, than mill workers, whatever their ethnic background. […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: The Madawaska Mirage?
It is not quite the mountainous wilderness—an Appalachia of the north—that I had expected. Yet, in my experience, after hours on the road, as each hill softly yields to another, you do sense that you are entering a different world. Push beyond the highways and you may see signs for Frenchville, Ouellette, and New Canada. […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: St. Albans, Part II
See Part I here. Six years after the invasion of St. Albans by Confederate agents, a different spectacle played out in the town center, though this one, too, was the doing of people who had descended from Canada: At 11 o’clock in the forenoon the Convention formed in procession, under escort of the St. John […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: St. Albans, Part I
One particular claim to fame dominates the history of St. Albans, Vermont: the Confederate raid on local banks that was staged from Canadian soil in 1864. Other events that truly made the city remain little known to outsiders, as is the history of the region as a whole. The Confederate raid at least has the […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: Cohoes, N.Y., Part II
See Part I here. As Cohoes Franco-Americans became more numerous following the Civil War, they attracted the likes of Ferdinand Gagnon, who helped to bring the community into a larger Franco world. They also produced their own luminaries. Joseph LeBoeuf was one pioneer who anticipated the role that Hugo Dubuque and other attorneys would play […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: Cohoes, N.Y., Part I
Frequent readers of the blog may roll their eyes here: New York State deserves greater attention and study in the field of Franco-American history. It is a case I have made before; every now and then, I put my money where my mouth (or pen… or keyboard) is and try to make some humble contribution […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: Barre, Vermont
Barre, Vermont, has several claims to fame, most recently as the home of the nation’s fastest governor. It is also where the late Franco-American folklorist Martha Pellerin grew up. In fact, Pellerin’s life and work help to shed light on Barre’s Franco-American past, which is inextricably tied to the area’s most important export—world-famous Barre granite. […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: New York State
Prior posts in this series include studies of Exeter, Somersworth, and Berlin, New Hampshire. For research on early migrations to economic hinterlands, please see my posts on the Revolutionary War veterans in New York State, early migrations, the formation of hinterland communities, and numerical assessments. In the last two weeks, I had the immense pleasure […]
Those Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part III
See Part II here. Like prior studies on this blog (here, here, and here), attention to Berlin highlights the extremely diverse experiences of French Canadians on U.S. soil. These “migrants on the margins” enrich the overall story of Franco-America. In Berlin’s case, this is especially true as we enter the 1930s. French Canadians were long […]