The several million Americans of French or French-Canadian origin, who are among the oldest Americans of European stock, are for the most part human vestiges of the vast continental French empire in North America. With these words, quoted from historian Mason Wade’s work, Query the Past launched into the story of the transnational French-Canadian community. […]
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A Canadian Excursion to New York City in 1851
Surely we will all agree that transportation history is inherently interesting. If, somehow, we can’t, we should recognize that we can’t understand the history of commerce and migration without it. We have previously seen (here and here) the challenges Bishop Plessis faced while traveling around the Maritime colonies and down to New York in the […]
Continue readingVisions of Kerouac
This is no ordinary mois de la francophonie. This month marks the centennial of Jack Kerouac’s birth. The anniversary provides the opportunity to assess the legacy of the celebrated author and Franco-American icon—a legacy that should be explored in its full complexity, from Kerouac’s personal weaknesses to his pioneering work. We should hope that renewed […]
Continue readingFree Online Books on Franco-American History
Did someone say free? That’s right, folks, not only free, but also accessible online. It goes without saying that Franco-American history in its many forms has never been so broadly available. We have blogs and podcasts. Primary sources are only a click away thanks to the digitization efforts of platforms like Archive.org, HathiTrust, and Bibliothèque […]
Continue readingFranco-Americans as Political Actors
A more extensive version of this post appeared as “The Political World of Franco-Americans” in the summer issue of Le Forum (University of Maine). After decades of inconsistent research, questions about Franco-Americans’ political involvement abound. Though we should not underestimate the contributions and insights of such scholars as Norman Sepenuk, Madeleine Giguère, Ronald Petrin, J.-André […]
Continue readingRetour sur l’histoire politique franco-américaine
Celles et ceux qui fréquentent ce blogue depuis un certain temps seront sans doute surpris d’y trouver un billet en français. Depuis le début, mon site vise notamment à populariser l’histoire canadienne-française et franco-américaine auprès d’un lectorat anglophone—étatsunien, notamment. D’ailleurs, la vie franco-américaine d’aujourd’hui se déroule surtout en anglais. Or, la publication de « Tout nous […]
Continue readingFrench Canadians 100 Years Ago: September to December
Franco-Americans—and a larger community of French Canadians—were visible in 1921. This is the third part of a year-long tour of major stories concerning Quebec and its diaspora. See the second installment here. September Biddeford’s French-language newspaper runs a profile of a now-forgotten Franco-American known as “Mr. Zero.” The nickname belongs to a Mainer named Urbain […]
Continue readingFrench Canadians 100 Years Ago: May to August
Franco-Americans—and a larger community of French Canadians—were visible in 1921. This is the second part of a year-long tour of major stories concerning Quebec and its diaspora. See the first installment here. May All eyes turn to Manchester, New Hampshire, for a series of high-profile events. On May 11, Catholic residents celebrate the fiftieth anniversary […]
Continue readingFrench Canadians 100 Years Ago: January to April
Thanks to digitization projects, it’s now easy to find major news stories about the French-Canadian community in the era of mass immigration—but also easy to overlook just how common those stories were. Such press coverage came in all sorts of forms and on a wide variety of issues. Newspapers discussed immigration, the challenge of acculturation […]
Continue readingNew York State: Elements of Historical Geography
Regular readers know what’s coming—the well-worn rant about New York State’s unenviable place in Franco-American studies. Well, this time it comes with data. Briefly, for context, the major syntheses on the Franco-American experience in the eastern United States all focus explicitly on New England—and even then, large swaths of those six states are hardly acknowledged. […]
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