On November 9, I had the pleasure of addressing the annual meeting of the Greater Grand Isle Historical Society in Grand Isle, Maine. The notes below are a close approximation of my spoken remarks. * * * Thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure to chat with you all and celebrate the history […]
Continue readingCategory: Heritage and Memory
The Cultural Ecosystem
In May, the Acadian Archives in Fort Kent hosted ten visitors from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York for a two-day cultural tour of the St. John Valley. Most of these visitors were in the Valley for the first time; they discovered the region’s physical and cultural landscape through its historic sites. The group’s […]
Continue readingSurvivance as a Phase
Many important works of Franco-American history—local studies, surveys, biographies, etc.—have appeared in the last decade. Researchers who are engaged in scholarship have their own, slightly forbidding arena in the form of academic journals. Typically, broader perspectives on the United States’ French universe from non-historians have been accessible online or in occasional in-person events, with few […]
Continue readingReinvigorating Franco-American History
This week marks this blog’s seventh anniversary. Thank you for your continued readership. In 2000, in the American Review of Canadian Studies, C. Stewart Doty wrote of “The Future of the Franco-American Past.” Doty proposed lines of research that would substantially improve our understanding of Franco-American history. In the wake of a decade of sustained […]
Continue readingThe “We” of Collective Identity
In September, Télé-Québec aired Notre rêve américain, a documentary on French-Canadian heritage in the United States hosted by Jean-Michel Dufaux and Sébastien Fréchette, a.k.a. Biz. Documentaries on the Franco-American experience are uncommon on both sides of the border; in Quebec, the (fictional) miniseries Les Tisserands du pouvoir, which aired more than thirty years ago, still […]
Continue readingExploring the Acadian Peninsula
The deportation of thousands of Acadians that began in 1755 left human fragments across the Atlantic world. Few areas are known specifically for their Acadian culture—or named after the culture. New Brunswick’s Acadian peninsula stands out… figuratively and literally. It is the horn that juts easterly from northeastern New Brunswick. It is bound by the […]
Continue readingHistoire du Québec : Rectifier le tir
À lire ce qui s’écrit sur les réseaux sociaux, bon nombre de Québécoises et de Québécois vivent un combat quotidien—une petite guerre amorcée à la fin du régime français et loin d’être achevée, une petite guerre qui anime tous les aspects de la vie publique du Québec. Entendons-nous : le fait français est minoritaire dans son […]
Continue readingThomas Cottrell : Légende canadienne
Les longues soirées d’hiver nous donnent l’occasion de faire revivre les contes et légendes d’antan. Je vous propose ici une légende de la Côte-du-Sud qui rappelle un chapitre difficile de l’histoire du Québec. Les lecteurs et lectrices anglophones apprécieront peut-être, dans le même registre, A French-Canadian Christmas Carol et The Clever Woman. Je vous invite […]
Continue readingYouth in Franco-American History
We are less than two weeks away from the third Young Franco-Americans Summit, an initiative launched by the Franco-American Centre in Orono, Maine, in 2021. This year’s YFAS will be held at Rivier University in Nashua, New Hampshire, and, like prior installments, it will connect Franco-Americans in their teens, twenties, and thirties around common cultural […]
Continue readingLes Franco-Américains et le Québec
Pour une mise en contexte par rapport à l’histoire franco-américaine, consultez mon billet détaillant les grandes lignes de ce passé ou encore mon survol du parcours politique des « Francos ». Mon dernier billet présente l’idéologie de survivance dans les grands centres franco-américains suite à la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. On ne saurait exagérer la complexité et la diversité du monde francophone […]
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