Category: Historical Memory

The Lost Wor(l)ds of Franco-America

This post marks the fifth anniversary of this Franco-American history blog. Sincere thanks to everyone who has read, encouraged, and supported its research and reflections. The author delivered the following remarks as the opening lecture of the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s Scholars Symposium on April 26, 2022. The transcript appeared in the summer […]

Continue reading

One Story to Rule Them All

It’s clear. It’s compelling. It’s devastating. It’s a narrative. Whether personal, political, or historical, a narrative is a coherent, cohesive story that provides clear, if simplified, explanations and expresses specific values. As such, a narrative not only describes events, but often proposes a certain course of action. A narrative offers intellectual shortcuts: if you know […]

Continue reading

Flashpoint: Fall River

October 25, 1881: one of the best-known dates in the history of New England Franco-Americans. It was on that day that community leaders appeared before Carroll D. Wright, a Massachusetts civil servant whose latest report had represented French-Canadian migrants as “the Chinese of the Eastern States.” Ferdinand Gagnon, Hugo Dubuque, and other “influencers” answered Wright’s […]

Continue reading

Building Better History

It all starts with inconvenient, even provocative questions. If we believe that history truly matters—whatever our reason for saying so—we must surely agree that historical truth matters.[1] That truth is rarely tangible or instantly accessible. Our awareness and understanding of past events are molded by our memory, our values, and the natural limits of popular […]

Continue reading

Nuancing Native-French Relations

The arrival of European peoples in the Americas had a cataclysmic effect on the original occupants of the land. Initially, the devastation of Indigenous nations owed primarily to the spread of unknown diseases. As Europeans became more numerous and asserted their influence, Natives suffered from war, the loss of their ancestral territory, heightened competition for […]

Continue reading

Free 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 reading

Retour 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 reading

Othering the Madawaska in Travel Narratives

Three month ago, this blog plunged into the Upper St. John Valley, an area whose history often falls on the margins of existing narratives. The hard work of reconstructing the history of the Madawaska, its relationship with neighboring regions, and its place within empires is complicated by surviving sources that tell (at best) a partial […]

Continue reading

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. […]

Continue reading