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 readingCategory: Historical Memory
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 readingQuebec’s Emigration Debates: 7 Takeaways
As some of you know, in the last few months, I have compiled all debates of the Quebec legislature that addressed (or mentioned) emigration and repatriation between 1867 and 1900. In making these debates more accessible, I hope they will draw the attention and interest of other researchers, thus bringing more voices into the historical […]
Continue readingA Political History of Franco-Americans: The Book
As many of you know, my first academic book, John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Faith, is now available from the University Press of Kansas. I am touched by the expressions of interest and support I’ve received in the last few weeks. As readers might suspect, the book is drawing attention due to its […]
Continue reading“This province is your country”: Understanding the Acadian Deportation
In all the said places and colonies to be yielded and restored by the most Christian King [Louis XIV], in pursuance of this treaty, the subjects of the said King may have liberty to remove themselves, within a year, to any other place. . . But those who are willing to remain there, and to […]
Continue readingFarewell, Jerry
An earlier version of this essay appeared en français in the spring 2018 issue of Le Forum, the quarterly publication of the Franco-American Centre (University of Maine). * * * We stopped at Mountain View on a gloomy and intensely cold December day. Thanks to a volunteer who tends to the cemetery, we had at […]
Continue readingInternet Resources on Acadian History
As many of you know, I will be teaching a course on Acadian history this fall. In the process of building the curriculum, I have been discovering an immense amount of trustworthy educational resources online. Although this blog focuses primarily on the French-Canadian diaspora, Acadians merit considerable attention in the larger story of transnational North […]
Continue readingThe Monuments Debate: One Historian’s Take
In my many road trips across New England and Upstate New York—sometimes for pleasure, sometimes for on-the-ground historical research, generally for both—I somehow got into the habit of photographing Civil War monuments wherever I found them. Those monuments, so often overlooked, become ubiquitous once they are on your radar. They are overlooked notably because there […]
Continue readingJean Rivard: American and Catholic
See Part I here. Themes In my edition of Jean Rivard, the editor establishes the influence of Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe on Gérin-Lajoie’s novel. But the parallels that struck me first and foremost—parallels that will be familiar to American readers—involve Walden and Horatio Alger novels. Both Henry David Thoreau and Rivard go into the […]
Continue readingJean Rivard: A Pioneering Novel
How easily we overlook what was happening in Lower Canada in the early 1860s. While bloody conflict wrecked Mexico, the American giant was embroiled in a devastating civil war that would claim 700,000 lives and lead to “a new birth of freedom.” For a time, it seemed that the winds of war would sweep over […]
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