This post appeared on the University of Toronto Press Journals Blog on September 21, 2020. The blog no longer being available, I am reproducing my post exactly as it originally appeared. The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) was a defining event for both belligerent countries. After a vigorous debate over the legitimacy of the war and the […]
Continue readingCategory: Immigration
Paradoxes, Politics, and Calculated Silence
This post appeared on the University of Toronto Press Journals Blog on July 22, 2016. The blog no longer being available, I am reproducing my post exactly as it originally appeared. Immigration and immigrant integration made a sudden and unexpected eruption into Canada’s federal election in 2015. The Conservative Party was determined to prevent Muslim […]
Continue readingFinding Franco-Americans in Indiana
Largely, the repatriation colony was a failure. In 1875, the provincial government of Quebec set aside lands in the Eastern Townships for the settlement of return migrants. Policymakers expected that French Canadians who were working in New England mills would be willing to come back to establish farms in remote areas of the province. A […]
Continue readingLaid to Rest: Whitefield, Part III
So many of our residents in Whitefield are of French-Canadian roots. – A Whitefield resident and historian (2026) The stories buried in Whitefield’s Catholic cemetery are too numerous to cover comprehensively here. The snapshots below are accompanied by small glimpses of underlying lives. These are derived from New Hampshire vital records, census returns, Quebec parish […]
Continue readingLaid to Rest: Whitefield, Part II
But what will it take to give life to those who gave Vermont a second life after the Civil War, after the momentous diaspora that emptied the Green Mountain valleys and piedmonts: the Canadians who took over marginal dairy farms? the Irish who made the railroad work? the Springfield and Bennington Jews who processed mountains […]
Continue readingLaid to Rest: Whitefield, Part I
For this series, I am indebted to the staff of Dimond Library at the University of New Hampshire; the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester; and Lise Moran of the Whitefield Historical Society. All shared valuable documentary resources on the history of Whitefield. Every research project begins with a spark and mine came, oh, let’s say, […]
Continue readingMigrant Families: Quebec to New Hampshire
In Query the Past’s last post, we explored the history of Newmarket, New Hampshire, as an industrial and post-industrial town. From the 1870s to the 1920s, opportunities in manufacturing attracted hundreds of French Canadians. These migrants laid the basis for a lasting Franco-American presence that endures to this day. The present blog post provides brief […]
Continue readingIt Happened in Newmarket
Only several times in its venerable existence has this blog grazed the Franco-American communities of New Hampshire’s Seacoast region. We have learned about Exeter residents Pie Narcisse Legendre and Edward Daignault and about the mill workers of Somersworth. Recently, the blog referenced the “deserving poor” of a small mill town. There has been little else. […]
Continue readingImmigrants and Uncharitable Statements
In March, the Bangor Daily News published an opinion piece by Tommy Pinette, of the University of Maine, who establishes a parallel that should be uncontroversial. There is an inherent danger in making historical comparisons; events never repeat perfectly. But Pinette argues persuasively that the rhetoric and barriers experienced by Maine’s Somali population would have […]
Continue readingRural (Franco-)America
As previously noted, I am inclined to follow one of my former professors in his definition of history. He understood our field as the best possible interpretation of the past based on the best available sources and methods. On a more practical level, it is the unending effort to depict, as far as can be […]
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