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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More Internet Resources on Franco-American History
Well-worn ruts are as attractive to researchers as they are to travelers. In other words, it can be difficult to break out of established narratives and look at historical issues from a new perspective. This isn’t to imply that old historical writing is bad historical writing, but historians seek to assert the relevance of the […]
Continue readingReview: Rocheleau Rouleau, Heritage of Peace
Book Review Corinne Rocheleau Rouleau and Louise Lind (editor), Heritage of Peace – Land of Hope and Glory. Cumberland, R.I.: Jemtech, 1996. In Heritage of Peace, we may have one of those rare cases where the author is more interesting than her subject. That author, Corinne Rocheleau Rouleau (henceforth Rocheleau to avoid confusing her with […]
Continue readingCanada to California: Defying Distance in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
An earlier version of this essay appeared in the winter 2021-2022 issue of Le Forum, the quarterly publication of the Franco-American Centre (University of Maine). Please cite appropriately. * * * Few years in American history carry the same symbolic significance as 1848, which set the stage for what was to come in subsequent decades. […]
Continue readingVoting While Franco-American: The View from Plattsburgh
Franco-American political candidates do not earn the same easy acclaim from their own heritage community they once did. This is especially clear in Maine, where Paul LePage seeks to return to the governor’s office. By virtue of his policies and his remarks on his ethnic background, LePage has alienated many compatriots. His opponent, by contrast, […]
Continue readingReview: Schubart, The Lamoille Stories
Book Review Bill Schubart. The Lamoille Stories: Uncle Benoit’s Wake and Other Tales from Vermont. Hinesburg: Magic Hill Press, 2013 [2008]. Yet, the rural Franco-Vermonters have a sense of their identity as French people, both those who live on family-owned farms, and those who live in mini-mill towns like Beecher Falls. The French-Vermonter’s identity is […]
Continue readingA 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 readingChalifoux, Part I: The Franco-American Rockefeller
Overwhelmingly, the hundreds of thousands of French Canadians who left their ancestral homeland in the nineteenth century were economic migrants. Most began their journey on American soil at the bottom of the economic ladder, an unenviable position reinforced by cultural barriers. The march towards middle-class status was typically multigenerational and marked by men’s ability to […]
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. […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: St. Albans, Part I
One particular claim to fame dominates the history of St. Albans, Vermont: the Confederate raid on local banks that was staged from Canadian soil in 1864. Other events that truly made the city remain little known to outsiders, as is the history of the region as a whole. The Confederate raid at least has the […]
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