Barre, Vermont, has several claims to fame, most recently as the home of the nation’s fastest governor. It is also where the late Franco-American folklorist Martha Pellerin grew up. In fact, Pellerin’s life and work help to shed light on Barre’s Franco-American past, which is inextricably tied to the area’s most important export—world-famous Barre granite. […]
Continue readingCategory: Immigration
“The most stupid reports and slanders”: The Repatriation Crusade in 1889
As previously noted on this blog, the first efforts to halt French-Canadian emigration to the United States were made not during the deluge of the 1880s, nor even in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. As early as the 1840s, statesmen in Lower Canada (by now joined legislatively with Upper Canada) raised a […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: New York State
Prior posts in this series include studies of Exeter, Somersworth, and Berlin, New Hampshire. For research on early migrations to economic hinterlands, please see my posts on the Revolutionary War veterans in New York State, early migrations, the formation of hinterland communities, and numerical assessments. In the last two weeks, I had the immense pleasure […]
Continue readingFinding Francos on the Margins
While at the Quebec Studies colloquium at Bishop’s University, last spring, I introduced part of my research on French Canadians and Franco-Americans in geographical margins—areas usually overlooked by scholars. What do we really know about French-Canadian immigrants and their descendants outside of Lewiston, Manchester, Lowell, Fall River, and the likes? Local historians have done tremendous […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part III
See Part II here. Like prior studies on this blog (here, here, and here), attention to Berlin highlights the extremely diverse experiences of French Canadians on U.S. soil. These “migrants on the margins” enrich the overall story of Franco-America. In Berlin’s case, this is especially true as we enter the 1930s. French Canadians were long […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part II
See Part I here. Among the “Little Canadas” of the U.S. Northeast, Berlin’s developed relatively late. In 1860, the town was home to little more than 400 people, only twenty of whom had been born in the Canadas. (That small number nevertheless exceeded the Irish-born.) Most of the men were either lumber workers or farm […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: Berlin, N.H., Part I
The Canadian element found in Berlin a safe, reliable place to live; and every year sees new families arrive from Canada. Berlin found in the Canadian a willing, obedient, and conscientious worker. The two combined are what has made Berlin what Berlin is today. – The Brown Bulletin, January 1927. There is something decidedly poetic […]
Continue readingThose Other Franco-Americans: Somersworth, N.H.
Testimony of Emory J. Randall, shareholders’ clerk of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company (in present-day Somersworth), before the U.S. Senate Committee Upon the Relations Between Labor and Capital, Manchester, N.H., October 15, 1883. Randall estimated that the combined population of Great Falls [Somersworth], N.H., and Berwick, Maine amounted to 7,200-7,500 residents. All of the mills […]
Continue readingAmerican and French: Robert Desty (1827-1895), Part II
Please see Part I here. By the mid-1870s, Robert Desty’s life was apparently more settled. He began the work that considerably eased the burden of generations of American attorneys and scholars, and through which his became a household name in the legal community. He compiled and indexed laws and court cases; he wrote digests; he […]
Continue readingAmerican and French: Robert Desty (1827-1895), Part I
Nobleman. Common Soldier. Legal scholar. Disqualified candidate. French. American. The contradictions of Robert Desty’s life cannot but make for interesting reading. That he is not better known—another victim of history—is remarkable. For one thing, to know him by his American name, under which he earned passing fame, misses much of his identity. Desty was christened […]
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