Several months ago I provided a brief glimpse of the life and times of Prosper Bender (1844-1917), a Quebec-born physician, littérateur, and intercultural broker. Bender spent much of his life championing unpopular causes. Though he may have delighted in being a contrarian, there is little to suggest that he was a girouette, a weather vane. […]
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Henry David Thoreau and French Canada at Mid-Century
As previously noted on this blog, the concept of américanité is as relevant to Canadians who never left their native land as it is to Franco-Americans and other expatriates. The influence of American institutions, values, and economic development has been constant north of the boundary line now for more than two centuries. Present-day scholars recognize […]
Continue readingEarly Canadian Migrations to the United States
As previously noted on this blog, it was not the call of political liberty that drew great numbers of French Canadians to the United States in the nineteenth century, but economic opportunity (if not, sometimes, economic necessity). Life in ethnic clusters, in the shadow of gargantuan textile mills, was but a small facet of this […]
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