Category: Quebec History

Les Franco-Américains et le Québec

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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The Lost Wor(l)ds of Franco-America

This post marks the fifth anniversary of this Franco-American history blog. Sincere thanks to everyone who has read, encouraged, and supported its research and reflections. The author delivered the following remarks as the opening lecture of the University of Maine at Fort Kent’s Scholars Symposium on April 26, 2022. The transcript appeared in the summer […]

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Roads, Rails, and Canals: Quebec and the Transportation Revolution

For generations, the field of migration history has evolved around a basic framework of push and pull factors. We can explain people’s decision to relocate by looking at their existing circumstances and the suspected advantages (real or perceived) offered by their destination. But the how—the process of relocating—is too often lost in this framework, which […]

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Review: 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 […]

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One Story to Rule Them All

It’s clear. It’s compelling. It’s devastating. It’s a narrative. Whether personal, political, or historical, a narrative is a coherent, cohesive story that provides clear, if simplified, explanations and expresses specific values. As such, a narrative not only describes events, but often proposes a certain course of action. A narrative offers intellectual shortcuts: if you know […]

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Histoire des Franco-Américains : Un survol

Les résidentes et les résidents des États-Unis qui déclarent des origines françaises se comptent par millions. Pensons à la population huguenote installée en Amérique du Nord à l’époque coloniale et dont l’empreinte culturelle s’est largement effacée. Plusieurs grandes villes du pays reçoivent plus tard des gens venus directement de l’Hexagone. La Louisiane, le seul état […]

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Winter Carnivals of French Canada

In the colony’s earliest days, winter was an enemy. It suspended communication with the mother country and brought agriculture to a standstill for six months. Early frosts imperiled the food supply; long winters raised, in the first years, the specter of famine and scurvy. The settlers of New France at least benefitted from a seemingly […]

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A Vindication of Franco-Americans

There is nothing more interesting and, at the same time, more heartening than a reading of the slim volume that Mr. Chandonnet has published at Desbarats. Our exiled compatriots have been so maligned; it has been so often said that on setting foot on foreign soil, they lose all memory of their God and their […]

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Debating Emigration in Ottawa: 5 Takeaways

Quebec’s nineteenth-century legislative debates on emigration are available virtually in two searchable volumes (1867-1880 and 1881-1900). These compilations reveal policymakers’ ambivalence about industrialization as a viable means of curbing outmigration and the rise of domestic colonization as a projet national drawing bipartisan support. Excerpts are available here. Emigration to the United States was not confined […]

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The Clever Woman: A French-Canadian Folk Tale

In the literary ferment of the late nineteenth century, Quebec authors sought to craft a new national identity that could be read back in time. Quite consciously, such authors as Louis Fréchette and Honoré Beaugrand jotted down and published old oral traditions that were at risk of being forever lost. (It seems they may also […]

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