An earlier version of this essay appeared en français in the spring 2018 issue of Le Forum, the quarterly publication of the Franco-American Centre (University of Maine). * * * We stopped at Mountain View on a gloomy and intensely cold December day. Thanks to a volunteer who tends to the cemetery, we had at […]
Continue reading“Annexed by Their Own Act”: The Nova Scotian Exodus
The story of the French-Canadian diaspora that began in the nineteenth century is perhaps not as well-known now as it should be. Yet some aspects of Canada’s emigration history are even more obscure. One easily overlooks the fact that English Canada experienced a comparable exodus from the 1850s to the 1920s. Nova Scotia was particularly […]
Continue readingInternet Resources on Acadian History
As many of you know, I will be teaching a course on Acadian history this fall. In the process of building the curriculum, I have been discovering an immense amount of trustworthy educational resources online. Although this blog focuses primarily on the French-Canadian diaspora, Acadians merit considerable attention in the larger story of transnational North […]
Continue readingA Political History of Franco-Americans
A week ago, I submitted my second book manuscript to a university press.[1] And yes, this one is about Franco-Americans. The amount of Franco-related political items I have shared on this blog and on Twitter since the beginning of the year is in fact closely related to this research project. The struggle for survivance and […]
Continue readingFranco-American Clippings
I never tire of jumping into newspaper archives in search of one item, only to find something far more eye-opening, or intriguing, or informative. I am always happy to share those findings, but seldom do my press clippings fit in perfectly with one of my regular blog posts. Since the beginning of the year I […]
Continue readingThe Monuments Debate: One Historian’s Take
In my many road trips across New England and Upstate New York—sometimes for pleasure, sometimes for on-the-ground historical research, generally for both—I somehow got into the habit of photographing Civil War monuments wherever I found them. Those monuments, so often overlooked, become ubiquitous once they are on your radar. They are overlooked notably because there […]
Continue readingJoseph Denonville Bachand: French Vermonter and Statesman
In her first memoir, former Vermont governor Madeleine Kunin discussed her experience as a young reporter in Winooski, a predominantly French and working-class city abutting Burlington. Mayor Armand Rathe was then at the helm of Winooski; for a time, in the 1950s, he was deemed politically invincible. Kunin had her journalistic trial by fire when […]
Continue readingAccentuating Difference: Francophones in the United States
The French language has two expressions about those who come from afar or leave their home country. The first is “Nul n’est prophète en son pays”: one is not a prophet in his or her own land. The implication is either that one’s society will refuse to hear cold hard truths or that modern-day prophets […]
Continue readingThe Blog at 100: Reaching Back, Looking Forward
When the French-Canadian Legacy Podcast reached out to me, several months ago, to ask why I choose to tell the Franco-American story, I was quick to write that “we’ve only scratched the surface.” That is, we know the outline of Franco-American history, but there is so much that still lies beyond historians’ reach or that […]
Continue readingSmash This Un-American Exclusion
War and peace. A pandemic. The League of Nations debate. Nationwide women’s suffrage. Prohibition. Unending strikes and the Red Scare. Runaway inflation and a deep recession. Race riots. Intense Americanism (read: xenophobia), and proposals for English-only education and immigration restriction. And more. From 1917, the United States experienced rapid transformations that revolutionized—at least for a […]
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