Franco-American Studies

Le 3 septembre 1783, le Traité de Paris clôt la guerre de l'Indépendance étatsunienne. Les Treize Colonies échappent au joug britannique alors que la vieille Province de Québec et la Nouvelle-Ecosse conservent leur statut colonial. Or tout n'est pas résolu. Le sort des Canadiens qui ont soutenu la cause révolutionnaire est incertain. Les Loyalistes des colonies insurgées doivent rebâtir au nord de la nouvelle frontière internationale. Puis, la frontière est elle-même contestée: les appartenances culturelles et les allégeances politiques des résidents de l'axe Champlain-Richelieu demeurent fluides. La famille Mignault exemplifie ces identités qui ne se conforment pas à nos strictes définitions nationales contemporaines. Surtout, Basile, le patriarche révolutionnaire, et son fils Pierre, curé de Chambly, mènent chacun une existence profondément marquée par le géant étatsunien au sud. Les échanges qu'ils vivent en cette région liminale exigent de la part des historiens une reconsidération des récits historiques nationaux.

In the early twentieth century, French-Canadians and Franco-Americans represented a large ethnic enclave within the city of Salem, Massachusetts. From 1840 to the early twentieth century, they came to the city seeking industrial jobs and opportunities. By 1930, they represented close to 34% of Salem’s population. They worked in factories, built neighborhoods, opened small businesses, created ethnic institutions and began to shape the commercial life of the city. Despite their size and influence, the details of their legacy seem to have been forgotten. The Point neighborhood that they so long inhabited is now home to only a handful of Franco-Americans, others spreading out throughout Salem with no trace of their former roots. There is no single answer as to why this shift occurred. The third, fourth, and fifth generations have made their lives away from any appellation that once crowned their ancestors. To be a French-Canadian or Franco-American is no longer a defining characteristic for those who still reside in Salem. Tracing the Franco-American experience through oral history accounts collected in 2011, this paper follows French Canadians’ and Franco- Americans’ of work and commerce within Salem. By looking at French-Canadian experience in relation to other major immigrant groups in Salem, namely Irish and Polish ethnic groups, we can see how French Canadians, in particular, helped the city’s economy to flourish. This, in turn, led to their assimilation into the larger Anglophone community and helps explains how their particular stories and imprint have for the most part disappeared.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the most famous French readers of Jack Kerouac, used his works to theorize their key concept of deterritorialization. Québécois readers, on the other hand, pursued the reterritorialization of Kerouac by reframing his writing as embodying the linguistic and cultural tensions experienced by the French Canadian diaspora. While both of these Francophone readings capture important aspects of Kerouac’s oeuvre, this article argues that critics interested in the complexity of Kerouac’s linguistic and cultural identity as a writer would benefit from following Deleuze and Guattari’s rationale to the end, by recognizing the moments of reterritorialization in Kerouac’s works as an intrinsic part of the larger process of deterritorialization that his oeuvre has come to represent.

"The outmigration of Canadians prior to the Civil War was noticed by such prominent observers as Lord Durham, the Governor General of Canada, and Henry David Thoreau. It received little sustained attention however. In the 1870s, the migration of hundreds of thousands of French Canadians and Acadians to industrial centers in New England and New York elicited close scrutiny from the host society, Canadian religious leaders and public officials, and emerging Franco-American elites. Since then, analytical writing concerning Canadian emigration and Franco-American life has evolved through four distinct phases. [...]"

"Good luck finding a French Canadian who has no personal connection to the grande saignée, the wave of emigration that afflicted Canada from 1840 to the Great Depression.

"I, for one, could mention my own great-, great-, great-, great-grandparents, Joseph and Dorothée Royer, who spent several years in the United States around 1830. Wave after wave of men and women in my Lacroix line went south starting in the 1840s—François and Michel fought in the Mexican-American War, James perished on the Burlington breakwater in 1890, and Orrin settled on a Vermont farm in the 1920s. My great-grandmother, a Gagnon, was a mill girl in Lowell at the dawn of the twentieth century; her grandfather had preceded her on American soil in the 1850s. [...]"

"One of my most challenging moments as a teacher occurred ten years ago, when, as a fresh-faced teaching assistant at Brock University, I was leading a seminar on the Holocaust. Among my students was an Indigenous girl who eagerly raised her hand to make—quite tangentially—a comparison between Nazi-led ethnic cleansing and the historical experience of the First Nations in Canada.

"The comparison caught me off guard. I didn’t know how to respond, how to move forward with our agenda without brushing off the painful history that prompted this comment—I wanted to acknowledge it and put it to didactic use, but I did not know how.

"The problem was partly in me and in my own inexperience. But it was also in the comparison. [...]"

"One hundred years ago, following a nationwide recession, the owners of granite quarries and finishing shops in the Barre area gave workers an ultimatum. If the unions did not accept a drastic wage cut, the industry would implement an open-shop system and thus erode the unions’ bargaining power. 

"By April 1922, taking matters in their own hands, granite cutters and finishers were on strike. By May, they were resisting company efforts to bring outside labor. [...]"

Full text: https://vtdigger.org/2022/02/10/patrick-lacroix-honoring-vermonts-french-canadian-history/

"Please indulge my truisms for a moment—and entertain a post which, in true scholarly spirit, offers more questions than answers.

"To say that the Great Republic is a big country—physically—usually means something very abstract, except for those of us who have a habit of driving when air travel is available. My better half and I did just that last month to vacation and to visit her family in Mississippi. I was reminded—as I realized years ago when crossing the country by train—of the sheer size of the United States, something easily lost on New Englanders as well as frequent fliers. [...]"

De l'éditeur :

Au dix-neuvième siècle et au début du siècle suivant, des centaines de milliers de personnes quittent le Québec pour s’établir aux États-Unis. Elles cherchent alors à implanter la vie sociale et leurs institutions culturelles au sud de la frontière. Ces nouvelles communautés ethniques ne sont pas étanches. Un patient processus d’intégration mène ces immigrants à vivre leur citoyenneté étatsunienne. Afin d’être représentés dans les officines du pouvoir et pour défendre leurs intérêts, les Franco-Américains prennent leur place dans la turbulente arène politique de leur terre d’accueil. Peu à peu, des intérêts de classe en viennent à primer sur ceux, longtemps poursuivis, de la reconnaissance ethnique.

Ce livre explore un aspect méconnu des communautés franco-américaines, celui de leur action politique. Attentive à la complexité de ces communautés et aux particularités locales, cette étude contribue à une plus grande connaissance de la rencontre de l’univers canadien-français aux États-Unis et des institutions de la société d’accueil.

Presses de l'Université Laval, 2021

Ulysse de Joyce a cent ans. Ce roman hors normes a paru en volume le 2 février 1922, grâce aux bons soins d'une éditrice vaillante sinon téméraire, Sylvia Beach, à l'enseigne de Shakespeare and Company, au 12 rue de l'Odéon, à Paris. Les premiers exemplaires de Ulysses, ouvrage de langue anglaise (et quel anglais !) à la couverture bleue, au titre en grandes lettres blanches-bleu et blanc pour évoquer les couleurs de la Grèce-, composés, imprimés et façonnés à Dijon par Maurice Darantiere, arrivèrent à Paris en gare de Lyon, par le train express de 7 heures. Cela fait désormais partie de l'histoire littéraire. Cent ans après, les textes réunis dans cette livraison d'Europe répondent à la double ambition de jeter une lumière aussi neuve que possible sur Ulysse tout en suscitant, ni plus ni moins, le désir de lire ou relire ce roman après lequel les choses ne furent plus tout à fait les mêmes en termes d'écriture sinon de pensée. « Si mon livre n'est pas fait pour être lu, la vie n'est pas faite pour être vécue », disait Joyce. Ainsi reliait-il indissociablement le livre et le vivre. Expérience de lecture-vie sans solution possible de continuité…

"There is something decidedly poetic about Aroostook and Coös, something that speaks of the landscape and its first inhabitants, that we do not have in the bureaucratic county names of Clinton and Franklin—meant to impose a national idea on the land.

"The history of New Hampshire’s Coos County makes for an especially interesting case study, not least for the land and resources that gave rise to one of the state’s great industrial centers. Joining the upper reaches of the Connecticut and Androscoggin rivers, northern New Hampshire was long travelled and inhabited by Abenaki bands. In areas, the terrain is quite rugged; it includes some of the highest peaks of the White Mountains. White settlers felt the pressures of the sometimes hostile environment and could feel quite isolated even on the two major rivers’ tributaries. [...]"

"As promised last week, this post begins a month-long journey into the pages of Le Forum, a product of the FAROG and later the Franco-American Centre in Orono, Maine. Again, a word of caution is in order: this is only one of many sources for the period at hand. We cannot take the Le Forum as a perfect or comprehensive representation of the Franco community's concerns and sentiments. Nevertheless, it hints at the important-and vigorous-debates of the day and ways in which we might approach recent Franco-American history. [...]"

"This addition to the Bibliography of Franco-American Life, Language, and History (2018) requires little introduction. This is not a second edition, although one may in time become necessary. Instead, this booklet represents an effort to address omissions and include works that appeared in 2017, 2018, and 2019, a brief period that inspires continued hope for the study of Franco-Americans. Opportunities to share findings and engage directly with other scholars in the field are still limited, but independent researchers, local historians, academics, and others have together sustained the pace of work seen in prior years. [...]"

Calixa Lavallée was the composer of O Canada and the first Canadian-born musician to achieve an international reputation. He was also a long-time resident of the United States. He set off on the first of his many travels at the age of 16, and spent most of the next twelve years as musical director of a blackface minstrel troupe. After a year in the Union Army, he returned briefly to Montreal where he engaged in the debate over Confederation. Finding himself on the losing (“no”) side, he returned to the US. After a sojourn in Paris in the 1870s, he was back in Canada with the aim of establishing a national conservatory. In the 1880s, he devoted himself to education (becoming president of the Music Teachers’ National Association in 1887) and to performing the music of American composers.

Anthems and Minstrels Shows draws on Calixa Lavallée’s music, letters, and published writings, as well as newspapers and music magazines of the time, to provide a detailed account of his life and of musical life in North America. Whereas Lavallée has previously been portrayed as a humble French Canadian forced into exile by the ignorance and injustice of his contemporaries, here he emerges as a man who was fully engaged with the musical, social, and political currents of his time: ambitious, radical, Bohemian. He also appears a contradictory figure in many ways: the composer of O Canada and yet hailed as the “Lafayette of American Music.” The book explores Lavallée’s music and identity and what they mean today.

Reviews
"The most detailed presentation of the life and accomplishments of the composer of Canada’s national anthem to date, Anthems and Minstrel Shows offers the reader a real sense of Calixa Lavallée, within the context of the political and social developments of his time." Elaine Keillor, Distinguished Research Professor Emerita, Carleton University and the author of Music in Canada

“This is the fruition of [Thompson's] two decades’ endeavour, the first in-depth biography of the man who wrote “O Canada” (yet opposed Confederation).” Sarah Murdoch, Toronto Star (27 June 2015)

“We’re not likely to get a more thorough biography of Calixa Lavallée than Anthems and Minstrel Shows, Brian Christopher Thompson’s huge and meticulous account of the life and times of the composer of “O Canada.”” Dane Lanken, Montreal Review of Books (Summer 2015)

“Thompson does a good job providing nuance to Lavallée’s tangled history. Privileging details over idealization, Anthems and Minstrel Shows resounds like a complex contrapuntal harmony instead of a repetitive single-note melody.” Adèle Barclay, Literary Review of Canada (July-Aug 2015)

“Enfin, une biographie qui renouvelle la vision que nous avions de ce compositeur méconnu. L'auteur a eu recours des une somme incroyable de sources inédites, notamment pour retracer la carrière de Lavallée de son premier séjour aux États-Unis en 1859 jusqu'à son départ pour Paris en 1873. Voilà donc une biographie essentielle dont je souhaite une traduction française.” Barrière Mireille, auteur L’Opéra français de Montréal

“Lavallée is an intriguing figure, and Thompson does an excellent job exploring the nuances of his life. Anthems and Minstrel Shows addresses the important role of music within society and the way politics was articulated in the early days of our country.” Ryan O'Connor, Canada’s History (April 2016)

Calixa Lavallée was the outstanding musical figure in nineteenth-century Canada... He deserves to be known as much more than the composer of “O Canada,” and this full and careful rendering deserves wide recognition. John Beckwith, CAML Review (April 2016)

Drawing upon music, letters, photographs, published writings, and ephemera, Brian Thompson offers the reader a rich account of nationalism, music, and society in nineteenth-century North America as seen through the lens of the multifaceted historical figure of Calixa Lavallée... Thompson situates Lavallée’s intense life within its historical, musical, and cultural contexts to illuminate the contradictions and changing interpretations of nationalism and identity. An epilogue considers the composer’s posthumous reception. Illustrated with more than eighty photos, drawings, maps, and tables, along with a catalogue of musical works and sixteen pages of music, this is a meticulously documented and richly detailed account. Anthems and Minstrel Shows is recommended to anyone with interests in history, Canadian music and culture, and music education. Kari Veblen, Canadian Historical Review (September 2016)

Through close examination of lavallée’s  nancial and professional struggles, his engagement with minstrelsy, and his political views opposing Canada’s Confederation in 1867, Thompson offers a valuable corrective to the public view of lavallée as a Canadian patriot and hero, continuing a process of reevaluation begun in the 1980s. as a result of Thompson’s meticulous original research, lavallée emerges as a complex and fascinating  gure whose life and output shed new light on late nineteenth-century North american musical culture.
Gayle Sherwood Magee (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) American Music (Nov 2016)

Book Review full text version here, published in the Portland Press Herald, January 11, 2020, "Maine Voices: ‘Olive, Again’ makes it OK to hate French-Canadians again"
https://www.pressherald.com/2020/01/11/maine-voices-olive-again-makes-it-ok-to-hate-french-mainers-again/

La 1e partie de cet article a été publiée dans les Mémoires, vol. 69, n°4, cahier 298 et a valu à son auteur le Prix Mémoires 2019; il introduit la famille Mailloux - Grenet et les effets de la Conquête sur cette parenté et ses alliances. Cette 2e partie étudie l'établissement de Pierre V. Mailloux en Nouvelle-Angleterre et son rôle dans la rébellion coloniale.

"The Franco-American past is rich, complex, diverse, and geographically broad. Historians are constantly trying to do justice to that richness—to build upon what we know and reconstruct as finely as possible the world of French-Canadian and Acadian immigrants and their descendants. Despite decades of research on the subject, questions still abound. [...]"

Full text: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/francoamericain_forum/99/

Policymakers are, as a rule, more concerned with people crossing into their jurisdiction than with those who leave. Historians easily fall into the same pattern in their respective areas of study, but scholars focused on the history of Quebec have ample reason to study the hundreds of thousands of French Canadians who left the province (or Lower Canada) in the century after the 1830s. These emigrants did not merely alter the political, demographic, and cultural character of Quebec; their large-scale settlement across northern New York and New England suggests, in some ways, Quebec itself expanded and lived under a different name beyond its actual boundaries. By studying this diaspora, scholars stand to enrich an histoire nationale and articulate a more nuanced understanding of borders.

Back from the Québec vacation.  For me, Québec always represents a coming-of age-experience.  It is also important for me to be at peace with who I am.  Or, to know yourself well enough so that it cannot be so shaken by someone who does not know you so well.

Drawing evidence from militant ethnic newspapers, historians have long known of conflictual relations between Irish Americans and the French Canadians of New England in the nineteenth century. Alternative sources now bring greater clarity to this multifaceted struggle. Diocesan correspondence and documents from press outlets that were detached from the two communities further emphasize French Canadians’ attempts to resist assimilationist forces, but define with greater precision the source of such assimilationist sentiments. Whereas the Irish working class aimed to integrate the new Catholic element into a labor movement which it largely controlled, Irish-American bishops recognized that the Church’s institutional interests demanded cultural accommodation.

"In early nineteenth-century Michigan, a Chippewa couple adopted four-year-old Leah Campeau, whom they had found wandering alone in the wilderness. After the War of 1812, Campeau, raised as an Indigenous girl under the name Neamata, fell in love with Bruce Marshall, an employee of the American Fur Company. Marshall, however, fell for her white sister, who had grown up in their biological parents’ household and had no knowledge of Neamata. [...]"

Full text: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/francoamericain_forum/100/

"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 work in unearthing and preserving their communities’ past, but relatively little of their efforts has trickled into larger narratives about the Franco-American experience. Researchers need to pay closer attention to the ethnic communities of northern New York; Barre, Vermont; Exeter, Somersworth, and Berlin, New Hampshire; and many other locations. [...]"

This conference is part of a much larger project, funded by the University of Western Ontario’s Academic Development Fund, which aimed to set up a research component, an international conference, as well as a website for the journal SubStance. To that end, we have done significant SubStance-related work here, and have as well downloaded to the web a searchable archives area for most of the journal’s issues that have been published in the last 30 years. The site is also home to a discussion section, and soon there will be a publishing area, where, for example,  transcriptions of this conference’s proceedings as well as some of the papers, will appear. This endeavor was initiated partly to foster or create a community of interested scholars at various levels who might wish to participate in the workings and discussions of an active theory journal.

"For generations, it was common to hear the most fatalistic in Quebec claim, “on est né pour un p’tit pain.” In other words, French Canadians were to settle for a simple life—without wealth or status—built around moral virtues.

"As in most things in Quebec, it is possible to read the influence of British conquest and Catholic power into this. Perhaps, too, this feeling stemmed from systemic poverty and limited opportunities in certain communities. Like all myths, this view of “providential modesty” is easily falsified, but it nevertheless holds explanatory weight. It certainly helped to justify, and later explain, new ambitions that were realized during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. [...]"

"Scholars of varied fields have done a great deal to help us better understand the course of Franco life since 1945. Yves Roby’s Histoire d’un rêve brisé? contains excellent chapters on this period; Alexandre Patenaude’s dissertation (Université de Sherbrooke) on Wilfrid Beaulieu’s Travailleur and its cultural context is a valuable complement. So are more local studies often revolving around cultural survival and French language use, such as Cynthia Fox’s work on Cohoes and communities in New England. And yet—this period is far less explored by historians than the years stretching from the U.S. Civil War to the Great Depression. This should stand as an open invitation to those wishing to enrich the field of Franco-American studies. [...]"

"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 cry of concern about the thousands of farmers' sons and unemployed forestry workers each year leaving the St. Lawrence River valley. Ambivalent repatriation efforts would follow. [...]"

"C’est par une sombre et froide journée de décembre que nous avons fait halte à Mountain View. Avec l’aide d’un bénévole qui tient aux affaires du cimetière, mon épouse et moi avions découvert le lieu d’inhumation de Jerry, un homme trépassé bien avant notre temps. Plusieurs générations nous séparent; il est pourtant devenu « mononc Jerry ». Voilà la pierre : avec ma better half, je me suis arrêté. Longtemps ignoré, puis oublié, enfin Jerry recevait des visiteurs. Enfin, à notre manière, nous communiions avec nos aïeux. [...]"

Full text: http://umaine.edu/francoamerican/files/2018/04/Vol_40_No_1.pdf

A physician by training, Prosper Bender (1844-1917) achieved prominence through his written work on French Canadians. In the 1870s, he joined the flourishing literary scene of Quebec City, a period that culminated with his Literary Sheaves (1881) and Old and New Canada (1882). Then, for more than a quarter-century, Bender lived in Boston, where he practiced homeopathic medicine and again played the part of an intercultural broker. Doubts concerning his native land's future led him to promote the American annexation of Canada; he also wrote for American readers articles on French-Canadian culture. More than a century later, Bender's body of work reflects the challenges facing post-Confederation Canada and the struggle for mutual understanding between French Canadians and their English-speaking neighbours.

"What do you call a gathering of Franco-Americans and friends of Franco-Americans? If you are in central Maine, it’s a Rassemblement, and you are sure to see it happen every spring. The latest installment of the Rassemblement, an annual tradition for the Franco-American Centre at the University of Maine, was a tremendously thought-provoking and inspiring event, not least by virtue of the diverse voices that shared the stage. As a gathering of scholars, students, creative writers, artists, and community members, the event continues to offer insight on Franco-Americans’ history, memory, and identity. Immense thanks and kudos are due to Susan Pinette, Director of Franco-American Studies, and Lisa Michaud, the Community Engagement Coordinator, for the event’s success. [...]"

"By no means were French Canadians a “quiet presence” in New England cities at the end of the nineteenth century. By 1900, the French-Canadian population of Fall River and Lowell, Massachusetts, had grown to 33,000 and 24,800 residents respectively. In Manchester, New Hampshire, they numbered 23,000, a full 40 percent of the city’s total population. In many more industrial centers across the region, from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, to Waterville, Maine, the Canadians’ numbers rose steadily from the Civil War onwards. After a lengthy depression in the 1870s, there seemed to be no stopping the influx. Hardly a day passed, it seemed, without train stations witnessing the arrival of yet more families destined to swell the local “Little Canada.” [...]"

Since the season of color and lights is upon us once again (didn't I just put away those Christmas decorations?) I thought I'd discuss the phenomenon of COLOR.  Namely, color as I experienced it most recently during my summer vacation (such as in, “What I Did On My Summer Vacation”) and color as I have personally expressed it in my home, in the clothing I have worn or wear and in my drawings.

"It has become a rite of passage for any scholar of Franco-American history to address the report issued by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1881. The Bureau was one of many publicly-funded agencies created in the late nineteenth century to provide policymakers with information on industrialization, urban life, the workforce, and general economic conditions. Colonel Carroll D. Wright led this particular agency for years and he earned the opprobrium of Franco-Americans in 1881 when identifying them as 'the Chinese of the Eastern States.' [...]"

"Last week’s blog post quoted Grégoire Chabot on a hypothetical Franco-American “hall of fame.” Chabot seemed to find few worthy models. Yet, surely, if Francos are to recognize the accomplishments of their community, they ought to find important and influential figures in their past. What famous individuals has the community produced? Who are its leading lights? Its bottom-of-the-ninth batters? Who has proven to be an exceptional model among Francos and the object of admiration among other Americans? [...]"

"Charles Edmond Rouleau attributed a litany of moral failings to expatriated French Canadians—they were lazy but also greedy, improvident and very often intemperate, they betrayed their homeland and their faith. As the nineteenth century wore on, this type of rhetoric, tending to leave Franco-American communities to their own devices, became dominant among Quebec elites. I have found relatively few direct Franco-American rebuttals to scathing attacks of this kind, which is not necessarily to say that there were few. The following piece, written by François-Xavier Belleau nearly thirty years after Rouleau’s work appeared, is as strong a statement as I have yet come across. It highlights the profound strains that had developed between cultural elites on either side of the border in the intervening time. [...]"

"I salute your interest in this language that bring us together—not merely today, I hope, but throughout the year. Thank you especially to Sam Park, who made this event possible and who kindly invited me. I appreciate the opportunity to share a few thoughts as a native speaker, as a historian, and as a teacher. In the process, I plan to speak to the relationship between this French-speaking world we call la Francophonie and the mighty experiment that is the Great Republic. [...]"

"Much has been made of unconventional Franco-American experiences and stories, on this blog. (See here, here, and here, for instance.) Franco-Americans living in rural parts of New England and New York State are perpetually in the shadow of those who settled in industrial cities and worked in factories. A similar neglect is apparent when it comes to French Canadians who moved to Northeastern towns that did not have a national parish, cultural societies, a French-language newspaper, textile factories, and so forth. Yet, as we begin looking beyond the Little Canadas, we find fascinating stories that add complexity to conventional narratives. [...]"

Full text: https://vermonthistory.org/journal/88/VH8801AllAmericanTown.pdf

For months in 1922, a strike paralyzed Barre’s granite quarries and sheds. This was neither the first nor last strike to hit Vermont’s granite center; it is instead significant for what it says of labor activism and interethnic tensions in the interwar period. French Canadians became central figures in Barre residents’ historical consciousness due to their alleged role as strikebreakers. When set in conversation with one another, contemporary evidence and recollections of the strike offer a tale far more nuanced than previously affirmed, with French Canadians earning opprobrium less for the ultimate fate of the strike than as a result of the larger cultural forces of the era.

The age of nationalities and nationalism associated with nineteenth-century Europe also found expression in North America in the same period: French Canadians developed a national consciousness charged with a religious and providential mission. As these Canadians crossed into the United States in ever-rising numbers and established permanent “colonies” during the Gilded Age, they carried with them a cultural ideology that kept them apart from mainstream American society—and apart from their Irish American coreligionists and coworkers. Claiming the freedoms promised to them by the Constitution, these immigrants from the north battled for accommodation not only in political conventions or state legislatures, but also in the Roman Catholic Church, whose leaders seemed intent on doing away with foreign languages and customs. The religious battle came to a head as lay and clerical Catholics gathered in Baltimore, in 1889, to reassert the Church’s unity as well as its patriotic credentials. By drawing attention to French Canadian immigration, often overlooked in immigration studies, this article refocuses the question of Americanization on the Catholic Church, which proved one of the most powerful agents of acculturation in late nineteenth-century America.

TIAMSA is excited to announce its second Live Book Discussion on Saturday 15 May 2021: The Journal of a Transatlantic Art Dealer: Rene Gimpel 1918-1939 by Diana J. Kostyrko

THE LEARNED Franco-American poet and critic, Édouard Roditi, a “feared reviewer of literary works”, predicted that René Gimpel (1881–1945)’s Journal d’un collectionneur would be a futur classique. Three years later, in 1966, Roditi was forced to concede that it had “failed to impress influential French critics of literature or of the arts” and, instead, it seemed to appeal to a few historians and gossip-columnists. Now, amid a small avalanche of timely studies on Euro-American art dealers, their clients and colleagues—harbingers and arbiters of the transatlantic art market—, perhaps Gimpel’s journal finds its natural home.

"This week, in connection with Quebec’s “national” holiday, la Saint-Jean-Baptiste, we see how budding Franco-American communities celebrated the day in nineteenth-century New England. Until the mass emigration of Catholics to the region, only Masonic lodges had attributed any significance to June 24. The arrival of French Canadians fashioned St. John’s Day into a semi-official holiday in most areas where they formed a substantial portion of the urban population. [...]"

"Près de deux décennies après la parution de la synthèse magistrale d’Yves Roby, le chercheur indépendant David Vermette offre à son tour un survol de l’histoire franco-américaine. Cependant, Vermette ne prétend pas décrire in toto la vie des Canadiens français expatriés aux États-Unis, choisissant plutôt de se pencher sur quatre thèmes parfois escamotés dans le récit conventionnel de la Franco-Amérique: les conséquences de l’industrialisation, la migration entre régions contigües, diverses visions de la citoyenneté étatsunienne, puis la crainte de l’Autre chez les «Yankees». [...]"

Texte complet: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/haf/2019-v73-n1-2-haf05240/1068812ar.pdf