Today in Maine’s Franco History is a look back at important dates in the history of Maine’s Franco-American communities. It will run throughout 2020, the bicentennial year of Maine’s statehood. Your suggestions for additional events, people, and institutions to celebrate are most welcome. January 8, 1883: Opening of the Dominican Block (Bloc Dominicain) in Lewiston. The […]
A political realignment. Promises to drain the swamp and put Americans first. Attacks, both verbal and physical, on immigrants and minorities. In 1854 and 1855, Maine, like much of the country, was shaken by the rise of the Know-Nothing movement. Its anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic rhetoric overturned state politics and spilled over into mob violence. For […]
There’s nothing quite like the taste of grandma’s cooking. This holiday season, tens of thousands of Mainers will be enjoying mémère’s tourtière, cretons, or perhaps even pets de soeurs. For immigrants of all backgrounds, food is an important link to home and family, as well as a way of maintaining traditions or future generations. That’s why so […]
On April 29 1892, Solomon Robitscheck wrote to Lewiston’s Le Messager objecting to the newspaper’s characterization of the city’s small population of Jewish peddlers. Two weeks earlier, Le Messager had published an editorial reprimanding Franco Americans who purchased items from the peddlers. Le Msssager’s argument was primarily economic – Franco Americans should patronize Franco owned […]
In 1903, Father Alexandre-Lousi Mothon, the curé of the Dominican monastery in Lewiston, wrote to the community of Dominican Sisters of Nancy, in France, asking them to send a some of their members to Maine to teach the Franco-American children of Lewiston. Initially, the children of the city’s French Canadian immigrants were educated by lay […]
In the late 19th century, progressives and other reform-minded Americans pushed the benefits of the great outdoors to children in the nation’s cities. The impulse to bring city kids to nature led to the creation of America’s first summer camps. Maine soon became a popular destination for children from cities like Boston and New York. […]
When Henry David Thoreau made his storied expedition into the Maine woods, he didn’t travel alone. He was accompanied by a series of Indian guides, without whom Thoreau’s trips would never have been successful. One of those guides was Louis Annance, a well-known figure in the Moosehead Lake region. Annance was a member of the […]
The remote western Maine town of Jackman, has been in the headlines recently for some of the worst reasons. On Friday it was revealed that the towns new town manager held white supremacist and racist views. What makes this revelation particularly troubling is that Jackman, because of its status as a border community, has long […]
New Year’s Day (le jour de l’an) is traditionally a special holiday for Franco-Americans, with a history stretching back through Canada and France. Some American observers thought it resembled Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one day that held religious, familial, and social significance. A reporter for the Lewiston (Maine) Evening Journal visited a Franco-American family in […]
Mon pays, c’est l’hiver (my country is the winter), sang Gilles Vigneault, in what quickly became a Quebecois classic after its 1965 release. The tune, with its haunting melody and wistful lyrics has been seen by many as a nationalist anthem, capturing both the cultural isolation of Quebec within Canada, as well as French […]
