Browse Items (283 total)
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'down the Plains' : Love and Language Through Three Generations of Franco-American Women
Autobiographical magazine piece by a writer from Waterville, Maine. Reflections on her women ancestors and the Waterville neighborhood where they once lived, "down the Plains." Thoughts on the contemporary Franco-American woman experience, with a particular emphasis on the writer's relationship with the French language. Includes personal and other photographs. Featured in Portland Magazine's Maine Ethnicity issue, among articles about Italian, Greek, Polish, Lithuanian, Native American, and other Maine communities. -
Kerouac in Black and White
An essay in exploration of Jack Kerouac's French-Canadianness in twentieth-century America. How digging into this particular ethnicity, time, and place shapes how one considers Kerouac's late-life ideas about race, his relationship with religion, or the stylings of his writing. Blaise considers Kerouac alongside other fiction writers (William Faulkner, Theodore Dreiser, William Saroyan, Thomas Wolfe) that, to Blaise, have engaged their fiction in similar conversations with both sentimentality and American diversity. From the author of "I Had a Father: A Post-Modern Autobiography" and "Lunar Attractions." Also published in "Selected Essays" by Clark Blaise (Emeryville, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2008). -
The Quaint Canadians of New England Towns; Among the Young Girls Fine Dress Is a Mania. All Their Lives the Women Work Hard, but the Native Tongue and Religion Are Not Allowed to be Forgotten.
Descriptive, ethnographic New York Times feature article on "French-Canadian women" from youth to old age in New England. The author considers the Franco-American working woman a peculiarly American character, and the French-Canadian American mother an inevitable barrier to assimilation. -
AGAINST ALL ODDS: LIFE ON THE HILL: Places that provided common heritage gone or declining
Part 4 of 4 of the October, 1991, series entitled, "Against all odds: Life on the 'Hill'" - a close look into Augusta, Maine's Sand Hill (Sandhill) neighborhood. Part 4 includes two pieces: one acknowledging the vast changes that have taken place in the community since the early 20th century, the other acknowledging the still present voice of Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club, that has undergone its own sort of struggle. -
Calumet Club faces rights hearing
A Readfield, Maine, woman who was denied membership at Le Club Calumet - a men's Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine - appealed to the Maine Human Rights Commission on account of discrimination. -
Backing Calumet Club
Letter to the editor regarding the 1989 Le Club Calumet controversy sparked by a woman's seeking entry into the all-male club. Offers a measure of support for the Augusta, Maine, Club in its rejection of the woman's request. -
Private clubs can exclude
Letter to the editor on the subject of Augusta, Maine's Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, excluding women from its membership. -
Do it this way, Nancy
Letter to the editor chastising Nancy Albert Ellis, the woman who in 1989 sought entry into the all-male Franco-American social club, Le Club Calumet, of Augusta, Maine. -
Club is like a private home
Letter to the editor questioning the motives of Nancy Albert Ellis, the woman who in 1989 sought entry into an all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, of Augusta, Maine. -
Calumet should stay as it is
Letter to the editor in support of the 1989 decision of Augusta, Maine's Le Club Calumet to reject the membership application of a woman, Nancy Albert Ellis, and remain an all-male organization. -
Calumet Club loses Round 1
The Maine Human Rights Commission ruled that Le Club Calumet, an all-male Franco American social club in Augusta, Maine, discriminated when it refused membership to a woman applicant. The article contains commentary from arguing members of the Club and the MHRC councilpersons who voted unanimously to label officially the Club's decision as discrimination based on sex. -
Some Calumet Club members may vote to admit women, attorney says
After the Maine Human Rights Commission ruled that she had been discriminated against when denied membership at Le Club Calumet, a Franco American social club, Nancy Albert Ellis considered filing charges in court. Many members of the Club, in her support, claimed that they would vote to change club legislation, allowing the full admission and membership of women. -
Calumet's first-class women
Letter to the editor lauding the women who volunteer at the all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, in Augusta, Maine, without becoming club members. Comes in response to the controversy of a woman whose attempt at membership in the Club was rejected, and who appealed to the Maine Human Rights Commission to prove the Club's unlawful discrimination based on her sex. -
'Le Club' is masculine
Letter to the editor that argues (tongue-in-cheek?) how the gender of the French term "le club" is reason enough for Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, to justify rejecting a woman's application for membership in 1989. -
Ellis' win will destroy club
Letter to the editor arguing that if Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine, is forced by the Maine courts to admit women, and is thereby ruled a "public" organization, it will no longer be able to limit its membership based on ethnicity. -
Was it sex discrimination?
Letter to the editor that asks whether discrimination based on gender is different from discrimination based on ethnicity, and if Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine, is not allowed by its private status to limit its membership based on both sex and ethnicity. -
Calumet members make no decision yet on admitting women
After the Maine Human Rights Commission deemed Le Club Calumet - an Augusta, Maine, Franco-American men's club - discriminatory for not admitting women as members, the Club was forced to decide if it would change its policies regarding membership or face litigation. -
Club is victim of bias
Maurice Violette, past president of Augusta, Maine's Le Club Calumet and author of "The Franco-Americans" (New York: Vantage Press, 1976), writes about the bias he sees in the Kennebec Journal's editorial commentary on the Club controversy of 1989-1992. -
Teaching the wrong lesson
Letter to the editor in response to Nancy Albert Ellis' objection to being refused membership in Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine. Letter writer cites the Club's right to legislate as a private organization, even to limit membership based on one's citizenship. -
Kiss old Calumet goodbye
Letter to the editor criticizing the comments of Le Club Calumet's legal representation, Norman Bourget, and giving thanks to the 1989 decision by the Maine Human Rights Commission declaring the Club discriminatory for its refusal to admit women as members. -
Private club made public
Letter to the editor claiming that the Maine Human Rights Commission discriminated against the Franco-American community when it ruled that Le Club Calumet was a public organization and should admit women as members - or else be taken to court on account of its discriminatory bylaws. -
Calumet faces big problems
Letter to the editor acknowledging the problems that would potentially arise for Le Club Calumet - an all-male Franco American social club in Augusta, Maine - if it were declared public by the judicial system, and thus forced by law to admit women as members. -
Le Club Calumet files complaint
Le Club Calumet seeks approval from the court for its decision to exclude women from membership in its organization: one that the Maine Human Rights Commission deemed "public," and thus discriminatory in its sexed bylaws. -
Calumet Club claims law permits limited private ethnic membership
Article on public comments made by Le Club Calumet following its lawsuit against the Maine Human Rights Commission. Maine HRC previously ruled that the Club was breaking a law of public organization when it refused to admit a woman as a member. -
Rights panel sues le Club Calumet
The Maine Human Rights Commission fired back at Le Club Calumet by filing a lawsuit of its own (in response to the Club's suit against the HRC) contending that the Club discriminated in its refusal of membership to a woman based on her sex. -
Why sue Club Calumet?
Letter to the editor questioning the Maine Human Rights Commission's decision to sue le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine. MHRC asserted the unlawful discrimination inherent to the Club's bylaws that restrict membership based on sex. -
Calumet claims bias against French women legal; rights panel disagrees
Article on the arguments heard in Kennebec County Superior Court, Augusta, Maine, in a case of the Maine Human Rights Commission versus Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American fraternal organization. -
Calumet told it must let women join: Calumet loses bid to keep women out
In a 1991 ruling, the Kennebec County Superior Court decided that Le Club Calumet, a Franco American fraternal organization in Augusta, Maine, was a public organization , and therefore could not exclude women from its membership - as it had done for 69 years, and as had been the provisions of its bylaws. -
Le Club Calumet will appeal order for female membership
Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, decided to appeal a decision of the Kennebec County Superior Court that deemed the Club a public organization, and thus prevented by law from excluding women from its historically all-male membership. -
Cease and desist, Le Club Calumet
Editorial piece arguing that Augusta, Maine, fraternal organization Le Club Calumet, appealing a ruling that charged it with sex discrimination, should reconsider its position and "alter its men-only policy for membership." -
Calumet Club vows to fight court ruling
After being forced by the Kennebec County Superior Court to admit women members, Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, objected, and claimed to consider filing an appeal. -
Age of equality
Editorial piece arguing that Le Club Calumet should, as directed by the Kennebec County Superior Court, admit women as members, and discontinue the membership policy of its Augusta, Maine, establishment that is arguably based in part on sex discrimination. -
Out of kitchen for good
Letter to the editor written in response to a guest column penned by Augusta, Maine performer, Jean-Paul Poulain. This letter addresses the need for cultural sensitivity, but argues that women must be involved - including at the level of membership in the historically all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet. -
Woman defends 'men only'
Letter to the editor rebuffing a previous letter written by Peg Ricker (6 September 1991), and supporting the all-male membership of Augusta, Maine, social club, Le Club Calumet, for the sake of "gender bonding," among other reasons. -
And one who's still waiting
A commentary on the headline article of this issue, "Women in the Clubs," that elaborates a discussion of Nancy Albert Ellis. In 1988, Ellis was refused membership to the all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, of Augusta, Maine, and began a course of litigation that lasted a number of years. -
An Open Letter to Whom It May Concern: A Rebuttal to Calumet Club Superior Court's Judgment
A lengthy open letter concerning the potential effects of Kennebec County Superior Court's ruling against Le Club Calumet, charging it to begin admitting women into the membership ranks of its historically all-male establishment in Augusta, Maine. The letter's primary concern is the court's designation of the Club as a "public accommodation," not a private one, that might potentially be forced to admit any person without regard for ethnicity. -
Not private vs. public
A letter to the editor in response to Maurice Violette's "An Open Letter..." (9 October 1991), contesting Violette's fixation on the matter of "public vs. private" as the keystone of the debate surrounding Le Club Calumet's recent Kennebec County, Maine, courtroom loss, and its being forced by law to admit women to the ranks of its membership. -
Judge rejects Ellis' request for lien on Le Club Calumet
Kennebec County (Maine) Superior Court judge rejects Nancy Ellis' bid to attach a lien to Calumet Club property in the case that, if her lawsuit against the club is victorious, the club disbands, sells land, and refuses coverage of her legal fees. -
State's highest court to hear Calumet appeal
Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, appealed to the Maine Supreme Court to overturn a superior court decision forcing it to change its organizational bylaws and admit women as members. -
Calumet appeal argued in court
Le Club Calumet, a Franco American men's social club in Augusta, Maine, appealed to the Maine Supreme Court a decision made by the superior court that would have forced the club to admit women as members. This article covers the beginning of the arguments heard at the highest court in Maine. -
Maine woman seeks entry into ethnic club
A Boston Globe update on the Maine Supreme Court case of the Maine Human Rights Commission and Nancy Ellis vs. Le Club Calumet, regarding the issue of a private accommodation limiting its membership based on ethnic and sex discriminations and if, as Ellis contends, the Club is in fact a public, not private, organization. -
Calumet hurt its own
Letter to the editor opposed to the Maine Supreme Court's decision in favor of Le Club Calumet barring women from membership in its Augusta, Maine, organization. -
Ellis wants media attention
Letter to the editor questioning the motives of Nancy Albert Ellis in her filing suit against Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, for refusing her a membership based on her sex - a suit she eventually lost in the Maine Supreme Court. -
Court rules Calumet can exclude women
In May, 1992, the Maine State Supreme Court ruled that Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American men's club in Augusta, Maine, can exclude women as members from its organization. This decision was based on the court's finding that the Club was, in fact, a private accommodation, not a public one. Laws regarding the private status of ethnicity-based social clubs allow such clubs to limit their membership based on a number of unique characteristics - including sex. -
Anti-Calumet attitude
Letter to the editor berating Augusta, Maine's Kennebec Journal for its selective coverage of the controversy involving Le Club Calumet and Nancy Ellis - a battle over gender and club membership that landed both parties in the Maine Supreme Court. -
Equal or a step down?
Letter to the editor questioning the meaning of the phrase "equal rights" as it has been used in the conversation between Nancy Albert Ellis and the all-male Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine. -
French women must unite
Letter to the editor calling upon "all women of French ancestry" to unite in response to the Maine Supreme Court's decision to allow the Calumet Club of Augusta, Maine, to refuse membership to women. -
Freedom of association
Letter to the editor that claims to be in support of the Maine Supreme Court decision to protect the all-male Le Club Calumet's freedom of association. -
Le Club Calumet suspends brothers for backing Ellis
Nancy Albert Ellis' father and uncle, Demetrius and Henry Albert, were suspended by Le Club Calumet after refusing to appear before their executive board to discuss their public support of Ellis' controversial bid for membership in the all-male, Augusta, Maine, club. -
Readfield woman denied Calumet membership will not appeal
Nancy Albert Ellis, a woman whose membership application to Le Club Calumet in Augusta, Maine, was denied based on her sex, and who lost a legal battle with the Club that was taken all the way to the Maine Supreme Court, does not appeal the decision to a higher court. -
Men should do it all
Letter to the editor calling for gender equality in cutural organizations. This comes in support of Nancy Albert Ellis, whose bid to join the Calumet Club in Augusta, Maine, was rejected, and ultimately denied in a decision by the Maine Supreme Court. -
Club lost peace pipe
Letter to the editor berating Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, for its refusal of Nancy Albert Ellis' membership bid on account of her sex. The author seeks a peaceful resolution to what became a controversial issue surrounding the inclusion of women in Club ranks. -
Saving Franco culture
Letter to the editor calling upon Franco Americans and Le Club Calumet to look past the controversial 1992 Maine Supreme Court case regarding club identity and gender, and to consider the best way of using all available resources for cultural preservation. -
Franco-American Women Awakening a Silenced Culture
E-news article on women reviving Franco culture in Maine. -
Franco-American Writers
A WERU FM community radio broadcast of readings by two Maine writers, Rhea Côté Robbins and Trudy Chambers Price. Côté Robbins, who introduces her readings with a short talk on violence at home and in the workplace, shares from a work-in-progress entitled, "down the Plains." Chambers Price shares two chapters from her memoir, "The Cows Are Out!: Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm" (chapter 12, "A Real Farmer's Tan," and chapter 10, "The Cows Are Out!"). Readings are followed by a discussion with both writers about their lives, their work, and the stories that they and other Franco American women hold. -
My Brother the Murderer
Online feature entitled "What happens when the world finds out that God is dead?: Ron Currie, Jr. reads from his novel." The feature is a link to the author's reading of the chapter "My Brother the Murderer" from his novel titled "God is Dead" (2007). In this piece, a man faces public and private alienation for the abominable actions of his brother now locked away in an Augusta, Maine mental hospital. -
Hard Work
Full title of the film: "Hard Work: 'To Make Both Ends Meet' : Maine Women's Voices, 1888." From Folkfilms.com: "In 1888 the Maine State Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics conducted a survey to assess working conditions for women in the state's shops and factories. The bureau hired Flora Haines of Bangor to complete the survey. She spoke with women in the workplace and handed out over six hundred questionnaires that asked about health and safety issues, wages and work hours, sanitary conditions in the boarding houses, and other matters....At the end of the questionnaire was this statement: 'Make any suggestions that you think will tend to improve your condition at work.' Hundreds of women responded....In this documentary the women's voices are brought to life again to tell the story of working conditions for women in the latter part of the 19th century in Maine. Using interviews, historical photos, and video from present day factories 'Hard Work' details the rise of the female labor force in the state's mills and factories and explores the conditions that women had to endure both on and off the job." -
The Belles of New England
A presentation by William Moran on his book, "The Belles of New England," as a portion of the 2002 Concord Festival of Authors, Concord, Massachusetts. From C-SPAN: "Mr. Moran discussed his book 'The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove,' published by Thomas Dunne Books. The book recounts the rise and fall of the New England textile industry of the 19th century. Mr. Moran traces the experiences of the thousands of women who left New England farm towns and the Irish, Canadian and European immigrants who came to work in the textile mills. At a time when women had no political influence, these workers opposed mill owners like the Cabots and Lowells of Boston for fair wages and safer working conditions. Following his remarks, Mr. Moran answered questions from members of the audience."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Biddeford ME, Boston MA, Business and Economics, Connecticut, Emigration and Immigration, Farming and Agriculture, Gender and Sexuality, Great Britain, Ireland, Labor History, Lawrence MA, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, New Bedford MA, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, Saco ME, Saco River Valley, Social History, Sports and Leisure, Waltham MA -
Becoming a Man : Half a Life Story
Autobiography and coming-out narrative of Paul Monette, an Andover, Massachusetts writer. Monette recounts twenty-five closeted years of alienation and invisibility, explorations of his sexual identity, and observations on the sexual prejudice and violences around him. Growing up working-class in Massachusetts; his ill younger brother; stints at prep-school and Yale in the 1960s; time spent in England; a return to Massachusetts. Written during the battle with AIDS that eventually claimed the author's life. Winner of the 1992 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Republished in 2004. -
Girls of Tender Age : A Memoir
Memoir of a woman growing up in the immigrant city of Hartford, Connecticut in the 1950s. Her French Canadian and Italian relatives, her childhood, early adulthood, and the processes of recollecting them. Divided into five parts: Mortality; Brain Jog; the Quest; What Goes Around...; The Future Is Now; followed by notes and acknowledgements. Alternates between stories from the life of the author, her friends and relatives, and the murder of a childhood friend by a Hartford serial child abuser named Robert Malm. The author's efforts at retelling the story of Malm's life, trial, and Connecticut execution, and their intersection with her life.Tags Community: Customs and Social Life, Connecticut, Death and Disaster, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Hartford CT, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Italy, Language and Linguistics, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Polish Americans, Québec, Religion, Vermont, Violence, Youth -
Thank you, Georgette : My 26 Years in the Legislature
Memoirs and selected speeches of a Maine state legislator from the city of Lewiston. Contains commentary on some of the campaigns, issues, actors, and events significant to Bérubé and her career in Maine politics between 1970 and 2000. Some of her accomplishments as the first woman representative of her city, and one of the longest-serving of any Maine legislator. Contains the following chapters: Name's Georgette Remarks to Rotary International and Canadian Visitors 10/29/93 Growing Up In Lewiston Political Campaigns Issues and Programs Partisanship/Personalities Legislation GOVERNMENT Pot Pourri Random Thoughts Remarks On Key IssuesTags Auburn ME, Augusta ME, Business and Economics, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Greene ME, Leeds ME, Lewiston ME, Lisbon ME, Livermore ME, Maine, Minot ME, Northern Ireland, Orono ME, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, Sabattus ME, South Africa, Turner ME, Wales ME -
Chére Ma-Ma
Remembrances of a French Canadian family in New Hampshire, or the biography of a Canadian immigrant mother as written by her American daughter. Family life, work, and prayer in rural New England. Presented as if in flashback, with the story beginning as the daughter attempts to communicate with her aged and ill mother in a nursing home. Constructed in short vignettes pertinent to the mother's life as mother, each section set out with a descriptive header. Includes some poems from the author. From the book jacket: " 'Chére Ma-Ma' (Dear Mom) is a true story which tells of the determination and perseverance of a French Canadian woman, Mathilda (Bourassa) Charest, who raised a family of twelve children, and how she survived the everyday circumstances of truth in poverty, especially so, during the country's Depression; and her love of God through the Catholic faith." -
Odyssey of Love
A biography of Westbrook, Maine, native, Sister Marie Ange Larrivee, a nun in the Order of the Presentation of Mary. Stories that take us from her youth in Westbrook, through her Canadian religious education, all the way to her travels in Europe and her experiences of World War II in France. From a Rumford, Maine, author. -
Inside Peyton Place : The Life of Grace Metalious
Biography of Manchester, New Hampshire author Grace Metalious. Famous for her novel "Peyton Place" and its various film adaptations. Emily Toth is also the biographer of novelist Kate Chopin.
From University Press of Mississippi: "The juicy biography of the scandalous novelist who lifted the lid off a New England town...Grace Metalious, an unpretentious housewife from the wrong side of the tracks, had written an explosive bestseller. From a ramshackle cottage in a small New England milltown, she zoomed to national stardom. She met movie stars, famous writers, and the hangers-on who gravitate to those who achieve sudden wealth. She partied with the glamorous; she traveled; always a generous friend, she entertained lavishly. It was a Cinderella dream. But it did not last....Grace refused to be confined by the fifties' notions of a woman's place. In her struggle to find herself, she lifted the lid off sex and violence, power and powerlessness, truth and hypocrisy, and became known as the Pandora in Blue Jeans. 'If I'm a lousy writer,' she said, 'then an awful lot of people have got lousy taste.'...Emily Toth has given us a complete and sympathetic portrait of Grace: the idealistic young scribbler, the partier, the sometimes reluctant wife and mother. Tracing the television shows, the films, the Peyton Place sequels and later novels, Toth shows Grace plagued by periods of self-doubt and loneliness, striving desperately and feeling pressured to create another 'hit.'"
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Crossing the Divide : Representations of Deafness in Biography
An exploration of the lives and texts of three francophone biographers, each struggling in her own way through the difficulties of deafness. Includes a segment on Franco American author Corinne Rocheleau-Rouleau. From Gallaudet University Press: "This remarkable volume examines the process by which three deaf, French biographers from the 19th and 20th centuries attempted to cross the cultural divide between deaf and hearing worlds through their work. The very different approach taken by each writer sheds light on determining at what point an individual's assimilation into society endangers his or her sense of personal identity." -
Vows : The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son
The biography of a Catholic nun and a Catholic priest in Boston, Massachusetts - their work and their faith, their marriage and their family - written by their son. Moves through the author's youth and his own unique relationship with faith and doctrine. An intimate and intimately-told story of religion in America, especially Catholicism, during and after the social upheavel of the middle twentieth century. From Free Press: "'Vows' is a compelling story of one family's unshakable faith that to be called is to serve, however high the cost may be. Peter Manseau's riveting evocation of his parents' parallel childhoods, their similar callings, their experiences in the seminary and convent, and how they met while tending to the homeless of Roxbury, Massachusetts, during the riot-prone 1960s is a page-turning meditation on the effect that love can have on profound faith." -
Priest: A Tale of Repressed Identity: How I Became a Catholic Priest
Autobiography of a New Hampshire man and his "search for personal identity" through ethnicity and religion, in and out of the lifestyle of a Roman Catholic Priest. From the back cover: "Maurice Fillion was five when his father died. Singled out by priests and nuns while in grade school as a promising candidate for the Catholic priesthood, he entered a minor seminary at age 13, then moved into a religious novitiate and on to a major seminary. By the time he was ordained a priest at 25 he had spent half his life in cloistered living, segregated from the outside world..." -
The Cows Are Out!: Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm
From Islandport Press: "Family dairy farms are disappearing in Maine and with them, a way of life. Trudy Chambers Price has captured the daily joys and struggles of the family farm in a way that ensures this Maine way of life will not be forgotten....Price and her husband raised two sons and hundreds of cows on Craneland Farm in Central Maine. The work was never-ending and exhausting, but also exhilarating and rewarding. In this bittersweet memoir of two decades of dairy farming, Chambers writes of the daily trials of haying, cow breeding and milking against a backdrop of gentle and entertaining rural life. She introduces kind neighbors, eccentric neighbors, visiting city folk and loveable pets. 'The Cows Are Out!' is a tribute to hard-working family farmers and to an important part of Maine's historical and cultural heritage." -
Unveiling Kate Chopin
Biography of the author of "The Awakening." From University Press of Mississippi: "In 'Unveiling Kate Chopin,' Emily Toth, the foremost authority on Chopin's life and works, creates a sharply revealing portrait of a modern woman in a Victorian world. Born in St. Louis in 1850, Kate O'Flaherty was raised by wealthy, feisty widows and educated by brilliant nuns. She endured a mysterious 'outrage' committed against her by Union soldiers in her teens and suffered what moderns now call a 'loss of voice.' But she survived to become a lively, dangerously clever social observer." -
Little Canuck : The Adventures of an Immigrant Boy from Québec
Self-published memoir about life in Québec, and life after Québec. From iUniverse: "Michel learns that his father is dying. This news precipitates a nostalgic journey into the past-a childhood spent on a dairy farm in French Québec. As a sensitive boy secluded from the world, Michel wavers between forbidden exploits and heartbreaking tribulations. Catholic school is a culture shock, but it's the huge pumpkin-shaped teacher with a bad temper who terrorizes his brain most. On the farm, his young life abounds with fun and danger-mad bulls, dynamite sticks, runaway darts, lethal ice cubes, and hazardous farm equipment. After struggling with a dismal economy, his family is forced to abandon their home. They desert their isolated farmhouse and move into a cockroach-infested apartment in an English-speaking city one mile from the seductive United States border. There, Michel copes with bullies, Russian spies, and ghosts. 'Little Canuck' recounts the humorous, and at times, heartrending memoirs of a young boy on his journey through a colorful landscape of emotion. Along the way, young Michel uncovers the mysteries of female anatomy, and learns poignant truths about mortality. His most profound lessons are not learned at school.
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Jack Kérouac : Essai-Poulet / A Chicken Essay
Un livre comme essai sur les rélations entre la vie et la littérature de Jack Kerouac - son écriture et son héritage - avec des réactions de l'auteur. -
Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families
From ECW Press: "With this fascinating new book, Jim Jones debunks many of the myths surrounding the life and times of Jack Kerouac. Jones concentrates on those whose lives were most affected by Kerouac: daughter Jan Kerouac, wives Edie Parker, Joan Haverty, and Stella Sampas, as well as nephew Paul Blake Jr. 'Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families' takes its title from advice given to Jan during her second and final meeting with Jack, who encouraged her to profit from the surname she shared with the famous author of 'On the Road.' Sadly, not one of these individuals so closely tied to Kerouac seems to have benefited from the connection, as Jones discovers in his in-depth interview with Jan. She discusses at length her 15 months as a prostitute, her own divorces, her hospitalization, and her life as an author, including a wild European book tour for [her novel] 'Baby Driver.' Although Kerouac is one of the most 'biographied' American writers of our time, Jones offers a new perspective on the King of the Beats and his generation, one in which formerly marginalized figures in the Kerouac storyparticularly womenbecome strong, central characters. He also exposes the cut-throat wheeling and dealing that has plagued the Kerouac estate and that continues today as the various players do battle over the legacy of one of the counterculture's biggest idols." -
Wednesday's Child
Memoir of a Franco-American woman who grew up "down the Plains" in Waterville, Maine. Winner of the 1997 Maine Chapbook Award.
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American Ghosts
A memoir from prose writer David Plante. An exploration of identity with respect to language, the power of Catholic traditions, and the pull of sex, moving with the author from his Providence, Rhode Island, hometown through Europe and back again. From Publishers Weekly: "Haunted by the visible and invisible spirits of his life, Plante embarks on a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Traveling through a past littered with the ghosts of his ethnic lineage (French Canadian), his family heritage, his sexuality and his writing life, he searches to make sense of his spiritual longings and his physical desires." -
Growing Up On Academy Hill: Remembering My French-Canadian-American Papa
Biography of a father from his daughter's point of view, set in the context of Old Town, Maine, in the first half of the 20th century. From the author: "'Growing Up On Academy Hill' honors [King's] father who encouraged all six of his children to finish high school, a not-so-common achievement for those hard times. Recalling his ideology Annette wrote: 'My father was born with an inexhaustible desire to feel the earth passing through his fingers, to smell newly plowed fields warmed by sunlight. Every spring he pointed joyfully to new beginnings, and with enthusiasm taught us the basics of all beauty. From one corner of a small piece of land to the other, we observed as children, life through his eyes.' A brother's thoughts: 'We were not from a very touchy-feely" kind of family. However, our parents were not unloving, it was simply an unspoken love that was shared. I never heard Papa say, "I love you" to my mother, my sisters, or me. I never saw Papa kiss Mama. Yet the feeling of love was pervasive when I was a child.'" -
The Girl from Peyton Place: A Biography of Grace Metalious
A biography of the New Hampshire author, Grace Metalious, whose works include "Peyton Place," "The Tight White Collar," and "No Adam in Eden."
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Les Franco-Américains et leur héritage québécois
Une sélection de présentations du programme des "Franco-American and Quebec Heritage Series" de l'Université de l'ètat de New York (Albany) entre 1983 et 1985. Imprimé dans un numéro du périodique "Vie Française: Revue trimestrielle," publié par le Conseil de la Vie française an Amérique. Présentations dans le context de l'Amérique du nord sur (political atmospheres à QC and Washington), la langue française; la chanson folklorique; la cuisine; des objets culturelles; les écritures québécois et franco-américains; ainsi qu'un essai biographique sur Jack Kerouac. En quatre parties principales: langue; musique; culture matérielle; littérature. Composé des piièces suivants: Préface, èloise A. Briière "Les Francos au carrefour de deux mutations sociopolitiques," Dean R. Louder LANGUE "La langue française en Amérique du Nord," Joan Newburger Savitt "Langue populaire et religion au Québec : les jurons," Jean-Pierre Pichette MUSIQUE "Musique du Québec : musique en Nouvelle-France," Mireille Gagné "Bref aperçu de la chanson folklorique française en Amérique," Bernard Ouimet CULTURE MATèRIELLE "Le potentiel de l'objet dans le discours," Lise Boily "Les caractéristiques et l'évolution de la cuisine française nord-américaine," Marielle Cormier-Boudreau "La ceinture fléchée," Suzanne Galaise LITTèRATURE "L'autre littérature québécoise," Maurice Poteet "La poésie de langue française aux ètats-Unis : une lecture décontractée," Susan L. Rosenstreich "Littérature et mentalités populaires : le cas des Franco-Américains," èloise A. Briière "Jack Kérouac, Franco-Américain," Richard S. Sorrell -
La femme francophone aux États-Unis
Les actes du 16e congreès biennal de la Fédération Féminine Franco-Américaine de la Nouvelle-Angleterre tenu au College Rivier, Nashua, New Hampshire les 27, 28 et 29 avril 1984. Constituent égalemente le Bulletin de la Fédération Féminine Franco-Américaine, volumes xxxii, nos 3-4, été-automne 1984 et xxxiii, nos 1-2, hiver-printemps 1985. Présentations sur les femmes et la langue française, la littérature, le travail, la famille, et des autres sujets. Une série de témoignages personnels et autobiographiques. Divisé en quatre ateliers, avec des présentations supplémentaires. Contient le texte suivant: "Alice Lemieux-Lévesque: mendiante de l'amour," Claire Quintal "Présentation générale du Dr. Ellen Munley," Ellen Munley "Par ou commencer: le role de la meère comme éducatrice de la langue française," Yolande Petit Pétrin, Héleène Jeknavorian, Monique Letendre "Activités pour le développement du français au niveau pre-scolaire" "Témoinage de Paula Hollingworth Babin," Paula Hollingworth Babin "Témoinage de Mme Marcelle Arvantely," Marcelle Arvantely "L'informatique au service de l'enseignement du français," Charles Mitchell, avec Soeur Marthe Villeneuve, p.m., Georgette Pinette Barry, Louise Rondeau, et Denise Bérubé "La femme francophone dans le secteur professionnel," Léona Fournier Michaud, Louise Champigny Soltys "Témoinage de Charlotte LeBlanc," Charlotte LeBlanc "Témoinage d'Elaine L'Heureux Uzan," Elaine L'Heureux Uzan "Témoinage d'Irene Simoneau," Irene Simoneau "La femme dans les lettres françaises, québécoises, et franco-américaines," par Bernadette Bénard "Le rôle de la femme dans les romans d'André Malraux," Danielle Blais "Gabrielle Roy," Nelly Milet Mitchell "Corinne Rocheleau-Rouleau," Béatrice Belisle MacQueen (et Yvonne Gallant Martel) "Réflections sur la condition féminine," Denise LeBlanc-Bantey "Eloge de Ninette Fortin," Georgette Jean "Eloge de Marie-Reine Mikesell," Oda Beaulieu "Homélie du peère Paul Demers à l'occasion du seizieème congreès de la Fédération Féminine Franco-Américaine," Freère Paul R. Demers, s.c. -
The White Ethnic Catholic Woman
Essay describing the cultural, religious, and political outlooks of Catholic women in the northeastern and midwestern United States within the women's rights framework of the Women's Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Thoughts on women workers and family orientation among ethnic Catholics, and an appeal to emphasize cultural diversity within the Women's Movement. Attempts to qualify and dispel some general misunderstandings about ethnic - especially Eastern European - Catholic tradition. Paper presentation from the proceedings of "The Challenge of the Women's Movement: American Diversity" - a 1976 conference held in New York City by the American Jewish Committee's Institute on Pluralism and Group Identity. -
The Trade Union Woman
Essay addressing the ways in which the Women's Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s failed to address working class women. An appeal to combat stereotypes of working women. Emphasis on clerical workers. 1970s labor organizing and unionization efforts of women workers, particularly in the publishing industries of Boston, Chicago, and New York. Written by a labor organizer of Distributive Workers of America. Paper from the proceedings of "The Challenge of the Women's Movement: American Diversity" - a 1976 conference held in New York City by the American Jewish Committee's Institute on Pluralism and Group Identity. -
Differences in the Cognitive Styles of English and French Canadians
Psychological case study comparing the cognition, family traits, social qualities, and personal achievement scales of English and French Canadian students. Comparison of measurable cognitive style to ethnicity and economic status. Presented by scholars of the University of Manitoba at the 1974 meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association in Toronto, Ontario. -
Henriette, la capuche : The Portrait of a Frontier Midwife
Article on Henriette Blier Pelletier and her lifelong commitment to midwifery. A Québec-born transplant to the Madawaska Territory and the St. Luce Parish - later to be called Frenchville, Maine. Pelletier helped to deliver the children of rural women in their homes, with methods and skills learned through apprenticeship, around the turn of the century. Explanations of medical procedures, folk medicines, and other folk practices used by Pelletier and others in the region, as gleaned from oral history interviews with women in the St. John Valley. -
"I Learned Things Today That I Never Knew Before": Oral History at the Kitchen Table
Historiographical essay on the dearth and fragmentation of source material relevant to working class Franco Americans - especially Franco American women. Considers the published reality that is "la survivance" in relation to the lived realities of working-class Americans in the twentieth century. Arguing that oral history is unique in its ability to stand for identities that have been largely overlooked, the author conducts interviews with second-generation Franco American women in order, as she says, "to recover a history that conventional sources find difficult to access."Tags Community: Customs and Social Life, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Frenchtown ME, Gender and Sexuality, Gorham ME, Government and Politics, Labor History, Maine, Mills and Mill Work, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Religion, Social History, Westbrook ME -
The Family Networks and Geographic Mobility of French Canadian Immigrants in Early-Twentieth-Century Lowell, Massachusetts
From the author: "This study analyzes complex patterns of French Canadian immigrants' geographic mobility in their process of immigration to Lowell, Massachusetts, from 1900 to 1920. There has been relatively little systematic analysis of roles of family and kin in the process of migration.... This article addresses this gap and sheds light on a more complex and gender-specific perspective of French Canadian immigrants' southward movements by examining several issues of the migratory process including the geographic itineraries, occupational experiences, and migratory networks of French Canadian immigrants." -
Recherches en cours sur le français franco-américain
De Glottopol, la revue de sociolinguistique en ligne: "Jane Smith et Cynthia Fox font le point sur les analyses qu'elles ont déjà produites jusqu'ici, notamment la situation du franco-américain à l'heure actuelle, l'implantation des dialectes franco-canadiens et acadiens et le maintien ou la perte de leurs traits d'origine ; les conséquences linguistiques du contact avec l'anglais et de l'emploi réduit du français ; et enfin le franco-américain à l'intérieur du dynamisme du français nord-américain."Tags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Berlin NH, Biddeford ME, Bristol CT, Demography, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Gardner MA, Gender and Sexuality, Language and Linguistics, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Language and Linguistics, Southbridge MA, Van Buren ME, Waterville ME, Woonsocket RI -
Luckless, Witless, and Filthy-Footed : A Sociocultural Study and Publishing History Analysis of "The Lazy Boy"
Article on narrative motifs and patterns of historical development in the folkloric story of "The Lazy Boy" : a "male tale" traced internationally over nearly five hundred years of oral and written storytelling, through various iterations of characters and themes, and across linguistic boundaries. Author's critical analysis of "The Lazy Boy" used "to explore...questions in contemporary folk narrative research" (259). Emphasis on the roles of anger, stupidity, sexuality, and class in various of the story's versions; how the story's aspects vary in its telling between one cultural community and another. -
Older Women Doing Home Care : Exploitation or Ideal Job?
Article exploring the contexts and conditions of older age women as increasingly common personal assistance and home care aides in the twenty-first century. This occupation at the convergence of the growing need for home care workers in American homes, with the financial insecurity of older active adults in need of supplemental income, and who are able to provide social support and physical assistance to elders in need of care-taking. Author asks: "As older women are choosing, or being forced, to work later in life, is personal care work in their best interest?" (300). Article based on mixed-methods research - the Older Worker Study - including interviews with Maine home health workers: discussion of financial status, family status, work history, and attitudes toward age and experience. Written by a Professor of Social Work at the University of Maine. -
St. Anne as Symbol of Literacy in Québec Culture
Article on iconography surrounding Ste. Anne - the mother of Jesus' mother, Mary - in the Roman Catholic culture of Québec. Exploration's of the saint's importance for understanding Québec and its people more intimately, first in terms of popular belief in her healing capabilities, and otherwise in terms of her believed role in the education of Mary. Her function as a spiritual icon of education for Québec believers. Popular relationships to the saint and her imagery, and the historical development of her spiritual and artistic representations as intercessor, educator, mother, and patroness in Québec. Thoughts on the development of Ste. Anne as a symbol for education. -
Gendered Passages : French-Canadian Migration to Lowell, Massachusetts, 1900-1920
Book-length study on French Canadian migrants and migration to Lowell, Massachusetts at the beginning of the 20th century. The role of family in cross-border human movement, and the impact of migration and its social, economic, and labor dimensions on men, women, and children migrants in an industrial New England city. A study of French Canadian migration as an important and distinct continental population movement; the "socially expansive space[s]" created by migrants uniquely across Canada/USA borders. Emphasis on gender dynamics - their responses to migration, labor, and the family in transition, with explorations of the individual experiences of women and men. Includes study of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century social and economic contexts of Québec and Lowell, in-depth consideration of migration realities, and exploration of settlement in the United States through the lens of the paid and unpaid work experiences of French Canadian women and men. Contains many demographic data tables; illustrated in black and white photograph.Tags Boston MA, Caribou ME, Death and Disaster, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Greek Americans, Health and Wellness, Irish Americans, Labor History, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Portuguese Americans, Québec, Seattle WA, Social History, Sports and Leisure, Travel and Movement, Willimantic CT, Wisconsin -
Lewis Hine's Photography and Reform in Rhode Island
Article on Lewis Hine's photographic work for the National Child Labor Committee, its ties with the National Consumers' League, and the photographer's place among progressive and humanitarian labor reform in early twentieth-century Rhode Island. The child welfare concerns and women and child labor reform initiatives of Alice Hunt and others of the Rhode Island Consumers' League during that time. How Hine's photographs reflect the humanitarian concerns of the political organizations with which he was associated. Examples of Hine's Rhode Island work in the publications of the NCLC, and the ways in which Rhode Island evidence of poor working and living conditions became part of national conversations about child welfare and housing reform, immigration, and, as the author puts it, "the dignity of work" (49). Illustrated with black and white photographs. Includes a list of Lewis Hine photographs held at the Slater Mill Historic Site in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.Tags Chicago IL, Emigration and Immigration, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Italian Americans, Lonsdale RI, Mills and Mill Work, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Documentary, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- History -- Pictorial, Pawtucket RI, Pawtuxet River Valley, Photography, Providence RI, Rhode Island, Social History, Warren RI, Youth -
Margaret Chase Smith : The Persistence of a Political Archetype
Article describing the political method and image of former Maine Republican congresswoman, Margaret Chase Smith. The paradigmatic elements of her political tenure and their subsequent impact on the shapes of later Maine political campaigns and leadership styles. Particular emphasis on the successes of Maine moderates William Cohen, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins. The major elements of a "Margaret Chase Smith archetype" : independent leadership style and stance, support for national defense, and an identification with hard work and the working class. The ways in which Smith's successful followers in government imitated these elements, or how notable political defeats relate to a candidate's departures from her moderate archetype. Discussion of Smith's little acknowledged French Canadian roots.Tags Androscoggin County ME, Auburn ME, Augusta ME, Brunswick ME, Cape Elizabeth ME, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Hancock County ME, Kittery ME, Lewiston ME, Lincoln County ME, Lisbon Falls ME, Lisbon ME, Maine, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Government and Politics, Penobscot County ME, Saco ME, Sanford ME, Skowhegan ME, Waldo County ME, War, Washington DC, Waterville ME, Westbrook ME -
Working People in the Post-Industrial Age, 1961-Present
Article featuring selections of oral history interviews conducted with Rhode Island working people in the 1980s. Reflections on childhood in urban, industrial Rhode Island in the wake of industrial closures, changing demographic landscapes, and their impact on the state's collective identity. Stories of mill work in Pawtucket, the Narragansett Brewery, labor negotiations, the women's movement, and other social reform movements in Rhode Island in the 1960s and 1970s. Featured in Part Two of a Rhode Island History series entitled, "Working Lives: An Oral History of Rhode Island Labor."Tags Albion RI, Blackstone Valley RI, Central Falls RI, Emigration and Immigration, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Manville RI, Mills and Mill Work, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Pawtucket RI, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Rhode Island, Social History, United States, Youth -
Research Methods in Visual and Comparative Analysis : Transportation and Sociability in Saint-Henri, Quebec and Lowell, Massachusetts, 190545
Article analyzing how Montréal, Québec and Lowell, Massachusetts photography provides a means for exploring the relationship between patterns of transportation, public space, and social life through the early twentieth century. The history of North American urban streets as related to certain social, economic, and cultural elements of these North American cities. Suggestions for serious and selective approaches to studying photography together with historical texts. Discussion of theoretical implications for the use of photographs in historical research, with one collection of photographs from Montréal's Saint-Henri and four collections from Lowell's "Little Canada" as case studies. -
Une journaliste franco-américaine au seuil de l'avant-garde : l'espace des possibles d'Yvonne Le Maître (1876-1954)
Un article sur les oeuvres et la vie sociale d'une journaliste franco-américaine de Pierreville, Québec et Lowell, Massachusetts - Yvonne Le Maître - aux États-Unis, au Canada, et en Europe. La particularité de sa variété d'écriture dans le cadre de son travail comme journaliste, aussi de sa mobilité , "à partir de l'état actuel des connaissances sur les écrivaines canadiennces-françaises" (79). ù ses lettres et piièces journalistiques se sont préoccupés avec les thièmes critiques et artistiques du "futurisme," "cubisme," et la modernité. En quelle façon sa contexte franco-américaine - ou "franco"et "américain" - concerne les formes de son travail. Un accent sur l'impact de son temps passé dans les cercles sociaux internationaux, spécifiquement en Paris. -
Constant Turmoil : The Politics of Industrial Life in Nineteenth-Century New England
Book-length social history exploring the development of industry, industrial life, and the power of the politics surrounding them in southeastern New England - especially Fall River, Massachusetts - in the nineteenth century. Discussions of gender in the contexts of textile mill work and labor unionism; immigrant workforces, class consciousness, and inter-worker strife. Includes a critical assessment of primary sources consulted, as well as an appendix with demographic and economic data tables referred to in the text.Tags Business and Economics, Connecticut, Coventry RI, English Americans, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Irish Americans, Labor History, Lowell MA, Massachusetts, Meriden CT, Mills and Mill Work, New Bedford MA, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Government and Politics, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Norwalk CT, Providence RI, Quequechan River Valley, Rhode Island, Social History -
Writing an Ethnic Identity between Worlds : Claiming and Maintaining a Franco-American Self
Historical trends, social dynamics, family systems, and psychological traits characteristic of Franco Americans and their communities. Examples from the author's life and family history; relevant psychological research; scholarship in Franco American studies. Observations of the psychosocial implications of the cultural notion of "la survivance," New England Franco Americans' dense communities, and their proximity to Canadian places of ancestry in Québec and Acadia. Includes descriptive content from interviews with several Franco American poets and writers: Beverly Matherne, Darrell Bourque, Jim Bishop, Rhea Côté Robbins, Denise Duhamel, Christine Gelineau, Chad Parenteau, David Surette, and Paul Marion.Tags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Language and Linguistics, Leominster MA, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Essay, Nonfiction -- Ethnic Studies, Nonfiction -- Psychology, Nonfiction -- Social Sciences, Poetry, Québec, Religion, Webster MA, Worcester MA -
Traditional French Canadian Family Life Patterns and Thier Implications for Social Services in Vermont
Behavioral and family life patterns of Franco Americans in northeast Vermont. Based on, and compared with, various research conducted on family characteristics and individual roles within French Canadian families in rural Québec. Considerations of traditional gender roles, parental and child duties, culturally reinforced beliefs, and some of the structures that either support or challenge these patterns among Vermont Franco Americans. The implications of these characteristics and behaviors for healthcare, caretaking, and other social services; suggestions for social service workers in providing for and communicating with Vermont Franco Americans. Later published and featured in "A Franco-American Overview: Volume 3." -
L'émigration des Québécois aux États-Unis de 1840 à 1930
Un petit livre qui présente un compte général, des chiffres démographique, et un étude historique sur l'émigration québécoise à la Nouvelle-Angleterre et le Midwest dans le 19ième siiècle et début du 20ième. Rédigé à partir d'un point de vue du Québec. Présentée avec des tableaux et graphiques, des photos de paysages et de publications passées, et statistiques provenant de diverses études antérieures. Documentation du Conseil de la langue française, Gouvernement du Québec. Contient les sections suivantes: Introduction I - Les débuts du dépeuplement L'enquête de 1849 L'enquête de 1857 II - La montée du mouvement Des chiffres, mais... Les paroisses nationales et le mode de vie des Franco-Américains III - Le sommet (1880-1890) Une enquête dans le comté du Champlain Des réactions dans le milieu d'accueil IV - Déclin et renversement du mouvement Les Franco-Américains du début du XXe siiècle: une population à prédominance masculine et qui vieillit Les rentrées massives au pays et l'immigration américaine Conclusion BibliographieTags Albany NY, Biddeford ME, Brockton MA, Brunswick ME, Burlington VT, Central Falls RI, Cohoes NY, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Fall River MA, Fitchburg MA, Gender and Sexuality, Holyoke MA, Kansas, Lake Linden MI, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Maine, Manchester NH, Manville RI, Meriden CT, Minnesota, Missouri, Nashua NH, New Bedford MA, New England, New Hampshire, New York, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Immigration, North Adams MA, Northampton MA, Photography, Québec, Rhode Island, Rutland VT, Southbridge MA, Spencer MA, Springfield MA, St. Albans VT, Taunton MA, Troy NY, US Midwest, Waterbury CT, Waterville ME, Winooski Falls VT, Wisconsin, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
Diversity and Franco-American Identity Politics
Article on theories of assimilation and group identity politics in the United States. Franco Americans in Maine as a cultural case study. Outline of ways in which rethinking cultural identity and cultural difference might give new insight into multiculturalism more generally. Brief analysis of six specific aspects of Franco American culture commonly acknowledged - language, class, gender, age, religion, schooling - and citation of examples that complicate their significance for Franco American cultural identity. Reference to the 1992-1993 WBLM "Frenchie" scandal; 1991 Bates College language rule; Le Club Calumet refusal of a woman member in the early 1990s; and certain other events. -
"Somebody's Got to Pick Eggs" : Family Storytelling About Work
Article in performance studies exploring the ways in which "family storytelling" performs, addresses, and complicates cultural markers among and between family members. How ideas of race, class, gender, and sexuality appear in family storytelling, especially as such stories approach the topic of work. Study focuses mainly on a conversation between the author-interviewer and the Gagnons: a large, working-class, Franco American family in rural Maine. -
Themes in the Training of Culturally Effective Psychotherapists
Exploration of issues regarding ethnicity and cultural identity in psychotherapy. Description of 8-week program designed to help counselors and therapists address issues in an ethnic context. Includes an outline of program techniques and activities, remarks on the pilot program participants, and an analysis of program results. -
Journalisme et création romanesque en Nouvelle-Angleterre francophone, 1876-1936
Essai qui identifie les plus anciennes des romans québec-américains, et qui explore les façons dont ces écrits refliètent l'expérience québec-américain vers le début du XXe siiècle. Comprend les romans suivants: "Jeanne la fileuse," d'Honoré Beaugrand; "Les deux testaments," d'Anna Duval-Thibault; "Canuck," de Camille Lessard-Bissonette; "L'innocente victime," d'Adélard Lambert; et "Mirbah," d'Emma Port-Joli. Les dates de ces écrits, les contextes historiques de leur publication; des thièmes de la classe, la nationalité, la sexualité, etc., qu'ils transmettent. -
Sunset Trailer Park
Essay and stories of childhood, family life, class, and community in a New Jersey trailer park in the 1970s. Contains a mother's and son's thoughts on their lives in that time and place, their understandings of some of the outside perceptions of "Sunset Trailer Park," in the city of Bayonne, and of popular perceptions of trailer parks in general. How racial and sexual identities were observed by author in his childhood community. Featured in a collection of critical writings centered around the term "white trash" - its contexts and connotations. Also featured in "Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality : The Big Questions," edited by Naomi Zack, Laurie Shrage, and Crispin Sartwell (Malden MA: Blackwell, 1998). -
La franco-américanie ou le Québec d'en bas
Essai sur certains rélations entre l'émigration québécoise envers les Etats-Unis, la prolétarisation d'une population francophone nord-américaine, et la montée du nationalisme au Quebec à la seconde moitié du XIXe siiècle. Comment la classe ouvriière émigrante dans des collectivités comme Woonsocket, Rhode Island, nous aident à comprendre la franco-américanie et l'histoire du Québec. L'auteur utilise des ressources écrites et orales. De l'auteur: "Par l'exemple de Woonsocket au Rhode Island, l'auteur tente d'illustrer les caractières historiques de cette partie majeure de la diaspora québécoise en Amérique du Nord; preuve de l'immense influence au XIXe siiècle, de la République américaine sur le développement d'un Québec moderne." (résumé) From the author: "...Through the example of Woonsocket in Rhode Island, the author illustrâtes the major elements of Franco-American history. As the most important component of the Québécois diaspora in North America, the New England French populations provide strong evidence, in the nineteenth century, of the enduring influence of the American Republic on the shaping of a modem day Québec" (abstract).Tags Albion RI, Biddeford ME, Blackstone River Valley, Community: Customs and Social Life, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Farming and Agriculture, Gender and Sexuality, Gilbertville MA, Greenville NH, Holyoke MA, Lawrence MA, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Manville RI, Mills and Mill Work, New Bedford MA, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Immigration, Pawtucket RI, Québec, Social History, Southbridge MA, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
'down the Plains' : Love and Language Through Three Generations of Franco-American Women
Autobiographical magazine piece by a writer from Waterville, Maine. Reflections on her women ancestors and the Waterville neighborhood where they once lived, "down the Plains." Thoughts on the contemporary Franco-American woman experience, with a particular emphasis on the writer's relationship with the French language. Includes personal and other photographs. Featured in Portland Magazine's Maine Ethnicity issue, among articles about Italian, Greek, Polish, Lithuanian, Native American, and other Maine communities. -
Re-Evaluating the Role of "National" Identities in the American Catholic Church at the Turn of the Twentieth Century : The Case of Les Petites Franciscaines De Marie (PFM)
Some perspectives on North American, French Canadian Catholic female religious at the beginning of the 20th century. How studying these nuns in New England adds to an understanding about French Canadian ethnic identity and its real function among New England parishes. Challenges to a specific French Canadian, Franco American ethnoreligious discourse historically dominated by male priests. Case study of les Petites Franciscaines de Marie (PFM), or the Little Franciscans of Mary, whose religious order was established in Worcester, Massachusetts. From the author: "[T]his essay will consider how shifting our focus from male church officials to female religious can alter our understanding of the relationship between religious and ethnic identities" (516). "Did female religious side with male priests in defending their ethnic turf against bishops whom they perceived as hostile and assimilationist? Alternatively, could nuns not have cared less about connections between their religious identity and their ethnic identity? Or did they understand the relationship between the two in some other way completely?" (518) -
Semi-Centennial Celebration History, 1922-1972 : Fifty Years of Progress
A history of the Augusta, Maine Franco American social organization, Le Club Calumet, published in honor of its accomplishments and in celebration of the 50th year since its 1922 inception. Presents an introduction to French Canadian immigration to Maine. Includes a detailed account of the settlement of a French-speaking community near the mills at the north end of Augusta. Recounts the birth of the social organization and charts its development up to the present, including names and captioned images. A brief club necrology, portraits and profiles of past club presidents, and a 1972 "Active Membership List." Advertisements from local sponsors of the book's publication.Tags Augusta ME, Business and Economics, Clubs and Societies, Community: Customs and Social Life, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Gender and Sexuality, Maine, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Clubs and Societies, Nonfiction -- Sports, Religion, Sand Hill ME, Social History, Sports and Leisure -
Mission catholique et française en Nouvelle-Angleterre
Une collection de discours, sermons, des papiers, des émissions de radio, articles de journaux, les manifestes, et d'autres présentations sur le thième de soutenir et de préserver la religion catholique et la culture franco-américaine dans le vingtiième siiècle. Présentée à l'origine dans différentes villes en Nouvelle-Angleterre et au Québec, mais représentée ici en grande partie par des paroles et écritures de l'auteur, le curé Thomas-Marie Landry, à Fall River, MA. Des opinions concernant les thièmes de la foi, l'ethnicité et la citoyenneté.
Apriès l'avant-propos, les écritures qui suivent:
"Garde le dépot que l'on t'a confié" (sermon, 1942) Réflexions sur le role du pretre chez les Franco-Américains (allocution, 1942) La situation actuelle des Franco-Américains de la Nouvelle-Angleterre (rapport, 1946) "La véritable situation des Franco-Américans de la Nouvelle Angleterre" (rapport, 1952), M. Laure B. Lussier "Y aura-t-il demain une vie franco-américaine en Nouvelle-Angleterre?" (rapport, 1952) La situation franco-américaine (rapport, 1955) Le Franco-Américain de la Nouvelle-Angleterre en cette fin d'année 1958 (causerie) Aux origines de notre destin français (discours, 1958) Les minorités françaises sont-elles viables en Amérique du Nord? (causerie, 1960) Les conditions essentielles à notre survie (discours, 1949) Notre vie franco-américaine (doctrine, 1949) Un manifeste (1955) Solidarité ethnique et fierté nationale (rapport, 1957) Solidarité ethnique et éducation franco-américaine (rapport, 1957) Selon quels sens faut-il diriger l'évolution de notre vie franco-américaine? (discours, 1959) Le clergé franco-américain et les besoins de l'heure présente (article, 1949) La paroisse franco-américaine (sermon, 1952) La mission de la femme franco-américaine d'aujourd'hui (Projet de Manifeste, 1951) Pourquoi cette Fédération féminine franco-américaine? (étude, 1951) La jeunesse franco-américaine à la croisées des chemins (discours, 1948) A quelle école envoyer mon enfant? (conseils, 1950) Conseils à de jeunes étudiantes (discours, 1955) A nos amis, les Artisans (sermon, 1950) La Société des Artisans, les Franco-Américains et le Comité d'Orientation (discours, 1950) Et vous, chers Canado-américains (sermon, 1952) Le journal franco-américain (temoignage, article, 1955) Radio française et vie franco-américaine (1957) Leçons de la fete patronale (allocution, 1945) "Reflexions et remerciements" (allocution, 1954) Trois petits mots d'ordre (allocution, 1954) Voeux et souhaits de Bonne Année (Message du Nouvel An, 1954) Hommages et Voeux (1955) Quelques "remontrances" (causerie, 1956) Souhaits de Bonne Annee (causerie, 1957) La sainte de France (hommage, 1956) Les Saints Martyrs Canadiens (sermon, 1950) Le prêtre (sermon, 1955) Le prêtre-religieux (sermon, 1956) Un curé de chez-nous (éloge, 1947) Et un vicaire (éloge, 1952) Nos religieuses (sermon, 1955) Médecins franco-américains (éloge, 1951) Le docteur Georges A. Boucher (éloge, 1956) Nos magistrats (hommage, 1957) Adieu, chers paroissiens (sermon, 1957)Tags Boston MA, Brockton MA, Burlington VT, California, Canada, Community: Customs and Social Life, Connecticut, Demography, Education, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Florida, France, Gender and Sexuality, Hartford CT, Lewiston ME, Louisiana, Lowell MA, Maine, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, New England, New York, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Religion, Portland ME, Providence RI, Québec, Religion, Rhode Island, Springfield MA, Vermont, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA, Youth -
The Laborers of Manchester, New Hampshire : The Role of Family and Ethnicity in Adjustment to Industrial Life
An essay on how Manchester, New Hampshire, mill workers "[adapted] to industrial conditions" in the early twentieth century, taking special consideration for the relationships between work, ethnicity, family, and their influences upon one another (250). A certain history of the Amoskeag Corporation of Manchester - its programs of worker welfare and efficiency, their effectiveness, the populations of workers to which they were directed, and their identifiable ambivalence toward ethnic diversity. Worker agency in an industrial milieu: the mobility of laborers and their families between Manchester and other New England industrial communities; the importance of ethnicity and kinship ties in the workplace. The sources and impacts of the labor strike at Amoskeag in 1922.Tags Brunswick ME, Danielson CT, English Americans, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Family, Gender and Sexuality, German Americans, Greek Americans, Irish Americans, Labor History, Lawrence MA, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, New England, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Polish Americans, Scottish Americans, Swedish Americans, Woonsocket RI -
Raisons qui militent en faveur du choix d'un évêque franco-américain à Fall River
Quelques arguments en faveur d'élire un prêtre franco-américain à l'évêché de Fall River, au Massachusetts. Considérations de l'utilisation des langues dans le diocièse, la démographie de la paroisse, et certaines autres facteurs culturels qu'un prêtre de certaines connaissances servirait bien.Tags Attleboro MA, Boston MA, Burlington VT, Community: Customs and Social Life, Dodgeville MA, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Gender and Sexuality, German Americans, Hartford CT, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Language and Linguistics, Maine, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, New Bedford MA, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Religion, North Attleborough MA, Polish Americans, Portland ME, Portuguese Americans, Providence RI, Religion, Somerset MA, Springfield MA, Syrian Americans, Taunton MA, Vermont -
Children's and Mothers' Wage Labor in Three Eastern U.S. Cities, 1880-1920
Article on the dynamics of class and ethnicity as related to the labor of women and children in the northeastern United States around the turn of the century. Statistical relationship between family and economy in urban, industrialized America during a period of heavy immigration. Emphasis on child labor as varying by type of family, ethnicity, and the relevant legal structures of different locales. A gradual replacement of children's wage labor by the employment of women. Statistics based on U.S. census data from 1880, 1900, and 1920. From the author: "The battle over child labor fought in the United States at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries pitted emerging understandings about children's well-being against those of the rest of the family....This article explores the variations in children's and mothers' labor in three very different settings: Pittsburgh, Fall River, and Baltimore between 1880 and 1920. It finds that child labor and education legislation resulted in a decrease in children's employment and increased the likelihood that mothers would take paid jobs."Tags African Americans, Baltimore MD, Business and Economics, Chicago IL, Demography, Education, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Family, Fishing, Gender and Sexuality, German Americans, Government and Politics, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Labor History, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mills and Mill Work, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Demography, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh PA, Polish Americans, Portuguese Americans, Sharpsburg PA, Slavic Americans, Youth -
Kerouac in Black and White
An essay in exploration of Jack Kerouac's French-Canadianness in twentieth-century America. How digging into this particular ethnicity, time, and place shapes how one considers Kerouac's late-life ideas about race, his relationship with religion, or the stylings of his writing. Blaise considers Kerouac alongside other fiction writers (William Faulkner, Theodore Dreiser, William Saroyan, Thomas Wolfe) that, to Blaise, have engaged their fiction in similar conversations with both sentimentality and American diversity. From the author of "I Had a Father: A Post-Modern Autobiography" and "Lunar Attractions." Also published in "Selected Essays" by Clark Blaise (Emeryville, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2008). -
The Quaint Canadians of New England Towns; Among the Young Girls Fine Dress Is a Mania. All Their Lives the Women Work Hard, but the Native Tongue and Religion Are Not Allowed to be Forgotten.
Descriptive, ethnographic New York Times feature article on "French-Canadian women" from youth to old age in New England. The author considers the Franco-American working woman a peculiarly American character, and the French-Canadian American mother an inevitable barrier to assimilation. -
Franco-Americans and the International Paper Company Strike of 1910
The case of a 1910 paper industry labor strike - its success among the millworkers of Livermore Falls, Maine, and its relative failure among those of nearby Rumford Falls. Certain observations of attitudes espoused by Franco Americans toward labor unions and striking. A brief historical overview of New England Franco American participation in labor unions and the pulp and paper industry, including comments on factors of place and gender. Social contexts of Livermore Falls and Rumford Falls around the time of the concerned strike, and the impact of the strike on the communities in both towns. Includes local demographic data.Tags Androscoggin River Valley, Business and Economics, Chesterville ME, Chisholm ME, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Jay ME, Labor History, Latvian Americans, Lawrence MA, Lithuanian Americans, Livermore Falls ME, Livermore ME, Lowell MA, Maine, Manchester NH, Mexico ME, Mills and Mill Work, New Bedford MA, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Polish Americans, Riley ME, Rumford Falls ME, Rumford ME, Scottish Americans, Social History, Woonsocket RI -
AGAINST ALL ODDS: LIFE ON THE HILL: Places that provided common heritage gone or declining
Part 4 of 4 of the October, 1991, series entitled, "Against all odds: Life on the 'Hill'" - a close look into Augusta, Maine's Sand Hill (Sandhill) neighborhood. Part 4 includes two pieces: one acknowledging the vast changes that have taken place in the community since the early 20th century, the other acknowledging the still present voice of Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club, that has undergone its own sort of struggle. -
Calumet Club faces rights hearing
A Readfield, Maine, woman who was denied membership at Le Club Calumet - a men's Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine - appealed to the Maine Human Rights Commission on account of discrimination. -
Backing Calumet Club
Letter to the editor regarding the 1989 Le Club Calumet controversy sparked by a woman's seeking entry into the all-male club. Offers a measure of support for the Augusta, Maine, Club in its rejection of the woman's request. -
Private clubs can exclude
Letter to the editor on the subject of Augusta, Maine's Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, excluding women from its membership. -
Do it this way, Nancy
Letter to the editor chastising Nancy Albert Ellis, the woman who in 1989 sought entry into the all-male Franco-American social club, Le Club Calumet, of Augusta, Maine. -
Club is like a private home
Letter to the editor questioning the motives of Nancy Albert Ellis, the woman who in 1989 sought entry into an all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, of Augusta, Maine. -
Calumet should stay as it is
Letter to the editor in support of the 1989 decision of Augusta, Maine's Le Club Calumet to reject the membership application of a woman, Nancy Albert Ellis, and remain an all-male organization. -
Calumet Club loses Round 1
The Maine Human Rights Commission ruled that Le Club Calumet, an all-male Franco American social club in Augusta, Maine, discriminated when it refused membership to a woman applicant. The article contains commentary from arguing members of the Club and the MHRC councilpersons who voted unanimously to label officially the Club's decision as discrimination based on sex. -
Some Calumet Club members may vote to admit women, attorney says
After the Maine Human Rights Commission ruled that she had been discriminated against when denied membership at Le Club Calumet, a Franco American social club, Nancy Albert Ellis considered filing charges in court. Many members of the Club, in her support, claimed that they would vote to change club legislation, allowing the full admission and membership of women. -
Calumet's first-class women
Letter to the editor lauding the women who volunteer at the all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, in Augusta, Maine, without becoming club members. Comes in response to the controversy of a woman whose attempt at membership in the Club was rejected, and who appealed to the Maine Human Rights Commission to prove the Club's unlawful discrimination based on her sex. -
'Le Club' is masculine
Letter to the editor that argues (tongue-in-cheek?) how the gender of the French term "le club" is reason enough for Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, to justify rejecting a woman's application for membership in 1989. -
Ellis' win will destroy club
Letter to the editor arguing that if Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine, is forced by the Maine courts to admit women, and is thereby ruled a "public" organization, it will no longer be able to limit its membership based on ethnicity. -
Was it sex discrimination?
Letter to the editor that asks whether discrimination based on gender is different from discrimination based on ethnicity, and if Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine, is not allowed by its private status to limit its membership based on both sex and ethnicity. -
Calumet members make no decision yet on admitting women
After the Maine Human Rights Commission deemed Le Club Calumet - an Augusta, Maine, Franco-American men's club - discriminatory for not admitting women as members, the Club was forced to decide if it would change its policies regarding membership or face litigation. -
La femme franco-américaine
Un recueil d'essais sur la femme franco-américaine tant qu'individuelle ainsi qu'un partie d'une collectivité sociale - de la France vers le Canada, du Québec vers les États-Unis. Certains expériences de femmes franco-américaines, et l'examen des situations historiques particuliières des femmes dans la culture franco-américaine. Du texte : "La femme franco-américaine a toujours vécu dans l'ombre: dans l'ombre du clocher, dans l'ombre de la salle de classe, dans l'ombre de la salle de travail à l'usine, dans l'ombre de curé, dans l'ombre de son mari. Le moment était arrivé, nous semble-t-il, de l'en sortir pour étaler au grand jour son apport indispensable à la vie et à la survie de la Franco-Américanie" (iii).Tags Acadians, Canada, Central Falls RI, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Family, Fitchburg MA, France, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Leominster MA, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, Montréal QC, Nashua NH, New England, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthology, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, Religion, Rhode Island, Social History, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
Club is victim of bias
Maurice Violette, past president of Augusta, Maine's Le Club Calumet and author of "The Franco-Americans" (New York: Vantage Press, 1976), writes about the bias he sees in the Kennebec Journal's editorial commentary on the Club controversy of 1989-1992. -
Teaching the wrong lesson
Letter to the editor in response to Nancy Albert Ellis' objection to being refused membership in Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American social club in Augusta, Maine. Letter writer cites the Club's right to legislate as a private organization, even to limit membership based on one's citizenship. -
Kiss old Calumet goodbye
Letter to the editor criticizing the comments of Le Club Calumet's legal representation, Norman Bourget, and giving thanks to the 1989 decision by the Maine Human Rights Commission declaring the Club discriminatory for its refusal to admit women as members. -
Private club made public
Letter to the editor claiming that the Maine Human Rights Commission discriminated against the Franco-American community when it ruled that Le Club Calumet was a public organization and should admit women as members - or else be taken to court on account of its discriminatory bylaws. -
Calumet faces big problems
Letter to the editor acknowledging the problems that would potentially arise for Le Club Calumet - an all-male Franco American social club in Augusta, Maine - if it were declared public by the judicial system, and thus forced by law to admit women as members. -
Le Club Calumet files complaint
Le Club Calumet seeks approval from the court for its decision to exclude women from membership in its organization: one that the Maine Human Rights Commission deemed "public," and thus discriminatory in its sexed bylaws. -
Calumet Club claims law permits limited private ethnic membership
Article on public comments made by Le Club Calumet following its lawsuit against the Maine Human Rights Commission. Maine HRC previously ruled that the Club was breaking a law of public organization when it refused to admit a woman as a member. -
Rights panel sues le Club Calumet
The Maine Human Rights Commission fired back at Le Club Calumet by filing a lawsuit of its own (in response to the Club's suit against the HRC) contending that the Club discriminated in its refusal of membership to a woman based on her sex. -
Why sue Club Calumet?
Letter to the editor questioning the Maine Human Rights Commission's decision to sue le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine. MHRC asserted the unlawful discrimination inherent to the Club's bylaws that restrict membership based on sex. -
Calumet claims bias against French women legal; rights panel disagrees
Article on the arguments heard in Kennebec County Superior Court, Augusta, Maine, in a case of the Maine Human Rights Commission versus Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American fraternal organization. -
Calumet told it must let women join: Calumet loses bid to keep women out
In a 1991 ruling, the Kennebec County Superior Court decided that Le Club Calumet, a Franco American fraternal organization in Augusta, Maine, was a public organization , and therefore could not exclude women from its membership - as it had done for 69 years, and as had been the provisions of its bylaws. -
Le Club Calumet will appeal order for female membership
Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, decided to appeal a decision of the Kennebec County Superior Court that deemed the Club a public organization, and thus prevented by law from excluding women from its historically all-male membership. -
Cease and desist, Le Club Calumet
Editorial piece arguing that Augusta, Maine, fraternal organization Le Club Calumet, appealing a ruling that charged it with sex discrimination, should reconsider its position and "alter its men-only policy for membership." -
Out of Work : The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts
A history of unemployment and the unemployed in Massachusetts during the hundred years previous to the stock market collapse of 1929. A study of the jobless - their backgrounds, conditions, and the social and political climate of their day - in Boston, in the state of Massachusetts, and in the United States more broadly. Attempts to fill a gap in scholarship on Massachusetts unemployment before 1930. Presents some untapped research data from that earlier period as a preface and fitting segue to a segment on the federal economic and labor reforms of the 1930s. Includes charts, graphs, and maps with respect to Massachusetts labor and unemployment statistics. Unemployment with respect to age, gender, naturalization status, the state of organized labor, and urbanity or rurality. Contains a rare sketch of Boston and New York City social justice activist, Urbain J. Ledoux - a.k.a. "Mr. Zero."Tags Boston MA, Brockton MA, Business and Economics, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Labor History, Lynn MA, Massachusetts, Mills and Mill Work, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Portuguese Americans, Social History, Springfield MA, Youth -
Calumet Club vows to fight court ruling
After being forced by the Kennebec County Superior Court to admit women members, Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, objected, and claimed to consider filing an appeal. -
Age of equality
Editorial piece arguing that Le Club Calumet should, as directed by the Kennebec County Superior Court, admit women as members, and discontinue the membership policy of its Augusta, Maine, establishment that is arguably based in part on sex discrimination. -
Out of kitchen for good
Letter to the editor written in response to a guest column penned by Augusta, Maine performer, Jean-Paul Poulain. This letter addresses the need for cultural sensitivity, but argues that women must be involved - including at the level of membership in the historically all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet. -
Woman defends 'men only'
Letter to the editor rebuffing a previous letter written by Peg Ricker (6 September 1991), and supporting the all-male membership of Augusta, Maine, social club, Le Club Calumet, for the sake of "gender bonding," among other reasons. -
And one who's still waiting
A commentary on the headline article of this issue, "Women in the Clubs," that elaborates a discussion of Nancy Albert Ellis. In 1988, Ellis was refused membership to the all-male Franco American social club, Le Club Calumet, of Augusta, Maine, and began a course of litigation that lasted a number of years. -
An Open Letter to Whom It May Concern: A Rebuttal to Calumet Club Superior Court's Judgment
A lengthy open letter concerning the potential effects of Kennebec County Superior Court's ruling against Le Club Calumet, charging it to begin admitting women into the membership ranks of its historically all-male establishment in Augusta, Maine. The letter's primary concern is the court's designation of the Club as a "public accommodation," not a private one, that might potentially be forced to admit any person without regard for ethnicity. -
Not private vs. public
A letter to the editor in response to Maurice Violette's "An Open Letter..." (9 October 1991), contesting Violette's fixation on the matter of "public vs. private" as the keystone of the debate surrounding Le Club Calumet's recent Kennebec County, Maine, courtroom loss, and its being forced by law to admit women to the ranks of its membership. -
Judge rejects Ellis' request for lien on Le Club Calumet
Kennebec County (Maine) Superior Court judge rejects Nancy Ellis' bid to attach a lien to Calumet Club property in the case that, if her lawsuit against the club is victorious, the club disbands, sells land, and refuses coverage of her legal fees. -
State's highest court to hear Calumet appeal
Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, appealed to the Maine Supreme Court to overturn a superior court decision forcing it to change its organizational bylaws and admit women as members. -
L'identité culturelle : les Franco-Américains de la Nouvelle-Angleterre
Une description des moeurs et de la vie franco-américaine dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre. Une exploration de la survivance dans le contexte d'une histoire précise et d'un avenir imprévisible pour un peuple francophone aux Etats-Unis. Etude sociologique compréhensif des Franco-Américains, du dix-neuviième siiècle jusqu'à 1983.Tags Amherst MA, Boston MA, Bristol CT, Burlington VT, California, Community: Customs and Social Life, Connecticut, Demography, Dover NH, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Florida, Gender and Sexuality, Hartford CT, Holyoke MA, Illinois, Indiana, Journalism, Language and Linguistics, Lewiston ME, Louisiana, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nashua NH, New England, New Jersey, New York, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Social Sciences, Nonfiction -- Sociology, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Portland ME, Providence RI, Religion, Rhode Island, Southbridge MA, Springfield MA, Texas, United States, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Woonsocket RI -
Calumet appeal argued in court
Le Club Calumet, a Franco American men's social club in Augusta, Maine, appealed to the Maine Supreme Court a decision made by the superior court that would have forced the club to admit women as members. This article covers the beginning of the arguments heard at the highest court in Maine. -
Maine woman seeks entry into ethnic club
A Boston Globe update on the Maine Supreme Court case of the Maine Human Rights Commission and Nancy Ellis vs. Le Club Calumet, regarding the issue of a private accommodation limiting its membership based on ethnic and sex discriminations and if, as Ellis contends, the Club is in fact a public, not private, organization. -
Calumet hurt its own
Letter to the editor opposed to the Maine Supreme Court's decision in favor of Le Club Calumet barring women from membership in its Augusta, Maine, organization. -
Ellis wants media attention
Letter to the editor questioning the motives of Nancy Albert Ellis in her filing suit against Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, for refusing her a membership based on her sex - a suit she eventually lost in the Maine Supreme Court. -
Court rules Calumet can exclude women
In May, 1992, the Maine State Supreme Court ruled that Le Club Calumet, a Franco-American men's club in Augusta, Maine, can exclude women as members from its organization. This decision was based on the court's finding that the Club was, in fact, a private accommodation, not a public one. Laws regarding the private status of ethnicity-based social clubs allow such clubs to limit their membership based on a number of unique characteristics - including sex. -
Anti-Calumet attitude
Letter to the editor berating Augusta, Maine's Kennebec Journal for its selective coverage of the controversy involving Le Club Calumet and Nancy Ellis - a battle over gender and club membership that landed both parties in the Maine Supreme Court. -
Equal or a step down?
Letter to the editor questioning the meaning of the phrase "equal rights" as it has been used in the conversation between Nancy Albert Ellis and the all-male Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine. -
French women must unite
Letter to the editor calling upon "all women of French ancestry" to unite in response to the Maine Supreme Court's decision to allow the Calumet Club of Augusta, Maine, to refuse membership to women. -
Freedom of association
Letter to the editor that claims to be in support of the Maine Supreme Court decision to protect the all-male Le Club Calumet's freedom of association. -
Le Club Calumet suspends brothers for backing Ellis
Nancy Albert Ellis' father and uncle, Demetrius and Henry Albert, were suspended by Le Club Calumet after refusing to appear before their executive board to discuss their public support of Ellis' controversial bid for membership in the all-male, Augusta, Maine, club. -
Readfield woman denied Calumet membership will not appeal
Nancy Albert Ellis, a woman whose membership application to Le Club Calumet in Augusta, Maine, was denied based on her sex, and who lost a legal battle with the Club that was taken all the way to the Maine Supreme Court, does not appeal the decision to a higher court. -
Men should do it all
Letter to the editor calling for gender equality in cutural organizations. This comes in support of Nancy Albert Ellis, whose bid to join the Calumet Club in Augusta, Maine, was rejected, and ultimately denied in a decision by the Maine Supreme Court. -
Club lost peace pipe
Letter to the editor berating Le Club Calumet of Augusta, Maine, for its refusal of Nancy Albert Ellis' membership bid on account of her sex. The author seeks a peaceful resolution to what became a controversial issue surrounding the inclusion of women in Club ranks. -
Saving Franco culture
Letter to the editor calling upon Franco Americans and Le Club Calumet to look past the controversial 1992 Maine Supreme Court case regarding club identity and gender, and to consider the best way of using all available resources for cultural preservation. -
Readings for Writers
A collection of writings in a cultural studies reader, introduced with an essay from the instructor. Compiled for a University of Maine course in English composition. Available at the Franco-American Centre, Orono, Maine. -
Mestisaje
A collection of writings in a cultural studies reader, introduced with an essay from the instructor. Compiled for a University of Maine course in English composition. Available at the Franco-American Centre, Orono, Maine. -
Yeast
A collection of writings in cultural studies, compiled for a University of Maine course in English composition. Available at the Franco-American Centre, Orono, Maine. -
Into the Heart of Maine : A Look at Dexter's Franco-American Community
The history of French Canadian immigration and Franco American community building in the town of Dexter, Maine. Illustrated with photos and quotes from oral interviews. From the text: "The study of French-Canadian immigration is generally centered around New England's larger cities; small towns receiving migrants are usually overlooked. This article examines the French-Canadian population in one such rural town. Dexter, Maine, serves as a microcosm of larger 'petits canadas' throughout New England, but it also projects a different type of ethnic experience. Dorothy A. Blanchard discusses the rewards and the hardships of the Franco experence in rural Maine."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Community: Customs and Social Life, Demography, Dexter ME, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Farming and Agriculture, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Maine, Mills and Mill Work, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Local, Québec, Religion, Sebasticook River Valley, Sports and Leisure, Violence -
Grade, Sex, and Ethnic Differences in Self-Concept of Franco-American and Anglo Primary Grade Students
Studies conducted by University of Maine researchers on early school-age children. Observations and evaluations of psychological self-concept. Studies measure age, sex, and ethnic heritage factors and present data and observations based on these three categories. Mentions the lack of research done on Franco American socialization, despite the amount of information on the socialization of other immigrant ethnic groups. From the authors: "The research reported here was designed to investigate grade, sex, and ethnic background differences in self-concept of 301 kindergarten and first grade children from Anglo, Franco-American, and mixed parentage families. Higher self-concept scores were found on three subscales of the Self-Appraisal Inventory (SAI) for children with two Anglo parents and lowest scores for children of mixed ethnic parentage. No sex differences were found and first graders scored higher than kindergarteners on the General Scale. Implications for research and education are discussed." -
Franco-American Women Awakening a Silenced Culture
E-news article on women reviving Franco culture in Maine. -
The First Franco-Americans : New England Life Histories from the Federal Writers' Project, 1938-1939
Selective reprinting of Franco American oral interviews from the late 1930s' Federal Writers' Project. Brief historical introductions to Manchester NH, Old Town ME, Woonsocket RI, and Barre VT, followed by the interviews with workers that took place in those cities. Rare voices from Franco American communities of this time period, in the aftermath of the Great Depression. A publication in the social and oral history traditions of Ann Banks's "First-Person America" and Studs Terkel's "Hard Work."Tags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Alcohol and Drugs, Barre VT, Community: Customs and Social Life, Death and Disaster, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Folklore, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Illness, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- Immigration, Old Town ME, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Religion, Social History, Sports and Leisure, Stonecutting, Woonsocket RI -
New England and the Maritime Provinces : Connections and Comparisons
Collection of essays by various scholars on New England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island - critical geographies to what has emerged in historical studies in recent decades as the field of North American "borderland studies." Essays consider the histories between these regions both before and after the establishment of political borders in a culturally diverse space. The implications of regionalism, nationalism, and business for neighboring spaces within two countries. Contains the following writings: Introduction - Stephen J. Hornsby and John G. Reid Pre-European Dawnland: Archaeology of the Maritime Peninsula - David Sanger Spaces of Power in the Early Modern Northeast - Elizabeth Mancke Passamaquoddy Identity and the Marchall Decision - William Wicken New England Soldiers in the St. John River Valley, 1758-1760 - Geoffrey Plank Before Borderlands: Yankees, British, and the St. John Valley French - Béatrice Craig Comparative Economic Advantage: Nova Scotia and New England, 1720s-1860s - Julian Gwyn Variations on a Borderlands Theme: Nativism and Collective Violence in Northeastern North America in the Mid-Nineteenth Century - Scott W. See Nova Scotia and the American Presence: Seeking Connections Without Conquest, 1848-1854 - D.A. Sutherland The Command of Money in Shaws'Borderlands, 1859-1887 - Jacques Ferland Re-Examining the Economic Underdevelopment of the Maritime Provinces: A Case Study of Portland, Maine, and Saint John, New Brunswick - Robert H. Babcock Maine-Maritimes Folklore: The Lumberwoods Connection - Edward (Sandy) D. Ives Canadaian and American Policy Making in Response to the First Multi-Species Fisheries Crisis in the Greater Gulf of Maine Region - Deborah C. Trefts More Buck for the Bang: Sporting and the Ideology of Fish and Game Management in Northern New England and the Maritime Provinces, 1870-1900 - Bill Parenteau and Richard W. Judd The "Boston States": Region, Gender, and Maritime Out-Migration, 1870-1930 - Betsy Beattie Borderlands, Baselines, and Big Game: Conceptualizing the Northeast as a Sporting Region - Colin D. Howell The Epic of Greater North America: Themes and Periodization in North American History - Reginald C. Stuart and M. Brook Taylor Peeping Through the Cracks: Seeking Connections, Comparisons, and Understanding in Unstable Space - Graeme WynnTags Boston MA, Business and Economics, Canada, Connecticut, Criticism and Review, Death and Disaster, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Exploration and Colonization, Fishing, Folklore, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Government and Politics, Great Britain, Maine, Massachusetts, Native Americans, New Brunswick, New England, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthology, Nova Scotia, Portland ME, Prince Edward Island, Rhode Island, Sports and Leisure, St. John River Valley, United States, Vermont, Violence -
More Than Petticoats : Remarkable Maine Women
A collection of biographical sketches of Maine women with unique accomplishments, and of those who have made significant contributions to their communities and to the state at large. One of the many books in the "More than Petticoats" series, the collection of which is comprised of books particular to each state in the USA. From Pequot Press: "This book recreates the life-and-times of thirteen inspiring and independent women in fascinating, brief biographies. Meet Marguerite "Tante Blanche" Thibodeau Cyr, the "mother of Madawaska," whose bravery and kindness during one brutal winter saved her frontier settlement; botanist-artist Kate Furbish, who tramped Maine's wilderness, collecting, classifying, and painting all of its flowering plants; and Florence Nicolar Shay, a Penobscot basketmaker who demanded and succeeded in gaining rights for her people."Tags Acadians, Brunswick ME, Community: Customs and Social Life, Eagle Island ME, Family, Farmington ME, Gender and Sexuality, Madawaska ME, Maine, Native Americans, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Portland ME, Religion, Rockland ME, Skowhegan ME, South Berwick ME -
Minority Women of North America : A Comparison of French-Canadian and Afro-American women
A comparison of the historical situations and social positions of French Canadian and African American women. An examination of their family and community roles, cultural stereotypes, and social and politicals achievement levels. Situates the origins of each population on the North American continent - one in servitude in seventeenth-century New France, the other in forced immigration and slavery in the United States of the same time. Focuses on the phenomenon of a "double-oppression" - or the sum of one's ethnic minority and gender statuses - and what is required for the doubly oppressed to be "liberated." Acknowledgement of gendered differences in the separate gains made by each minority group. Republished in Le FAROG Forum (April 1988), University of Maine. -
Franco-American Life and Culture in Manchester, New Hampshire : Vivre La Différence
An intimately crafted Franco American cultural history of Manchester, New Hampshire, written by one of its resident historians. From the author of such works as "One Piece in the Great American Mosaic," "La Presse Franco-Américaine et La Politique," and "Elpheège-J. Daignault et le mouvement sentinelliste," among others. From The History Press: "A strong sense of unity and tradition frames a fascinating history of Manchester, New Hampshire's Franco-American community. Author Robert B. Perreault presents this story through compelling vignettes, including the triumphant success of photographer Ulric Bourgeois, the undeniable conflict between the French and Irish immigrants, and a colorful profile of book collector and author Adélard Lambert. Featuring vintage images from Perreault's private collection, this work is a stunning visual narrative of the French-Canadian contributions to local culture."Tags Art and Architecture, Community: Customs and Social Life, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Gender and Sexuality, Journalism, Labor History, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Local, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Social History, Violence -
Cotton Was King : A History of Lowell, Massachusetts
A collection of 14 essays on the history of Chelmsford and Lowell, Massachusetts, from pre-incorporation to industrialization, into the middle 20th century. As the title suggests, an emphasis on the prevalence of mill work and immigrants cultures very much responsible for shaping life in this, one of New England's most productive industrialized cities. From the editor: "'Cotton Was King' traces Lowell's history from its Indian beginnings through two centuries of the history of the town of Chelmsford and one hundred and fifty years of urban industrial history, to the present day. The history of Lowell is, in microcosm, the history of America's Industrial Revolution. The city's history is a case study in the evolution of the corporate system, the labor movement, and the role women played in the labor force. The cotton mills of Lowell provided the first opportunity for American women to leave their farms and families and earn an independent living. The city with its enormous factories and canals also served as a magnet for the first waves of immigrants. By the mid-nineteenth century the city felt the first stirrings of both the labor and feminist movements, as Lowell entrepreneurs expanded the factory system."Tags Boston MA, Chelmsford MA, Community: Customs and Social Life, Concord MA, Dracut MA, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Exploration and Colonization, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Lowell MA, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Native Americans, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- History -- Local, Religion, Social History, Waltham MA -
The Delights of Democracy : The Triumph of American Politics
A collection of short essays that examines American politics through the lens of the political arena in the state of Maine. Written by a Bowdoin College professor of government and legal studies. Contains a few brief chapters devoted specifically to Franco Americans: "Up Ye Mighty Francos" and "Changing Voting Patterns." In the first, Potholm speculates as to the lack of a Franco American name surfacing in the 2002 gubernatorial race, while the second attempts to categorize the "profile" of the Franco American voter. From Cooper Square Press: "In 'The Delights of Democracy,' Potholm shares his thoughts on why low voter turn-out is not exactly a bad thing, why Clinton was a good Republican president (that's right), how all political parties should be skilled in putting themselves in their opponents' position, how smart politicians can make use of public polling, how people who don't care about the abortion debate are the decisive group in votes on the issue, and more. Filled with examples from his behind-the-scenes political career, Potholm's book informs readers what Americans really mean when they call their country a democracy." -
Responding to Ethnicity: Franco-American Studies in Maine
Essay discussing the particular engagements - with theory, academia, community - of Franco-American Studies initiatives at the University of Maine. How community/classroom collaborative programming and discussion-based research participate in what some scholars call a communicative "responsibility," where interpersonal relationships engage honestly with elements of power underwritten in cultural, class, or social relations. How universities are, are not, or must be "responsible" to their home communities. -
Marie-Rose, Stigmatisée de Woonsocket' : The Construction of a Franco-American Saint Cult, 1930-1955
From a publication of the Canadian Catholic Historical Association. Essay that situates the early-twentieth-century "mystic stigmatic" figure of Marie-Rose Ferron in a Franco American religious history. Using Ferron's biography as measure, Kaell sees the fringe cult around her, as well as her failed canonization, in contrast with the popular saintly tradition of the Canadian Thérièse of Lisieux. Kaell teases out this and other comparisons between Franco and Québécois religiosity and nationalism using Ferron's life and history. From the author: "First, this paper is an examination of how a hagiographer, Onésime Boyer, worked to create a saint cult that ultimately ended in failure. Second, and more importantly, this paper uses Boyer's construction of Rose's cult to provide a window into Franco-American Catholic culture that was incorporating wider trends, like 'victimhood,' and anchoring itself firmly in an American milieu. Finally, this paper raises a number of questions for further study, urging more comprehensive analyses of Franco-American history and religion."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Gender and Sexuality, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Religion, Ogdensburg NY, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, Religion, Social History, War, Woonsocket RI -
Camille Lessard-Bissonnette: The Quiet Evolution of French-Canadian Immigrants in New England
The published book form of Shideler's 1991 Ph.D. thesis from the University of Massachusetts. A biographical study of a québécoise and first-generation Franco American author and her works - as a means, Shideler writes, "to identify the position of the immigrant at the juncture of two diverse societies and ways of life" (2). From the publisher: "The inclusion of the ethnic voice in the examination of what has been termed 'American' literature is a significant development, but what of the voice of the ethnic woman? This study seeks to answer that question and, at the same time, shed light on the effects exercised by the act of immigration as well as on the specific fate of French-Canadian immigrants to the United States at the turn of the century...." Lessard-Bissonnette is perhaps best known for her serialized novel entitled, "Canuck," about a French-Canadian immigrant to industrial New England.Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Community: Customs and Social Life, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Journalism, Labor History, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Québec, Religion, Social History -
First-Person America
Edited and annotated compilation of oral histories from the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s Works Progress/Projects Administration (WPA) in the United States. These selections come mostly in the form of short passages that aspiring writers recorded from people in various parts of the United States during the onslaught and aftermath of the Great Depression. Banks's famous book is an indispensable part of the canon of American social history, and a testament to the efforts of recorders of local American histories in the 1930s. From the author's website: "First Person America brings together eighty oral histories gathered in the 1930's by the Federal Writers Project, including stories of a North Carolina patent medicine pitchman, a retired Oregon gold prospector, a Bahamian midwife from Florida, a Key West smuggler, Chicago jazz musicians, union organizers and others."Tags Barre VT, Chicago IL, Community: Customs and Social Life, Durham NC, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Farming and Agriculture, Florida, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Lowell MA, Maine, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, Montana, Music, New Mexico, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Oklahoma, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Social History, South Carolina, Texas, United States -
Prejudice and Pride : Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891-1945
From University of Toronto Press: "As a country with enormous economic, military, and cultural power, the United States can seem an overwhelming neighbour - one that demands consideration by politicians, thinkers, and cultural figures. Prejudice and Pride examines and compares how English and French Canadian intellectuals viewed American society from 1891 to 1945. Based on over five hundred texts drawn largely from the era's periodical literature, the study reveals that English and French Canadian intellectuals shared common preoccupations with the United States, though the English tended to emphasize political issues and the French cultural issues.... Significantly, the era's discourse regarding American life and the Canadian-American relationship was less an expression of nationalism or a reaction to US policy than it was about the expression of wider attitudes concerning modernity." -
Storytelling in Daily Life : Performing Narrative
Performance studies theory text. Maine Franco American case studies in a discussion of the methods and forms of storytelling. Written by two University of Maine professors. From Temple University Press: "The authors ably guide readers through the complex world of performing narrative. Along the way they show the embodied contexts of storytelling, the material constraints on narrative performances, and the myriad ways storytelling orders information and tasks, constitutes meanings, and positions speaking subjects. Readers will also learn that narrative performance is consequential as well as pervasive, as storytelling opens up experience and identities to legitimization and critique. The authors' multi-leveled model of strategy and tactics considers how relations of power in a system are produced, reproduced, and altered in performing narrative....The authors explain this strategic model through an extended discussion of family storytelling, using Franco Americans in Maine as their exemplar. They explore what stories families tell, how they tell them, and how storytelling creates family identities. Then, they show the range and reach of this strategic model by examining storytelling in diverse contexts: a breast cancer narrative, a weblog on the Internet, and an autobiographical performance on the public stage. Readers are left with a clear understanding of how and why the performance of narrative is the primary communicative practice shaping our lives today."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Bangor ME, Criticism and Review, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Language and Linguistics, Lewiston ME, Maine, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Performance Studies, Old Town ME, Performing Arts, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, St. John River Valley -
Steeples and Smokestacks : A Collection of Essays on the Franco-American Experience in New England
Essay collection on the diverse aspects of Franco American community and life in New England. Emphases on French Canadian immigration to New England; religion, education, and community life; and Franco American literature. Includes a wide range of materials from writers and scholars throughout the region. Contents: Claire Quintal - Introduction I. Emigration Yves Roby - "The Economic Evolution of Quebec and the Emigrant (1850-1929)" Mason Wade - "The Acadian Background" Fernand Arsenault - "Acadians and Emigration" Neil Boucher - "The Case of the Acadians of Southwest Nova Scotia" II. Franco-American Communities Gerard J. Brault - "An Overview of Studies Relating to Franco-American Communities in New England" Frances H. Early - "The Settling-In Process: The Beginnings of the Little Canada in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the Late Nineteenth Century" Marcella Harnish Sorg - "Community Formation in Old Town, Maine, 1835-1930: Endogamy and Natal Origins Among the Acadians" Michael J. Guignard - "The Franco-Americans of Biddeford, Maine" Philip T. Silvia, Jr. - "Neighbors from the North: French-Canadian Immigrants vs. Trade Unionism in Fall River, Massachusetts" Charles W. Estus and Kenneth J Moynihan - "Beyond Textiles: Industrial Diversity and the Franco-American Experience in Worcester, Massachusetts" Paul D. LeBlanc - "From Farm to Factory: Acadians in Fitchburg, Massachusetts (1880-1910)" III. Religion Michael J. Guignard - "The Corporation Sole Controversy" Yves Roby - "Franco-Americans and the Catholic Hierarchy" Jacquelyn Alix, P.F.M - "The Foundation of the Little Franciscans of Mary in Worcester, Massachusetts" Yves Garon, A.A. - "The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joan of Arc: A Franco-American Foundation" Pierre E. Lanchance, O.P. - "Saint Anne's Shrine, Fall River, Massachusetts" IV. Education Armand B. Chartier - "The Spiritual and Intellectual Foundations of the Schooling of Franco-Americans" Gerard J. Brault - "The Achievement of the Teaching Orders in New England: The Franco-American Parochial Schools" V. Literature, Journalism, and Folklore Armand B. Chartier - "Toward a History of Franco-American Literature: Some Considerations" Robert B. Perreault - "The Franco-American Press: An Historical Overview" Richard S. Sorrell - "La Sentinelle and La Tribune: The Role of Woonsocket's French Language Newspapers in the Sentinelle Affair of the 1920s" Richard S. Sorrell - "'History as a Novel, the Novel as History': Ethnicity and the Franco-American English-Language Novel" Béatrice Belisle MacQueen - "Corinne Rocheleau-Rouleau (1881-1963): Advocate for the Handicapped" Janet L. Shideler - "Camille Lessard-Bissonnette (1883-1970): Immigrant Author and Itinerant Journalist" Michel Lapierre - "Rosaire DIon-Lévesque (1900-1974): Poet and Translator of Walt Whitman" Brigitte Lane - "Three Major Witnesses of Franco-American Folklore in New England: Honoré Beaugrand, Adélard Lambert, and Roméo Berthiaume" Donald Deschênes - "The Dream of a Better Life in the Songs of Departure for the United States" VI. The Franco-American Woman Charlotte Borders LeBlanc - "History and Mission of the Fédération Féminine Franco-Américaine (1951-1991)" Marcelle Chenard - "A Franco-American Lay Missionary, Iriène Farley (1893-1961" Yves Roby - "A Portrait of the Femal Franco-American Worker (1865-1930)" VII. Franco-Americans Today Madeleine D. Giguière - "New England's Francophone Population Based Upon the 1990 Census" Clarence J. d'Entremont - "Acadian Survivance in New England" Yves Roby - "From Franco-Americans to Americans of French-Canadian Origin or Franco-Americanism, Past and Present" VIII. The View From Within Claude Milot - "Arthur Milot's Memoirs: Childhood Memories" Lucien A. Aubé - "From the Parochial School to and American University: Reflections on Cultural Fragmentation" David Plante - "Tsi Gars" John Dufresne - "Telling Stories in Mémière's Kitchen" Claire Quintal - ContributorsTags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Bibliography, Biddeford ME, Business and Economics, Community: Customs and Social Life, Connecticut, Death and Disaster, Demography, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Farming and Agriculture, Fiction and Literature, Fitchburg MA, Folklore, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Journalism, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Lynn MA, Madawaska ME, Maine, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Montréal QC, Music, New Brunswick, New England, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthology, Nova Scotia, Old Town ME, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Poetry, Québec, Religion, Rhode Island, Vermont, Violence, Waltham MA, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
Radicals of the Worst Sort : Laboring Women in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1860-1912
New England women's labor history text from a professor of American and New England studies at the University of Southern Maine. Focuses on Lawrence, Massachusetts, as a town with a diversity of worker and ethnic experience, and the relationship between this and gender at the beginning of the twentieth century in industrial America. From the publisher's website: "Ardis Cameron focuses on the textile workers' strikes of 1882 and 1912 in this examination of class and gender formation as drawn from the experience and language of the working-class neighborhoods of Lawrence [Mass.]. She shows clearly that the working women who unionized and fought for equality were considered the 'worst sort' because they challenged both economic and sexual hierarchies, providing alternative models for turn-of-the-century women." -
Of Place and Gender: Women in Maine History
From UMaine Press: "This volume of fourteen essays on Maine women's history fills a real need, helping to answer questions about what women were doing in local communities and highlighting their similarities and differences from women elsewhere. Maine women were sometimes in the forefront of change and sometimes lagged behind; most of the time they were preoccupied with the tasks of daily life, as were women in other parts of the world. However, the details of women's activities at home and in the community, like the context in which they were done, helps to set Maine women apart. The essays in this volume offer insight into a rich variety of Maine women, some famous and some ordinary, some intent on changing their lives and their society and others struggling to survive, some confined by family and work to farm or village and others able to travel the world. Taken together, their stories enrich our understanding of Maine, of women, and of history."Tags Appleton ME, Bangor ME, Community: Customs and Social Life, Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Farming and Agriculture, Fryeburg ME, Gender and Sexuality, Indian Island ME, Labor History, Lewiston ME, Maine, Mills and Mill Work, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Old Town ME, Orono ME, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Portland ME, Searsport ME, Skowhegan ME, Sports and Leisure -
Transforming Women's Work : New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution
Tags Boston MA, Business and Economics, Connecticut, Demography, Education, Fall River MA, Family, Fitzwilliam NH, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Griswold CT, Hallowell ME, Haverhill MA, Labor History, Lowell MA, Lynn MA, Maine, Massachusetts, Mills and Mill Work, New England, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Rhode Island, Richmond NH, Salem MA, Sutton NH, Vermont -
Women at Work : The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860
From Columbia University Press: "In this prize-winning study, Thomas Dublin explores, in carefully researched detail, the lives and experiences of the first generation of American women to face the demands of industrial capitalism. Dublin describes and traces the strong community awareness of these women from Lowell [Massachusetts] and relates it to labor protest movements of the 1830s and 40s."Tags Boston MA, Business and Economics, Community: Customs and Social Life, Demography, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Great Britain, Labor History, Lawrence MA, Lowell MA, Massachusetts, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, New Hampshire, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Social History, Waltham MA -
Farm to Factory : Women's Letters, 1830-1860
From Columbia University Press: "Between 1820 and 1860, tens of thousands of single women streamed from rural New England to find work in the burgeoning factory towns of the region. In 'Farm to Factory' Thomas Dublin has selected five sets of letters in order to provide a personal view of the first generation of American women employed for wages outside their own homes. The letters he has selected provide a unique perspective on early industrial capitalism and its effects on women."Tags Business and Economics, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Farming and Agriculture, Gender and Sexuality, Haverhill MA, Labor History, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Massachusetts, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, New England, Newbury VT, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Rochester NH, Social History, Vermont -
The Belles of New England : The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove
A history of New England women during industrialization, and the lifestyle differences among women of different economic classes. From Thomas Dunne Books: "This is a masterful, definitive, and eloquent look at the enormous cultural and economic impact on America of New England's textile mills. The author, an award-winning CBS producer, traces the history of American textile manufacturing back to the ingenuity of Francis Cabot Lodge. The early mills were an experiment in benevolent enlightened social responsibility on the part of the wealthy owners, who belonged to many of Boston's finest families. But the fledgling industry's ever-increasing profits were inextricably bound to the issues of slavery, immigration, and workers' rights....William Moran brings a newsman's eye for the telling detail to this fascinating saga that is equally compelling when dealing with rags and when dealing with riches. In part a microcosm of America's social development during the period, 'The Belles of New England' casts a new and finer light on this rich tapestry of vast wealth, greed, discrimination, and courage."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Biddeford ME, Boston MA, Business and Economics, Connecticut, Death and Disaster, Emigration and Immigration, England, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Farming and Agriculture, Gender and Sexuality, Great Britain, Ireland, Labor History, Lawrence MA, Lewiston ME, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, New Bedford MA, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, Religion, Saco ME, Saco River Valley, Social History, Sports and Leisure, Waltham MA -
I Am Franco-American and Proud of It : An Anthology of Writings of Franco-American Women
A selection of women's writings - fiction, poetry, essay, journalism - that have appeared in the University of Maine Franco-American Centre's publication, "Le FAROG Forum." Le Forum is a periodical dedicated to issues related to the Franco American in the state of Maine and elsewhere. The writings in this collection span in time from the Forum's birth in the early 1970s to the time of the compilation's completion, around 1995.Tags Acadians, Albany NY, Art and Architecture, Bangor ME, Barre VT, Biddeford ME, Blue Hill ME, Bradley ME, Brewer ME, Caribou ME, Chicago IL, Criticism and Review, Crown Point IN, Eagle Lake ME, Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Fairfield ME, Food, Fort Kent ME, French Island ME, Frenchville ME, Gender and Sexuality, Gorham ME, Government and Politics, Haiti, Indianapolis IN, Journalism, Laconia NH, Ledyard CT, Lewiston ME, Manchester ME, Mexico ME, Montréal QC, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthology, Old Orchard Beach ME, Old Town ME, Performing Arts, Portland ME, Religion, Rumford ME, Saco ME, Sand Hill ME, Scarborough ME, St. Albans VT, St. John River Valley, Van Buren ME, Vermont, War, Waterville ME, Westbrook ME -
Qui perd sa langue perd sa foi, qui perd sa foi perd sa langue
Presentation made at St. John's Episcopal Church in Bangor, Maine, by a former Ph. D. candidate in Canadian-American history at the University of Maine, Orono, Maine. The presentation is, as the author calls it, a "spiritual autobiography," exploring the role of religion and spirituality in the author's life and how such things intertwined with her Franco American heritage, her alcoholism, and her sexuality. -
Working-Class Women in the Gilded Age : Factory, Community and Family Life among Cohoes, New York, Cotton Workers
An examination of industrial labor through the lenses of ethnicity and gender in 19th-century Cohoes, New York. From the text: "This essay intends to examine the ways in which the cultural experience of the predominantly immigrant working class might have distorted their view of their social conditions and impaired their ability to focus on the origins of their oppression. Consequently, working-class violence, rather than being directed at the manufacturer, was directed at the ranks of the unemployed ready to claim their jobs. In this way, the working class did not engage in aggressive violence to win a social revolution so much as it fought defensive struggles to protect its modest gains." -
The Battle over Female (In)Dependence : Women in New England Québécois Migrant Communities, 1870-1930
Waldron explores the impacts of immigration on French Canadian norms of gender, labor, and social practice. She uses the examples of Lewiston, Maine, and Worcester, Massachusetts, and the different economies therein to ultimately observe the impact of a certain migration on the traditions (oppressive or otherwise) of a people. From the text: "My argument is twofold: on one hand, for male leaders in these migrant communities, perpetuating traditional ideas about men's and women's contributions to family and society was part of an effort to retain, on a communal level, their distinct identity as a Catholic people of French Canadian ancestry. In contrast, for female migrants, the decision to support traditional gender norms was a more complicated one; many migrant women and their American-born daughters advocated perpetuation of traditional Quebecois understandings of gender not only as a means of defining their place in American society, as Catholic women of French Canadian ancestry, but also to obtain and maintain the benefits and status within the home that these ideals afforded them in the United States."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Auburn ME, Community: Customs and Social Life, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Folklore, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Lewiston ME, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- Immigration, Québec, Religion, Social History, Winchendon MA, Worcester MA -
'I've Never Dreamed It Was Necessary to Marry!' : Women and Work in New England French Canadian Communities, 1870-1930
Essay on women's labor in French Canadian immigrant communities in New England. Explores and qualifies the idea that, for women, migration could be equated with social and economic liberation. From the text: "The ways in which these women and girls perceived the options available to them as migrants in New England cities, and took full advantage of them, suggest that for many Québécois migrant women in the decades around 1900, the United States indeed represented a land of opportunity and possibility" (p. 56). -
Vermont and the Imaginative Geographies of American Whiteness
From the author: "The U.S. state of Vermont is often portrayed as a place where 'race' is of little significance, yet notions of whiteness are central to how the state has been represented and represents itself. A critical analysis of historical and contemporary economies of representation examines how Vermont has been imagined as one of the last remaining spaces of authentic Yankee whiteness while more recently becoming an imagined homeland for particular brands of white liberal politics and social practice in the United States. Narratives of white Vermont identity have often explicitly drawn on oppositions to other forms of whiteness, particularly those associated with the U.S. South, in constructing an image of a comparatively racially benign Yankee whiteness. Recent right-wing discourses have explicitly attempted to construct Vermont whiteness as outside the American mainstream (not least through its discursive association with gay and lesbian sexualities), suggesting a need for geographical work on the (re)configuration of whiteness to reconsider where 'normal' American whiteness is imagined to reside. The examination of the case of Vermont highlights the need for future geographical research to attend to continuities between various territorialized constructions of whiteness as well as contestations within whiteness." -
Shared Earnings, Unequal Responsibilities : Single French-Canadian Wage-Earning Women in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1900-1920
An analysis of single French-Canadian women workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, Takai's piece attempts to show the contributions of this female population to their households and to the local economy at the beginning of the twentieth century. -
From Working Daughters to Working Mothers : Production and Reproduction in an Industrial Community
From the author: "The increased participation of women in the paid labor force in the 20th-century United States has been marked by a transition from an era of 'working daughters' to one of 'working mothers.' Using data from a New England industrial community, I trace the connection between this transition and the growth and decline of the textile industry, the incorporation of immigrants into a hierarchical production process, and family strategies for allocating productive and reproductive labor. While the era of working daughters left the allocation of reproductive labor (housework and child care) intact, the wage work of recent immigrant mothers has had a more profound impact on families by reallocating some of 'women's work.' Nevertheless, many families have continued to maintain an ideology that values the husband's authority, emphasizes respect for parents, and stresses differences between men and women, all of these in the face of considerable changes in actual behavior."Tags Business and Economics, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Mills and Mill Work, Mossasuck River Valley, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Pawtucket RI, Providence RI, Rhode Island, Weaverton RI, Wierville RI -
Voyages : A Maine Franco-American Reader
Celebrated collection of essays, stories, poems, songs, art, and other works on the history of Franco American people and their communities in Maine. Features the following writings by their respective authors, in order of appearance:
Foreword by Nelson Madore Appreciation by the Editors Preface by Michael Michaud Introduction by Barry Rodrigue and Others Gentility on the Frontiers of Acadia, 1635-1674: An Archaeological Perspective, by Alaric Faulkner Eastern Abenaki Autonomy and French Frustrations, 1745-1760, by David Ghere An Album in the Attic: The Forgotten Frontier of the Quebec-Maine Borderlands During the Revolutionary War, by Barry Rodrigue Life on the Farm and Recipes, by Luella and Eva Ashland Roderick Immigrants in a Frontier Community: Madawaska, 1785-1850, by Béatrice Craig An Acadian Odyssey, by Don Cyr Soldiers, Spuds, and Spruce: Maine's Military Roads to the Maritimes, by Barry Rodrigue Understanding the French Canadians of Lewiston, 1860-1900, by Yves Frenette Immigrant Dream - I, by Susann Pelletier Growing Up in Brunswick in the 1930s and 1940s, by Raymond Duval Petit Bois, by Claude Bonang with Katie Camiré Into the Heart of Maine: A Look at Dexter's Franco-American Community, by Dorothy Blanchard Sawdust in My Ear, by Roland Lapointe Franco-American and Lebanese Textile Workers in Waterville: La survivance economique, by Matthew Laflamme "Je ne regrette rien:" Franco-American Women in Maine: Survival, Resiliency, and Community, by Céleste DeRoche A La Mémoire de nos Ancetres (To the Memory of Our Ancestors), by Mercedes Gastonguay The French Catholics in Maine, by Clement Thibodeau Negotiating Ethnic Identity: St. Jean-Baptiste Day Celebrations in Francophone Lewiston, Maine, by Mark Paul Richard Donat Labbé - Woods Cook, by Yvon Labbé The Jackman and Moose River Mission: From France to America with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Lyons, 1904-1932, by Gérard Forgue A New Home, by Paul Caron A Childhood Memory: Midnight Mass at St. Peter's and St. Paul's, by Helen Lévesque Maine's Corporation Sole Controversy, by Michael Guignard The Summer I Was Thirteen, by Denis Ledoux An Introduction to "Life in the Mills" from Canuck, a Novel by Camille Lessard-Bissonnette, by Linda Pervier "Life in the Mills," Excerpt from Canuck, by Camille Lessard-Bissonnette and Linda Pervier An Introduction to Canuck and Camille Lessard-Bissonnette: Why Read It Now?, by Sylvie Charron and Rhea Côté Robbins Franco-Americans and the International Paper Company Strike of 1910, by Anders Larson An Excerpt from Papa Martel, by Gérard Robichaud J'Aimais (I Used to Love), by Jean-Paul Poulain Passing the Flame, by Cindy Larock French-Canadian Genealogical Research, by Bob Chenard Down the Plains, an Excerpt, by Rhea Côté Robbins Calice, by Greg Chabot The Lane Road, 1958, by Susann Pelletier What We Gather in November, by Susann Pelletier How Many Frenchmen Does It Take to..., by C. Stewart Doty The Lessons of Living in a Francophobic World, by Pat LaMarche French Jokes, Anonymous When Funny Might Not Be..., by Ernie Gagné One of Frenchie's Stories: In Heat, by Ernie Gagné La Graine Pousse (The Seed Sprout), by Normand Dubé Everything's Just Finophobia, by Greg Chabot Research Note: Maine "Jim Crow"? The Forgotten Maine Constitutional Amendment of 1891, by Rebecca Dirnfeld A Short Biography for My Daughter, by Raymond Luc Lavasseur Under Wintery Constellation, by Susann Pelletier A ceux qui m'ont offensé (For Those Who Have Offended Me), by Jean-Paul Poulain Franco-American Identity at the University of Maine, by Michael Serizawa Brown Beau Frog, by Peter Archambault Out of the Shadows, by Yvon Labbé Photo-Documentary: Franco-American Work Traditions, by Jere DeWaters A Québec Soldier in Maine, by Barry Rodrigue The Silent Playground, by Ross and Judy Paradis Mémere (Grandmother), by Raymond Luc Lavasseur Tourtiière (Meat Pie), by Philomiène Létourneau Simard and Diane Simard McKenney Voicing Mémière, by Kristin Langellier On Becoming a Franco-American, by Richard Pattenaude She Appears, by Jim Bishop Livres (Books), by Maureen Perry My Writing of La Souillonne (The Filthy Woman), by Normand Beaupré "Qui Chus" (Who I Am), Excerpt from La Souillonne, by Normand Beaupré Franco-Americans and a Century of Political Elections, 1892-1992, by Madeleine Giguière Ad Astra per Aspera - To the Heavens through Hardship: The Franco-American Rise to Political Power in Maine, by Christian Potholm First Campaigns, Georgette Bérubé Maine Franco-Americans in Politics, by John Martin Singing the Vernacular, Excerpts, by Paul Paré Brunswick: A Bridge and Its History, by Julianna L'Heureux Les Non Non Blues (The No No Blues), by Josée Vachon Acadian Ployes, by Emily Clavet Ouellette Martin and Sandra Dionne Croft The Neighborhood, by Michelle Morgan Why Bother? by Michael ParentTags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Art and Architecture, Business and Economics, Community: Customs and Social Life, Death and Disaster, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Essay, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Exploration and Colonization, Family, Farming and Agriculture, Fiction and Literature, Folklore, Food, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Genealogy, Geography, Government and Politics, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Maine, Mills and Mill Work, Music, Native Americans, New Brunswick, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthology, Nova Scotia, Performing Arts, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Poetry, Québec, Religion, Social History, Sports and Leisure, Violence, War -
Les grands thièmes de l'histoire de la famille aux États-Unis
L'auteure de "Amoskeag," Tamara Hareven écrit un piièce sur les bourses d'études, ou un historigraphie, de la famille aux Etats-Unis. Elle la comprend cette histoire comme partie de la nouvelle histoire sociale: un mouvement académique du vingtiième siiècle dont le principal motif est reconnaître et comprendre meilleur la diversité de la vie populaire et des agents historiques. -
By Necessity or by Right : The Language and Experience of Gender at Work
Article exploring how feminist historiography impacts interpretations of the rise of labour in the US and Canada, recognizing the divisions of gender that are fixed along the North American process of industrialization. From the text: "It is the purpose of this article to uncover the ways in which these fissures and divisions within class and organized labour either furthered or truncated the political ideal of class unity in Canada's past. How has the consideration of women's work and the problem of how industrialization reinforced cultural constructions of gender outside the workplace offered by historians over the past 25 years in 'Labour/Le Travail' either contributed to or altered the conventional views?" -
Intellectual Desire
Autobiographical essay that attempts to tease out intersections between class, culture, and sexuality. Bérubé recounts his past "in a way that focuses on class, ethnic, and educational migration" out of a homebase in working-class Franco America. The author writes: "I do my work now in the borderlands between social classes, between the university and the community, between heterosexual and homosexual, between educated speech and down-to-earth talk, between Franco-American and Québécois, between my family and the gay community." Reprinting of a presentation Bérubé gave at the 1992 Montreal colloquium, "La Ville en Rose: Le Premier colloque Québécois d'études lesbiennes et gaies." Also available in the anthology, "Queerly Classed: Gay Men and Lesbians Write About Class" (Boston: South End Press, 1997).Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Aldenville MA, Androscoggin River Valley, Chicopee MA, Connecticut River Valley, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Gender and Sexuality, Holyoke MA, Merrimack River Valley, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Essay, Penobscot River Valley, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, Social History -
The Women of Survivance : A Case Study of Ethnic Persistence Among the Members of Franco-American Women's Groups in New England, 1950-Present
Thesis in sociology highlighting Franco American women in the preservation of ethnic heritage and language. Based on a variety of case studies conducted by the author in 1980s New England. From the author: "The primary purpose of this dissertation was to explore questions related to the processes of ethnic persistence and, secondarily, to understand the role of women in these processes. The procedure for this investigation was to conduct a case study of an ethnic women's organization, La Federation Feminine Franco-Americaine (Fede). This case study of the Fede utilized field work techniques, in-depth interviews and the analysis of archival materials. The objectives of this case study were in brief: (1) to delineate the maintenance activities involved in ethnic persistence; (2) to determine the importance of ethnicity to ethnic group members actively involved in its maintenance; (3) to assess the role of ethnic women in these processes, in order to develop a grounded theory of ethnic persistence." -
A Comparative Study of French Canadian Loggers and Their Families
Dissertation presenting anthropological research on French Canadian loggers at work in northern New Hampshire in the middle twentieth century. The impact of work situations on the families of loggers, and the influence of family life on structures and patterns of work in the woods. Observations on the differences between New Hampshire loggers who have immediate families living in Québec with those who have families in the United States. Takes into account work mobility, kinship and household norms, father-absence, and conceptions of logging and family life as interrelated factors distinguishable between workers of different living situations. Presented in historical contexts of French Canadian labor and migration, as well as with a background in the cultural norms of the French Canadian family.Tags Alton NH, Bald Brook NH, Bartlett NH, Bear Brook NH, Beecher Falls NH, Berlin NH, Bloomfield VT, Canaan VT, Colebrook NH, Dixville NH, Easton NH, Emigration and Immigration, Errol NH, Family, Forestry, Gender and Sexuality, Glencliff NH, Groveton NH, Island Pond VT, Jackson NH, Kennebago ME, Labor History, Long Lake ME, Maidstone VT, Moultonborough NH, Nash Stream NH, Nashua NH, New Hampshire, Newcomb NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Anthropology, Nonfiction -- Social Sciences, North Concord VT, Parmacheenee ME, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Pittsburg NH, Pontook Reservoir NH, Québec, Religion, Rumford ME, Rumney NH, Social History, Speculator Lake NY, Stratford NH, Travel and Movement, Tupper Lake NY, Twin Mountain NH, Warren NH, West Milan NH, Whitney Park NY -
Ethnic and Social Class Differences in Role Strain and Mechanisms of Adjustment
Dissertation comparing the ways in which working- and lower-class Franco American and Italian American women deal with social and psychological stresses. Comparisons of the interpersonal behaviors of "housewives" within each social group, measured in data collected through survey and personal interview. The effects on individuals of changes in social environment. Brief historical background of the two Rhode Island cities from which data was collected, as well as of the two immigrant, ethnic communities in question. Pays close attention to how differing social status, economic class distinction, educational achievement, family size, religious affiliation, etc., factor into personal behaviors. Contains a brief overview of literature on the sociology of mental health and the influences of class and culture on one's orientation toward communicating stress or mental illness. From the author: "This study is concerned with the mental health of selected subgroups, namely ethnic and social class....This study is specifically interested in the amount and kinds of role strain reportedly felt by the members of these two subgroups..." (3).Tags Community: Customs and Social Life, Education, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Health and Wellness, Italian Americans, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Psychology, Nonfiction -- Social Sciences, Nonfiction -- Sociology, Providence RI, Religion, Rhode Island, Woonsocket RI -
Women's Role Orientation in Three Types of French Canadian Educational Institutions
Qualitative analysis of self-concepts of college women and their varying attitudes toward gender roles. Based on data collected through questionnaires to women in different types of French Canadian schools - "classical colleges," "normal schools," and "family institutions" - in separate regions in Québec. Analysis of survey results explores the effects of how different schools have prepared women for adulthood and citizenship. Presents in numerical data the orientation of these schools and their female students toward prescriptive gender roles. Measures personal traits and family as influences on gender role assumptions within the observed French Canadian populations. Contains an overview of other pertinent sociological research. Written in the context of a period of change in the education system of the Quebec province. From the author: "The problem that this research attempted to solve was how to explain diversity and specificity in role orientation among college women." -
Becoming Holy in Early Canada : Performance and the Making of Holy Persons in Society and Culture
From the author: "In this dissertation, I analyze how local religious figures became holy and the social functions they played, in order to better understand the connections between religion and colonialism and the shaping of faith communities over time. The study covers a broad time period from the early days of French settlement in Canada to the late nineteenth century. The focus falls on New France and the holy persons associated with the early years of settlement when religion and colonization were intimately connected. It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that these figures were put forward for official recognition by the church in canonization causes, and consequently I conclude the study with an examination of the processes and resulting documents that contributed to the transformation of local holy persons into saints. Throughout the study, I concentrate on the place holy persons occupied in local society both during life and after death as intercessors for the faithful, the meanings they held and presented to their audiences, and the ways they performed the traditions of sanctity. Rituals of holiness were a form of communication. Holy persons and audiences interacted with and influenced one another to create a saint that was efficacious and effective. While faith communities developed around local, family and community networks, hagiographic texts described the lives, deaths and intercessions of select individuals and spread cults of belief. Between performances of holiness and the inscription of holy lives into texts, local saints were made who responded to the needs of their faith communities and became important parts of local religious, social, and cultural life." -
"Accidents of terrain" : The native and foreign worlds of David Plante
From the author: "David Plante, an American writer born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1940, examines the inextricable connection between space and time, place and identity in his most important work, a series of semi-autobiographical novels and short stories about the Francoeur family. This study follows Daniel Francoeur, Plante's principal recurring character and fictional counterpart, on a journey of self-discovery in five novels that are representative of the three decades of Plante's career and illustrative of experiences located in both the native and foreign environments of his fictional world. In these five novels: The Family, The Woods, The Country, The Foreigner, and The Accident, Plante maps a terrain that extends in time and space from the insular French Canadian, Catholic parish in Providence where Daniel Francoeur grows up to the cities of Europe where he spends his late adolescence." -
Gender and the Québécois Migration to New England, 1870-1930 : A Comparative Case Study
A study of gender in the context of Quebecois immigration to the United States over a sixty-year period (1870-1930). Observations on gender evidenced in the labor statistics of this time period. The foundation and development of a Franco American "transnational identity," and the impact of gender concepts on immigrant identity building (iv). From the author: "This study...seeks to understand both how gender shaped the process of relocation for the migrants, and how the migrants' understandings of gender changed throughout the migration process. Using a comparative case study, it focuses primarily on the French Canadian migrant communities of Lewiston, Maine and Worcester, Massachusetts" (iv). -
Migration, Family, and Gender : A Longitudinal Analysis of French-Canadian Immigrants in Lowell, Massachussetts, 1900-1920
From Takai: "'Migration, Family, and Gender: A Longitudinal Study of French-Canadian Immigrants in Lowell , Massachusetts , 1900-1920,' explores migration from French Canada to a New England urban centre of the textile industry, Lowell, Massachusetts. During the period under study, both Québec and New England underwent significant socioeconomic transformation. This work analyses the impact of these changes on the process of migration and settlement. It also sheds light on the diverse ways in which French-Canadian men, women, and children responded to new realities in an urban industrial society. In order to investigate these issues, it is necessary to consider this migration as a phenomenon which consisted of a series of processes and not as a linear progression towards inevitable assimilation or Americanization. It is also crucial to emphasize the importance of introducing a gendered perspective in order to recognize the diversity of strategies devised by immigrant men and women as well as the cooperation and tensions they experienced in the process of migration and settlement....This thesis joins recent scholarship in criticizing a perspective that has described all immigrant behaviour as necessarily reflecting one set of culturally predetermined norms and customs. Contrary to the stereotyped image of French Canadians as immobile and fatalistic habitants, evidence from this study shows that they were a highly mobile people for whom migration was a pondered response to the structural changes that were radically reshaping Québec and New England societies. It is argued that the behaviour of Lowell's French-Canadian immigrants in the early twentieth century did not merely reflect the cultural transplantation of habitant values, but also the attempts of working-class immigrant families to survive and cope with significant socioeconomic transformation occurring to both Québec and New England. The diversity in the recorded patterns of movements on the part of French Canadians is indicative of their strategic autonomy and flexibility in adjusting to new socioeconomic realities....This study also seeks to redress a major gender imbalance in the historical studies of immigrants by devoting considerable attention to women. Not only did women's lives differ from those of their male counterparts; there was also great variation in the extent to which women assumed financial and domestic tasks. Such diversity, I assert, in the patterns of women's paid work was defined not only by age or marital status, but also by a combination of factors such as household organization, living arrangements, and the availability of child care. Immigrant families harboured complex interpersonal dynamics where different and, at times, conflicting interests had to be negotiated in not necessarily equal terms, but in accordance to each member's power and authority within the family and the larger society."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Business and Economics, Community: Customs and Social Life, Death and Disaster, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Illness, Labor History, Lowell MA, Massachusetts, Mills and Mill Work, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- Immigration, Québec, Social History, St. Lawrence River Valley -
The Status of French Among Youth in a Bilingual American-Canadian Border Community : The Case of Madawaska, Maine
From Price: "This study examines the status of the French language among young residents of Madawaska, Maine, a US-Canadian border community with a long history of bilingualism and contact with French speakers. This study views language status as having two distinct yet interrelated components: (1) code role, or characteristics associated with the use of a given language or variety, such as attitudes of speakers toward the variety and its use, the proficiency level of speakers, language use patterns, and so forth, and (2) code nature, or the state of the variety in question in terms of syntax, phonology and lexicon. The data, collected by means of four interview tasks, targeted both code role and code nature and sought to determine the general status of French among the younger residents of this community. In addition to the younger subject population, a small adult baseline population was also included in order to compare data across generations, so as to identify not just possible differences in code role, but also in code nature, including the possibility of language loss....The data suggested several trends. First, in terms of code role, young subjects generally reported lower levels of language use, proficiency and exposure to French than did adults. Secondly, not only did high-proficiency young subjects generally report higher scores in these areas than did lower-proficiency subjects, but males tended to score higher than females in this regard. This would suggest that exposure to French, context, language proficiency and gender correlate with language use among this population. Conversely, attitudes do not generally appear to be a salient factor motivating French language use. With regard to code nature, the study found that even the most proficient young speakers demonstrated some important gaps in their grammatical competence, and that the young subject population as a whole exhibited features in their production consistent with language loss. The study concludes that although there are still many individuals with ability in French, the differences between younger and older speakers in terms of both code role and code nature suggest that local French will be lost unless further action is taken to reverse the progress of French language loss among young bilinguals in the community."Tags Acadians, Acculturation and Assimilation, Community: Customs and Social Life, Demography, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Fort Kent ME, Frenchville ME, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Language and Linguistics, Madawaska ME, New Brunswick, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Language and Linguistics, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Québec, St. John River Valley -
"These Lines of My Life" : Franco-American Women in Westbrook, Maine : The Intersection of Ethnicity and Gender, 1884-1984
Historical perspectives on Franco American women in Westbrook, Maine, and evolving perspectives on gender and ethnicity over one century. -
Border Spaces and La Survivance : The Evolution of the Franco-American Novel of New England (1875-2004)
From Lees: "This dissertation examines nine texts written by Franco-American novelists of New England. Themes of migrancy, exile, and cultural survival (la survivance) ground my study. I explore the negotiations of cultural, social, political, linguistic, and gendered spaces as experienced---and chronicled in these novels---by the 1.5 million French-Canadian laborers and their families who migrated to New England between roughly 1865 and 1930."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Criticism and Review, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Government and Politics, Labor History, Language and Linguistics, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Criticism and History, Mills and Mill Work, New England, Québec, Religion -
Tool of Acculturation, Outil de Survivance : Education of French Canadians in Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1880-1920
From Fliss: "Motivated to ensure 'la survivance,' the survival of their religion, language, and culture, French-Canadian immigrants established an extensive private Catholic education system ranging from parish elementary and high schools to boarding schools and colleges in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century New England. Of these education levels, parish schools reached the largest number of French-Canadian children. In Holyoke, Massachusetts, French-Canadian survivance efforts centered on the education of their children in French-Canadian parish schools however, the parish school performed a dual role for the French Canadians in the context of their cultural transition in New England. French-Canadian culture pervaded the school day with French as a language of instruction, sisters from French-Canadian orders as teachers, religion and Canadian history in the curriculum, and the observance of traditional cultural customs and celebrations. The French-Canadian immigrant community did not anticipate the schools' second role, that of aiding the acculturation of their children into American society. Although these roles seem to be at cross-purposes, they co-existed in New England until the second half of the twentieth century with the weakening of French-Canadian identity, the shortage of teaching sisters, and the closing of ethnic parish schools. The bilingual and bicultural character of the school day, influenced by both assimilation and survivance strategies, contributed to the development of a Franco-American population in Holyoke...." -
Revolution : The Coming of F.A.R.O.G., 1970-1972
From the author: "In 1970 a group of Franco-Americans at the University of Maine, Orono, began meeting to discuss the creation of a new Franco-American ethnic identity. By the end of 1972, the succeeded in establishing a formal Franco-American program. They succeeded for several reasons. Like some Franco-Americans of their time, they felt acutely the loss of their ethnic group's former ties to a proud French-Canadian heritage. They learned from other movements of their own time how to go about redefining their group's identity, and the administration of the University of Maine, Orono, provided some of the material resources that the group needed in order to make it a formally established program."Tags Acculturation and Assimilation, Biddeford ME, Burlington VT, Business and Economics, Community: Customs and Social Life, Danielson CT, Demography, Education, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Farming and Agriculture, Farmington ME, Fitchburg MA, Forestry, Fort Kent ME, France, Gender and Sexuality, Gorham ME, Government and Politics, Haverhill MA, Holyoke MA, Labor History, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Mills and Mill Work, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Education, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, North Brookfield MA, Orono ME, Presque Isle ME, Québec, Religion, Southbridge MA, Woonsocket RI, Worcester MA -
The Anarchist Heart
Volume of poetry from native of Southbridge, Massachusetts and creator of collections "Crying in the Cheap Seats" (1971), "Duhamel" (1986), and the novel "The June Rise" (1994), among other works. Professor in creative writing at Colorado State University. This work is presented in five sections: The Community; Readings; Little Miracles; California; The Anarchist Heart. -
The Back Roads
Short story narrating Maxime's detours: from a rare West Coast business trip out of Maine to visit his sister and her partner in San Francisco; from routes of his present to certain back roads of memory. -
Loup Garou
Short story narrated by a writer frequently at odds with her spiny and somewhat distant lover on their roadtrip from Oregon to the East Coast. -
The Happy Time
Coming-of-age novel in lighthearted stories set in and around Ottawa, Ontario, amidst the young narrator Robert's extended family of eccentric men and stern women. Robert's small obsession with a much older boarding woman, and other various crushes; the brief appearances of a friendly canary, a mouse, and Robert's French-Canadian uncles; Father Sebastian building a new church for life's finer things; the errands of neighbor Mrs. Merryweather; pipe organs, adult magazines, little green apples, and special characters in other vignettes. Illustrated. Adapted for stage and screen. -
Continental Drift
Novel following Bob Dubois, a New Hampshire oil burner repairman, and his attempted escape from discontent to a "fresh start" in Florida with his family. Entwined with the story of Vanise, a Haitian emigrant, and the severities she endures with her family along the sea route northward to Florida. -
Never Back Down
Novel set in Keene, New Hampshire between the 1950s and early 2000s. Young baseball prospect Jack Landry comes of age with the Catholic sensibility and working-class ethos of his upbringing. Landry confronts stereotype, forbidden love's trials, and the perils of his personal success under the looming ethereal presences of an ancient event and his tragically killed Memere. A man's life between New England and New Orleans, configured through the guiding motto of his youth: "Never back down, never instigate."Tags Acadians, Cajuns, Death and Disaster, Family, Fiction and Literature, Florida, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Keene NH, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Fiction, Mexico ME, Mills and Mill Work, Mississippi, Native Americans, New Hampshire, New Orleans LA, Religion, Rumford ME, Sports and Leisure, White River Junction (Vt.), Youth -
David Plante
Radio interview with author David Plante on the occasion of the publication of his novel, "ABC" (Pantheon, 2008). Discussions of Plante's literary engagement with ghosts; with the notions of suffering, belief, and grief; origin and "the ultimate"; and the role of family. Brief discussion of the Providence, Rhode Island Catholic parish cultural milieu of his upbringing. -
Mille et un sentiments
1001 lines of poetry from Woonsocket, Rhode Island native and teacher of creative writing at Florida International University. From the author of "Queen for a Day" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." Title modeled after Hervé Le Tellier's Mille pensées. -
Translation
Short fiction piece about a writer who can be either American (Phil Porter) or French Canadian (Philippe Carrier) depending from which side of the border he is travelling, or upon which side he sits. The complexity of a dual identity lived out in a single life - with accounts of his troubled youth in Montréal, his adult life in upstate New York - that seems to surface in his epilepsy. The success of his recent autobiography, "Head Waters," and the connections he makes with familiarity, his past, and his estranged father on a book tour that brings him to Montréal. -
Awake
Book of poems from Augusta, Maine native and creative writing teacher at North Carolina State University. Contains foreword by Philip Levine. Republished in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon University Press. -
Woman in a Bar
Short story about a friend who, always when visiting the narrator, is eager to find a bar. From the author of the poetry collections, "Awake," "What We Carry," "Smoke," and "Facts About the Moon." Appears in the online literary magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly. -
The Art of Fiction, No. 199
Interview with novelist and short story writer, Annie Proulx, about her life, her craft, and her thoughts on writing. Reflections on some of her past works, including the novels "Postcards" and "The Shipping News," as well as the story, "Brokeback Mountain." Her engagement with a wide range of settings and characters, with an emphasis on rural America. Interview conducted at her ranch home in Wyoming. -
Husbands and Lovers
Poem from a Lisbon, Maine writer and founder of poetry's BOA Editions. Dedicated to David Plante. Featured in the New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly published by Middlebury College. Republished posthumously in a collection of A. Poulin, Jr's works, "Selected Poems" (2001). -
Lucien
Novel set near Trois-Rivières, Québec, that begins with the birth of a first child - a daughter, Lucien - to Marie Charbonneau, whose husband Léonce despairs for not having a son to work on their farm. Two hundred miles away, the first-cousins Phonce and Pierre are married and forced to leave their home, later giving birth to a son. The lives of both families and their subsequent children as they come to live side-by-side on neighboring farms. The later life of a maligned Lucien. Winner of the 1938 Avery Hopwood Prize at the University of Michigan. From the author of "Not Without Honor" (1941). -
The Pleasures of a Destroyed City
Short story featuring Joseph Beauchemin, an American expatriate in London, and Dolores, in their apartment in the wake of a public protest. The ways in which they struggle to know one another and to make themselves known - or not - amidst death, politics, and sex. From the author of "The Country," "The Family," and the recent memoir, "American Ghosts." -
Sex, Death, and Baseball
Book of poems from Wayne, Maine writer and author of the 2004 chapbook, "Children Are Ugly Little Monsters (But You Have to Love Them Anyway"). -
Maria Chapdelaine : A Controversial Text
Critical analysis of Louis Hémon's novel, Maria Chapdelaine, sparked by the recent centennial of Hémon's birth (1880). Some descriptions of the novel's main character, Maria, and her choice between two suitors - one to remain in Canada, or one to leave for Massachusetts. Arguments in favor of a certain type of reading the novel, as well as of the character Maria's eventual choice, her reasoning, and what the author believes to be her self-empowerment. Contrasting interpretations from other literary scholars. Assumes some familiarity with the novel. -
Nationalism, Feminism, Cultural Pluralism : American Interest in Quebec Literature and Culture
Article describing the recent attraction of USA scholarship to French Canadian literature. The integration of this literature within academic French programs, and the various practical and theoretical challenges it poses to the broader canon of Francophone Studies. The unique tie between Quebec literature and the growth of feminist, postcolonialist, and cultural minority literary critiques in Canada and the USA. The impact of Quebec nationalism - as well as multiculturalism - on its provincial literatures, and vice versa. -
The Erasure of Grace : Reconnecting Peyton Place to its Author
Critical article on the connection between the public reception of the 1950s breakout novel, "Peyton Place," and the attitudes and public persona of its author, Grace Metalious. How Metalious' life might be read in the depictions and trials of her novel's female characters. How the fictional town of Peyton Place - based on Metalious' New Hampshire home - resonated with readers across the United States. -
Arrhythmia
Short fiction piece about a woman's relationship with her mother illuminated in the ticks and increasing demands of her mother's heart condition. A parallel story of the woman's failed relationship with her partner, Mauricia. -
Your People's Ways
Short fiction piece told from the perspective of Rosaire, a young woman who suffers from a painful and mysterious physical injury. Movements in the relationship between Rosaire and her partner Gabriela, a graduate student, who decides to travel from their Michigan home to California, where a past boss and former lover suffers from cancer. -
Jumelage
Short fiction piece that follows Maggie - a Maine woman in Montréal - through a sudden relationship with her "jumelle interlinguistique," Noémi, and with the province and people of which she discovers she may not be a part. -
Dirt
Storied reflections on the familial inheritance of an author's personal relationship with dirt. Cleaning habits, life lessons, and attitudes of the author's matriarchs toward the cleanliness of one's home and the neat order of oneself. How her confrontations and reminiscences over dirt appear at turning points in the author's life, and what these events have taught her about herself and her family. -
Fatherless and Dispossessed : Grace Metalious as a French‐Canadian Writer
Article profiling Manchester, New Hampshire native writer, Grace (de Repentigny) Metalious. Summary and analysis of her best-selling scandalous novel, "Peyton Place," her reportedly favorite novel, "The Tight White Collar," and her final work, "No Adam in Eden." The autobiographical turn of Metalious's writing and the elements of her personal and family lives that shaped her fiction. Featured in an edition of the Journal of Popular Culture entitled, "Canadian Women Writers." -
Letourneau's Used Auto Parts
The second in a collection of novels by this North Parsonsfield, Maine author. Set in the fictional, rural Maine town of Egypt. A series of vignettes centered around Big Lucien Letourneau, his family, and the other hardscrabble characters in their rural community. Letourneau's auto parts business and all the quirks, love, and violence between the people in his salvage yard/shantytown known as "Miracle City." -
Canuck
Ce roman franco-américain essentiel commence en 1900 avec l'arrivée à Lowell, Massachusetts d'immigrants canadiens-français. La nouvelle vie de travail de Victoria (Vic) Labranche, quinze ans, dans les moulins de Lowell. Ses jours dans un Petit Canada de la Nouvelle-Angleterre. Son retour au Québec après avoir appris la maladie de son père. Publié à l'origine comme feuilleton par le journal Le Messager de Lewiston, Maine. Republié en 1980 par le National Materials Development Center à Bedford, New Hampshire. Traductions en anglais sont disponibles. (English translation is also available. Read more HERE)Tags Concord NH, Death and Disaster, Emigration and Immigration, Family, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Laconia NH, Literary Works -- Fiction, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, Québec, St. Johnsbury VT, St. Martinville LA, Travel and Movement -
La jeune Franco-Américaine
L'histoire de Jeanne, fille de Jean, dans le Petit Canada de la ville de Lewiston, Maine, au debut du XXe siècle. Le mort de sa mère, la fierté de son père, sa foi catholique, et les luttes qu'elle endure avec l'amour dans sa jeune vie. Publié à l'origine en 1933 par Le Messager de Lewiston, Maine. Republié en 1980 par le National Materials Development Center à Bedford, New Hampshire. Traductions en anglais sont disponibles. (English translation is also available. Read more HERE) -
The Questing Beast
Novel told in parallel stories of a father and son. An American artist's eventual return to Canada in search of an identity in the place of his father's birth and death; the father's youthful departure from Quebec to New England many years before. Each man's personal "quest" forward and backward, and the pressures he endures.
From McClelland and Stewart: "'The Questing Beast' traces the lives of a father and son - heirs to a mysterious family disgrace - and their obsessive attempts to appease the specter of their past. Each of them is guided by enigmatic, even mystical, women as their separate journeys take them from the asbestos pits of Thetford Mines, Quebec, to the lush gardens of Miami Beach and, ultimately, back to the same destination."Tags Death and Disaster, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Family, Fiction and Literature, Gender and Sexuality, Hartford CT, Literary Works -- Fiction, Lynn MA, Miami FL, Pawtucket RI, Providence RI, Québec, Taunton MA, United States, Warwick RI, Woonsocket RI -
The Erasure of Grace : Reconnecting Peyton Place to its Author
Critical article on the connection between the public reception of the 1950s breakout novel, "Peyton Place," and the attitudes and public persona of its author, Grace Metalious. How Metalious' life might be read in the depictions and trials of her novel's female characters. How the fictional town of Peyton Place - based on Metalious' New Hampshire home - resonated with readers across the United States. -
Becoming a Man : Half a Life Story
Autobiography and coming-out narrative of Paul Monette, an Andover, Massachusetts writer. Monette recounts twenty-five closeted years of alienation and invisibility, explorations of his sexual identity, and observations on the sexual prejudice and violences around him. Growing up working-class in Massachusetts; his ill younger brother; stints at prep-school and Yale in the 1960s; time spent in England; a return to Massachusetts. Written during the battle with AIDS that eventually claimed the author's life. Winner of the 1992 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Republished in 2004. -
Constant Turmoil : The Politics of Industrial Life in Nineteenth-Century New England
Book-length social history exploring the development of industry, industrial life, and the power of the politics surrounding them in southeastern New England - especially Fall River, Massachusetts - in the nineteenth century. Discussions of gender in the contexts of textile mill work and labor unionism; immigrant workforces, class consciousness, and inter-worker strife. Includes a critical assessment of primary sources consulted, as well as an appendix with demographic and economic data tables referred to in the text.Tags Business and Economics, Connecticut, Coventry RI, English Americans, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Fall River MA, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Irish Americans, Labor History, Lowell MA, Massachusetts, Meriden CT, Mills and Mill Work, New Bedford MA, New England, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Government and Politics, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Norwalk CT, Providence RI, Quequechan River Valley, Rhode Island, Social History -
Nationalism, Feminism, Cultural Pluralism : American Interest in Quebec Literature and Culture
Article describing the recent attraction of USA scholarship to French Canadian literature. The integration of this literature within academic French programs, and the various practical and theoretical challenges it poses to the broader canon of Francophone Studies. The unique tie between Quebec literature and the growth of feminist, postcolonialist, and cultural minority literary critiques in Canada and the USA. The impact of Quebec nationalism - as well as multiculturalism - on its provincial literatures, and vice versa. -
Une journaliste franco-américaine au seuil de l’avant-garde : l’espace des possibles d’Yvonne Le Maître (1876-1954)
Un article sur les oeuvres et la vie sociale d'une journaliste franco-américaine de Pierreville, Québec et Lowell, Massachusetts - Yvonne Le Maître - aux États-Unis, au Canada, et en Europe. La particularité de sa variété d'écriture dans le cadre de son travail comme journaliste, aussi de sa mobilité , "à partir de l'état actuel des connaissances sur les écrivaines canadiennces-françaises" (79). Où ses lettres et pièces journalistiques se sont préoccupés avec les thèmes critiques et artistiques du "futurisme," "cubisme," et la modernité. En quelle façon sa contexte franco-américaine - ou "franco"et "américain" - concerne les formes de son travail. Un accent sur l'impact de son temps passé dans les cercles sociaux internationaux, spécifiquement en Paris. -
Research Methods in Visual and Comparative Analysis : Transportation and Sociability in Saint-Henri, Quebec and Lowell, Massachusetts, 1905–45
Article analyzing how Montréal, Québec and Lowell, Massachusetts photography provides a means for exploring the relationship between patterns of transportation, public space, and social life through the early twentieth century. The history of North American urban streets as related to certain social, economic, and cultural elements of these North American cities. Suggestions for serious and selective approaches to studying photography together with historical texts. Discussion of theoretical implications for the use of photographs in historical research, with one collection of photographs from Montréal's Saint-Henri and four collections from Lowell's "Little Canada" as case studies. -
Working People in the Post-Industrial Age, 1961-Present
Article featuring selections of oral history interviews conducted with Rhode Island working people in the 1980s. Reflections on childhood in urban, industrial Rhode Island in the wake of industrial closures, changing demographic landscapes, and their impact on the state's collective identity. Stories of mill work in Pawtucket, the Narragansett Brewery, labor negotiations, the women's movement, and other social reform movements in Rhode Island in the 1960s and 1970s. Featured in Part Two of a Rhode Island History series entitled, "Working Lives: An Oral History of Rhode Island Labor."Tags Albion RI, Blackstone Valley RI, Central Falls RI, Emigration and Immigration, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Manville RI, Mills and Mill Work, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Economic and Industrial, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Pawtucket RI, Personal History: Biography and Oral History, Rhode Island, Social History, United States, Youth -
Margaret Chase Smith : The Persistence of a Political Archetype
Article describing the political method and image of former Maine Republican congresswoman, Margaret Chase Smith. The paradigmatic elements of her political tenure and their subsequent impact on the shapes of later Maine political campaigns and leadership styles. Particular emphasis on the successes of Maine moderates William Cohen, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins. The major elements of a "Margaret Chase Smith archetype" : independent leadership style and stance, support for national defense, and an identification with hard work and the working class. The ways in which Smith's successful followers in government imitated these elements, or how notable political defeats relate to a candidate's departures from her moderate archetype. Discussion of Smith's little acknowledged French Canadian roots.Tags Androscoggin County ME, Auburn ME, Augusta ME, Brunswick ME, Cape Elizabeth ME, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Hancock County ME, Kittery ME, Lewiston ME, Lincoln County ME, Lisbon Falls ME, Lisbon ME, Maine, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- Government and Politics, Penobscot County ME, Saco ME, Sanford ME, Skowhegan ME, Waldo County ME, War, Washington DC, Waterville ME, Westbrook ME -
Lewis Hine's Photography and Reform in Rhode Island
Article on Lewis Hine's photographic work for the National Child Labor Committee, its ties with the National Consumers' League, and the photographer's place among progressive and humanitarian labor reform in early twentieth-century Rhode Island. The child welfare concerns and women and child labor reform initiatives of Alice Hunt and others of the Rhode Island Consumers' League during that time. How Hine's photographs reflect the humanitarian concerns of the political organizations with which he was associated. Examples of Hine's Rhode Island work in the publications of the NCLC, and the ways in which Rhode Island evidence of poor working and living conditions became part of national conversations about child welfare and housing reform, immigration, and, as the author puts it, "the dignity of work" (49). Illustrated with black and white photographs. Includes a list of Lewis Hine photographs held at the Slater Mill Historic Site in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.Tags Chicago IL, Emigration and Immigration, Gender and Sexuality, Government and Politics, Italian Americans, Lonsdale RI, Mills and Mill Work, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Documentary, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Nonfiction -- History -- Pictorial, Pawtucket RI, Pawtuxet River Valley, Photography, Providence RI, Rhode Island, Social History, Warren RI, Youth -
Maria Chapdelaine : A Controversial Text
Critical analysis of Louis Hémon's novel, <i>Maria Chapdelaine</i>, sparked by the recent centennial of Hémon's birth (1880). Some descriptions of the novel's main character, Maria, and her choice between two suitors - one to remain in Canada, or one to leave for Massachusetts. Arguments in favor of a certain type of reading the novel, as well as of the character Maria's eventual choice, her reasoning, and what the author believes to be her self-empowerment. Contrasting interpretations from other literary scholars. Assumes some familiarity with the novel. -
Henriette, la capuche : The Portrait of a Frontier Midwife
Article on Henriette Blier Pelletier and her lifelong commitment to midwifery. A Québec-born transplant to the Madawaska Territory and the St. Luce Parish - later to be called Frenchville, Maine. Pelletier helped to deliver the children of rural women in their homes, with methods and skills learned through apprenticeship, around the turn of the century. Explanations of medical procedures, folk medicines, and other folk practices used by Pelletier and others in the region, as gleaned from oral history interviews with women in the St. John Valley. -
Sex, Death, and Baseball
Book of poems from Wayne, Maine writer and author of the 2004 chapbook, "Children Are Ugly Little Monsters (But You Have to Love Them Anyway"). -
The Buried City
Short story that finds George returned to his family's New England home and to Hunter, his brother, as they struggle through the emotional aftermath of their mother's funeral. An early work from Providence, Rhode Island-native author of "The Country," "The Family," and the memoir, "American Ghosts." -
The Pleasures of a Destroyed City
Short story featuring Joseph Beauchemin, an American expatriate in London, and Dolores, in their apartment in the wake of a public protest. The ways in which they struggle to know one another and to make themselves known - or not - amidst death, politics, and sex. From the author of "The Country," "The Family," and the recent memoir, "American Ghosts." -
Lucien
Novel set near Trois-Rivières, Québec, that begins with the birth of a first child - a daughter, Lucien - to Marie Charbonneau, whose husband Léonce despairs for not having a son to work on their farm. Two hundred miles away, the first-cousins Phonce and Pierre are married and forced to leave their home, later giving birth to a son. The lives of both families and their subsequent children as they come to live side-by-side on neighboring farms. The later life of a maligned Lucien. Winner of the 1938 Avery Hopwood Prize at the University of Michigan. From the author of "Not Without Honor" (1941). -
Husbands and Lovers
Poem from a Lisbon, Maine writer and founder of poetry's BOA Editions. Dedicated to David Plante. Featured in the New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly published by Middlebury College. Republished posthumously in a collection of A. Poulin, Jr's works, "Selected Poems" (2001) -
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Woman in a Bar
Short story about a friend who, always when visiting the narrator, is eager to find a bar. From the author of the poetry collections, "Awake," "What We Carry," "Smoke," and "Facts About the Moon." Appears in the online literary magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly. -
Awake
Book of poems from Augusta, Maine native and creative writing teacher at North Carolina State University. Contains foreword by Philip Levine. Republished in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon University Press. -
Translation
Short fiction piece about a writer who can be either American (Phil Porter) or French Canadian (Philippe Carrier) depending from which side of the border he is travelling, or upon which side he sits. The complexity of a dual identity lived out in a single life - with accounts of his troubled youth in Montréal, his adult life in upstate New York - that seems to surface in his epilepsy. The success of his recent autobiography, "Head Waters," and the connections he makes with familiarity, his past, and his estranged father on a book tour that brings him to Montréal. -
Mille et un sentiments
1001 lines of poetry from Woonsocket, Rhode Island native and teacher of creative writing at Florida International University. From the author of "Queen for a Day" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." Title modeled after Hervé Le Tellier's <i>Mille pensées</i>. -
David Plante
Radio interview with author David Plante on the occasion of the publication of his novel, "ABC" (Pantheon, 2008). Discussions of Plante's literary engagement with ghosts; with the notions of suffering, belief, and grief; origin and "the ultimate"; and the role of family. Brief discussion of the Providence, Rhode Island Catholic parish cultural milieu of his upbringing. -
Gendered Passages : French-Canadian Migration to Lowell, Massachusetts, 1900-1920
Book-length study on French Canadian migrants and migration to Lowell, Massachusetts at the beginning of the 20th century. The role of family in cross-border human movement, and the impact of migration and its social, economic, and labor dimensions on men, women, and children migrants in an industrial New England city. A study of French Canadian migration as an important and distinct continental population movement; the "socially expansive space[s]" created by migrants uniquely across Canada/USA borders. Emphasis on gender dynamics - their responses to migration, labor, and the family in transition, with explorations of the individual experiences of women and men. Includes study of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century social and economic contexts of Québec and Lowell, in-depth consideration of migration realities, and exploration of settlement in the United States through the lens of the paid and unpaid work experiences of French Canadian women and men. Contains many demographic data tables; illustrated in black and white photograph.Tags Boston MA, Caribou ME, Death and Disaster, Demography, Emigration and Immigration, Ethnicity and Collective Identity, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Geography, Greek Americans, Health and Wellness, Irish Americans, Labor History, Lowell MA, Manchester NH, Merrimack River Valley, Mills and Mill Work, Nashua NH, New York NY, Nonfiction, Nonfiction -- History -- Labor and Social, Portuguese Americans, Québec, Seattle WA, Social History, Sports and Leisure, Travel and Movement, Willimantic CT, Wisconsin -
St. Anne as Symbol of Literacy in Québec Culture
Article on iconography surrounding Ste. Anne - the mother of Jesus' mother, Mary - in the Roman Catholic culture of Québec. Exploration's of the saint's importance for understanding Québec and its people more intimately, first in terms of popular belief in her healing capabilities, and otherwise in terms of her believed role in the education of Mary. Her function as a spiritual icon of education for Québec believers. Popular relationships to the saint and her imagery, and the historical development of her spiritual and artistic representations as intercessor, educator, mother, and patroness in Québec. Thoughts on the development of Ste. Anne as a symbol for education. -
Never Back Down
Novel set in Keene, New Hampshire between the 1950s and early 2000s. Young baseball prospect Jack Landry comes of age with the Catholic sensibility and working-class ethos of his upbringing. Landry confronts stereotype, forbidden love's trials, and the perils of his personal success under the looming ethereal presences of an ancient event and his tragically killed Memere. A man's life between New England and New Orleans, configured through the guiding motto of his youth: "Never back down, never instigate."Tags Acadians, Cajuns, Death and Disaster, Family, Fiction and Literature, Florida, Gender and Sexuality, Irish Americans, Keene NH, Literary Works, Literary Works -- Fiction, Mexico ME, Mills and Mill Work, Mississippi, Native Americans, New Hampshire, New Orleans LA, Religion, Rumford ME, Sports and Leisure, White River Junction VT, Youth -
The Catholicism of Jack Kerouac
Observations of Jack Kerouac's ethnoreligious background - Franco American and Roman Catholic - and what the author describes as one of three "panels of the survivance triptych" : Catholicism. Historical descriptions of the role and actions of the Roman Catholic Church in historic New France, French Canada, Québec, and later in Franco American communities like Kerouac's Lowell, Massachusetts. Franco Catholicism's Jansenist and Manichean tendencies as rooted in early French North American history. Kerouac's early devotion and later rebellion from Catholic practice, with an ever persistent reflection of and fascincation with select observably Catholic conditions and attitudes, including the themes of guilt and suffering apparent in his recorded life and works. Shades of Catholicism in "Beat Movement" mystical and anti-material mores, and intersections with Kerouac's attentions to Buddhism. Selected revelations of Kerouac's interior life, sexual life, and moral concerns as found in his literature and in select quotation. -
Continental Drift
Novel following Bob Dubois, a New Hampshire oil burner repairman, and his attempted escape from discontent to a "fresh start" in Florida with his family. Entwined with the story of Vanise, a Haitian emigrant, and the severities she endures with her family along the sea route northward to Florida. -
The Happy Time
Coming-of-age novel in lighthearted stories set in and around Ottawa, Ontario, amidst the young narrator Robert's extended family of eccentric men and stern women. Robert's small obsession with a much older boarding woman, and other various crushes; the brief appearances of a friendly canary, a mouse, and Robert's French-Canadian uncles; Father Sebastian building a new church for life's finer things; the errands of neighbor Mrs. Merryweather; pipe organs, adult magazines, little green apples, and special characters in other vignettes. Illustrated. Adapted for stage and screen. -
Loup Garou
Short story narrated by a writer frequently at odds with her spiny and somewhat distant lover on their road trip from Oregon to the East Coast. -
The Back Roads
Short story narrating Maxime's detours: from a rare West Coast business trip out of Maine to visit his sister and her partner in San Francisco; from routes of his present to certain back roads of memory. -
Older Women Doing Home Care : Exploitation or Ideal Job?
Article exploring the contexts and conditions of older age women as increasingly common personal assistance and home care aides in the twenty-first century. This occupation at the convergence of the growing need for home care workers in American homes, with the financial insecurity of older active adults in need of supplemental income, and who are able to provide social support and physical assistance to elders in need of care-taking. Author asks: "As older women are choosing, or being forced, to work later in life, is personal care work in their best interest?" (300). Article based on mixed-methods research - the Older Worker Study - including interviews with Maine home health workers: discussion of financial status, family status, work history, and attitudes toward age and experience. Written by a Professor of Social Work at the University of Maine. -
The Anarchist Heart
Volume of poetry from native of Southbridge, Massachusetts and creator of collections "Crying in the Cheap Seats" (1971), "Duhamel" (1986), and the novel "The June Rise" (1994), among other works. Professor in creative writing at Colorado State University. This work is presented in five sections: The Community; Readings; Little Miracles; California; The Anarchist Heart. -
Luckless, Witless, and Filthy-Footed : A Sociocultural Study and Publishing History Analysis of "The Lazy Boy"
Article on narrative motifs and patterns of historical development in the folkloric story of "The Lazy Boy" : a "male tale" traced internationally over nearly five hundred years of oral and written storytelling, through various iterations of characters and themes, and across linguistic boundaries. Author's critical analysis of "The Lazy Boy" used "to explore...questions in contemporary folk narrative research" (259). Emphasis on the roles of anger, stupidity, sexuality, and class in various of the story's versions; how the story's aspects vary in its telling between one cultural community and another.