Essay on the function of the personal letter in historiography. How trails of correspondence between French Canadians in Canada and the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries tell us about French Canadian migration: migrants, immigrants, families separated by distance and labor, and the sort of information that was communicated by post. The relationship of letter-writing to French Canadian literacy in that period. Contains analyses of certain private correspondences among French Canadian migrants, their families, and friends - the majority of which exisiting between Québec and New England cities.
