Tag Archives: textile mills

French Canadians in New England

A Distinct Alien Race: Book Review

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The following is a book review of A Distinct Alien Race:  The Untold Story of Franco-Americans:  Industrialization, Immigration, Religious Strife by David Vermette.  Vermette is a researcher, writer, and speaker on French-Canadian and Franco-American identity.  His book was recently published by Baraka Books.

A Distinct Alien Race, by David Vermette. Baraka Books, 2018
A Distinct Alien Race, by David Vermette. Baraka Books, 2018

In writing about the migration of French-Canadians to New England, Vermette has chosen an excellent example of how a feared ethnicity once labeled “Other” became assimilated citizens of the United States. One of the reasons this story is compelling is that it happened so long ago; another is that it is so similar to what is happening now at our southern border. Because it is the story of an underclass, it is has been ignored in American history books and courses which tend to lionize the rich and powerful — that is, men who became rich and powerful on the backs of this underclass. Continue reading A Distinct Alien Race: Book Review →

French Canadians in New England, Genealogy

Grandma Lived in a Shed: Using Maps to Research a Family Story

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Rear view, including shed. Former Bonneau home on Cottage Street, Danielson, Connecticut. Photo taken in April 2014 by Julianne Mangin.
Rear view, including shed. Former Bonneau home on Cottage Street, Danielson, Connecticut. Photo taken in April 2014 by Julianne Mangin.

Here’s another snippet of family history from Mom, one that sent me on an unexpected genealogical journey.

When my mother was a little girl, she lived with her family in a shed behind a relative’s house. Her sister, Pauline, was born there.

When I asked Mom why Grandma’s family was living in a shed, she just shrugged and said, “That’s what I was told.” She didn’t know where the shed was or which relative had owned it. At first, I suspected that this story was another one of those crazy things Grandma had told her a long time ago, and which she simply took at face value. I imagined that my grandmother, who suffered at times from hallucinations and delusions due to schizophrenia, had exaggerated her living conditions. Perhaps it was small, rickety house, I thought, but surely not a shed! At the time, I hadn’t realized how poor Grandma’s family had been. But as I pieced together their story, the impoverished conditions under which they had lived became ever more evident. After a while, the story about Grandma Beatrice living in a shed didn’t seem so preposterous.

Continue reading Grandma Lived in a Shed: Using Maps to Research a Family Story →

Families, French Canadians in New England

From Quebec to Connecticut

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This post was revised and expanded on March 30, 2018.

I have spent the last six years researching and writing about the five women in my family tree who were mentally ill and committed to state hospitals.  Along the way, I learned that they were descended from French-Canadians who immigrated to the U.S. in the late nineteenth century.  Throughout the preceding fifty-five years of my life, I knew very little about my Quebecois heritage.

Quinebaug Mill and canal, ca. 1901. Danielson, Connecticut
Quinebaug Mill and canal, ca. 1901. Danielson, Connecticut

The Quinebaug Mill in Danielson, Connecticut is where several of my French-Canadian ancestors worked, after leaving their Quebec villages. These photos, from the collections of the Killingly Historical and Genealogical Society, offered me a window into what my great-grandparents’ working lives were like.
Continue reading From Quebec to Connecticut →