Today in Maine’s Franco History is a look back at important dates in the history of Maine’s Franco-American communities. It will run throughout 2020, the bicentennial year of Maine’s statehood. Your suggestions for additional events, people, and institutions to celebrate are most welcome. January 13, 1964 – Louis-Philippe Gagné of Lewiston died, aged 63. Gagné was […]
Today in Maine’s Franco History is a look back at important dates in the history of Maine’s Franco-American communities. It will run throughout 2020, the bicentennial year of Maine’s statehood. Your suggestions for additional events, people, and institutions to celebrate are most welcome. January 10, 1951: The first game of hockey played on artificial ice in […]
Today in Maine’s Franco History is a look back at important dates in the history of Maine’s Franco-American communities. It will run throughout 2020, the bicentennial year of Maine’s statehood. Your suggestions for additional events, people, and institutions to celebrate are most welcome. January 8, 1883: Opening of the Dominican Block (Bloc Dominicain) in Lewiston. The […]
The band played patriotic tunes as a cannon roared a salute. Local dignitaries including the mayor and a former governor had turned out to meet the train, at the head of a large crowd. The scene had many of the trappings of a state visit. The guest was not a head of state – though […]
Maine’s public health officials scrambled to respond to the threat of an epidemic. They were contending with a misinformation over the effectiveness of vaccinations, and xenophobic sentiment which blamed immigrants for the threat. The year was 1885, and the threat was coming from Canada. In the spring of 1885, a smallpox epidemic had broken out […]
When Paul LePage was elected Governor in 2010, members of the state’s Franco-American community recognized the significance of this political milestone. Long treated as second class citizens, and excluded from the halls of power, a member of their community had finally been elected to the most powerful statewide office. Several articles were written marking the […]
In 2019, I’ll be working on a new, additional, project. Every day, I’ll be sharing a story that appeared in the pages of Le Messager (the French paper published in Lewiston) 125 years ago. Day by day, the Tweets in the original French, with English translations, will build a picture of Franco-American life in the […]
There’s nothing quite like the taste of grandma’s cooking. This holiday season, tens of thousands of Mainers will be enjoying mémère’s tourtière, cretons, or perhaps even pets de soeurs. For immigrants of all backgrounds, food is an important link to home and family, as well as a way of maintaining traditions or future generations. That’s why so […]
There’s been a lot of speculation that 2018 will be the “year of the woman” in US politics, with a record number of women on the ballot, and turnout expected to be high among women. Tuesday’s election results will tell us how true that is, but nearly a century earlier, the women’s vote was certainly […]
On April 29 1892, Solomon Robitscheck wrote to Lewiston’s Le Messager objecting to the newspaper’s characterization of the city’s small population of Jewish peddlers. Two weeks earlier, Le Messager had published an editorial reprimanding Franco Americans who purchased items from the peddlers. Le Msssager’s argument was primarily economic – Franco Americans should patronize Franco owned […]
