Understanding the French Canadians of Lewiston, 1860-1900: An Alternate Framework

Abstract

Until recently, most of New England’s French-Canadian history was written by the same pro-clerical elite who sought to fashion cultural norms for the French-speaking community. Preoccupied with cultural identity, these historians voiced a common concern for “survivance,” the protection of the group’s language, values, and traditions from American influ­ences. Since the 1960s, a broader interest in the French- Canadian past has been generated by the rise of the “new” social history, which attempts to recreate the past “from the bottom up,” and by the popular quest for ethnic “roots.” Although written from somewhat different perspectives, these new works too betray a preoccupation with cultural change and persistence.