What I am reading this week: "Changes in the Land" by William Cronon

This blog is about ancestors and history of French Canadians so you can rightly ask "Why are you interested in reading about New England's Pilgrims and Puritans and the changes they brought upon the New England ecology?"  I suppose it is because all the colonial immigrants to the western hemisphere made drastic changes upon the lands forever altering the balance. From the very beginning of the Pilgrim's venture they made plans to support and pay for their efforts by shipping timber and beaver skins back to England. The landscape and whatever animals lived and plants grew on it were commodities that could be traded.  Historians sometimes write the French colonists were more tolerant of the the native peoples and  less destructive of the environment.  Probably that is because the number of French who established farms in the St. Lawrence Valley was so small compared to the number of English colonists establishing farms in New England. The French farmers cleared rectangular plots along the shores of the St Lawrence River and      seldom moved into the deep interior in the 17th century.  The English colonists arrived in droves between 1620 and 1630, rapidly moving up the Connecticut River, the Essex River, north of Boston, and established towns inland.

However, it is hard to imagine the French control of the northern beaver fur trade as more benign than the English and Dutch trade in New England colonies and the Hudson Valley of New York.  It did not take long for the beaver, and many other native birds and animals to be wiped out.  The beaver traders had to travel farther and farther into the hinterland to obtain the furs they needed.  The passenger pigeon  once so abundant in the St Lawrence River Valley were killed by the French Canadians to stuff in their tourtiere pies and became extinct by the 1890's!  My point?  Well, there is enough blame to go round the ancestor's tree but let's open our eyes to what is happening in the present.  We must stop thinking of resources (think oil and petro fuel) as commodities to be used up now.   I cannot understand why we even think and speak  of oil reserves as "lasting 50 years" or "supplying our nation's needs for X period of time".  The pursuit of genealogy has made me realize we are here for a blink of time and 12 generations is really not very long.  What will I leave for my children??  So Changes in the Land is a great book that has starting me thinking  about that past, my present and their future....  here's a review of the book on someone's blog Review of Changes In the Land.   

What I am Reading this Week: Gendered Passages by Yukari Takai OR Cohoes, New York versus Lowell, Massachusetts: Where would you go if you were crossing the 49th parallel looking for work?

The AMAZON description: Gendered Passages is the first full-length book devoted to the gendered analysis of the lives of French-Canadian migrants in early-twentieth-century Lowell, Massachusetts. It explores the ingenious and, at times, painful ways in which French-Canadian women, men, and children adjusted to the challenges of moving to, and settling in, that industrial city.  Yukari Takai uncovers the multitude of cross-border journeys of Lowell-bound French Canadians, the centrality of their family networks, and the ways in which the ideology of the family wage and the socioeconomic realities in Québec and New England shaped migrants lives on both sides of the border. Takai argues that French-Canadian husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters harboured complex interpersonal dynamics whereby differing and, at times, conflicting interests had to be negotiated in not necessarily equal terms, but in accordance with each members power and authority within the family and, by extension, larger society.

Drawing on extensive historical research including archival records, collections of oral histories, newspapers, and contemporary observations in both English and French, Gendered Passagescontributes to the re-reading of French-Canadian migration, which constitutes a fundamental part of North American history.

Cohoes, New York versus Lowell, Massachusetts:  Where would you go if you were crossing the 49th parallel looking for work?


In the first chapter, "To the Wrong Side of the Border", Takai describes the predominate regions of Québec sending emigrants to Lowell, Massachusetts in the early twentieth century were Lanaudière and  Maurice.  Although hardly a stressed point in Takai's thesis, I find it very interesting.  Lowell attracted French Canadians from Lanaudière and Maurice while, it would appear to me, Cohoes, smaller in size and manufacturing in the  early 20th century, was attracting French Canadians from Montérégie and parts of the Richelieu Valley.  Perhaps it was easier for Montérégie emigrants to make the trip directly south on the railroad into Cohoes.   The Guertin (Yetto)), Bissonnette, Beauvais, St. Hilaire, Chaput, all came from the Richelieu Valley.  The Rivet and the LaCasse families were exceptions.  Instead of heading to Lowell like the majority of emigrants from Joliette and Lanaudiére, Maxime Rivet and Dedace LaCasse with their respective wives and children, headed to Cohoes at the end of the 19th century.  Why did they come to Cohoes, New York instead of Lowell, Massachusetts?  It's a perplexing question and cannot be easily solved.  Did Maxime Rivet and/or Dedace LaCasse have prior relatives in Cohoes who wrote home and told them about the opportunities?  Were there active recruiters from Cohoes in Joliette seeking manpower and womanpower for the mills? Although the answer isn't apparent at this time, perhaps someday my research will answer this question.

New York Central Railroad Station in Cohoes: Where thousands of
French Canadians Disembarked to work in the Cohoes Textile Mills

Another view from the south of the New York Central Station

Meanwhile, reading Gendered Passages, encourages me to consider the crossing from Lanaudiére to Cohoes, instead of Lowell, may have more to do with the women.  Marie Lord and Marie Louise Mireault, respective wives of Maxime Rivet and Dedace LaCasse, may hold the key to solving this little mystery.

Related Links:

Yukari Takai: Author Profile

What I am Reading this Week: Ghost Empire by Philip Marchand

Ghost Empire: How the French almost Conquered North America by Philip Marchand . 2005

I love this book which is primarily about LaSalle, the French explorer who claimed lands in the Mississippi River Valley for France.  However, if I didn't have some background knowledge about early France in North America, I think I would be totally flummoxed. Marchand discusses so many topics in his book that directly impacted the French empire, Quebecois culture and FrancoAmericans from Francis Parkman historian, Gothic architecture, the printing press, literature of defeated people, discipline of Catholic nuns, Pontiac's Rebellion, Loup Garou, birchbark canoes, coureurs de bois, John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Trade Company, the price of civilization, waterways as trade paths, to Marxism and more. Surely, this is a whirlwind tour down the St. Lawrence, Great Lakes, Illinois River to Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico so you can see how dizzy I became after page two!  Despite the lighthearted heavy handedness, my heart ached with recognition of every emotion Marchand described as he followed through his own and other's French heritage.  It is great to read this but if you do not know some historical background, you may be perplexed and loose interest in the details or you can reach for another read about the French in North America to fill in all the blanks.

Cover of the US  Edition