Franco American Programs

The Franco American Portal Project is a five-university collaboration to build an online portal to Franco American archival collections. Our project addresses the need for online access to Franco American cultural history by: locating and identifying archival materials that concern French-Canadian, Québécois(e), and Acadian diaspora communities in the US Northeast–wherever these materials have been collected […]

When: Apr 6, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Register in advance for this meeting: https://maine.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqdeyorTIrH9SwDBmvEYHIm5JSaiUpSzcc After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.  

UMaine student Daniel Moreau describes his journey from inspiration to development of a ten-part video series on New England Mill Cities called Dawson.  Spanning nearly 500 years and partly taking inspiration from his hometown of Lewiston, ME, he takes a look at the themes that all these mill cities have had in common, and still […]

Susan Pinette, Douglas Rooks and Severin Beliveau will be joining Jennifer Rooks on Maine Calling to discuss The First Franco. The book is published by Franco American Programs in association with the University of Maine Press. https://www.mainepublic.org/show/maine-calling https://umaine.edu/umpress/recently-published/first-franco-albert-beliveau-in-law-politics-and-love/

Americans don’t think of Canada as a source of potential terrorists—speaking a foreign tongue, serving a foreign religion, and invading their country. But when nearly a million French-Canadians crossed the border between 1840 and 1930, many seeking work in New England’s burgeoning textile industry, elements in the public sector, press, clergy, and academia cast them […]

Many years ago some people decided that the St.Pierre’s, Dupuis’, Morneau’s, and Pelletier’s shouldn’t speak French anymore. They decided it wasn’t useful, it wasn’t pretty… They declared it was the linguistic stamp of the undereducated and it was a verbal confirmation that in the years past there has been a lot of catholicism, even more […]

Join us for a special session, co-hosted by the UMaine Alumni Association and Franco American Programs, which celebrates the release of First Franco: Albert Beliveau in Law, Politics, and Love, a biography of Maine’s first Franco American Supreme Court Justice. The webinar will feature excerpts from the book shared by author Douglas Rooks, remarks by […]

We have at least 60 who are ancestors, including Elisabeth Aubert who married French immigrant Aubin Lambert Champagne. We would like to focus on their vital contribution to French-Canadian colonization […]

Jeanne Douillard believes the past is important. To her way of thinking, history shapes people, shapes cultures. History does matter. “We are the heirs of our ancestor’s journeys,” she says. “Their experiences matter. We carry them with us even if their story is lost to us.” Her talk, “Silent Presence - The French in New England,” […]