Some early emigrants relocated to the United States because they had chosen to side with the Americans during the
American Revolution. Parish archives of
Old St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia record trips made by Jesuit Father Ferdinand Steinmeyer (Father Farmer) to the Revolutionary War depot near
Fishkill, New York, where he baptized over a dozen children of French-Canadian and
Acadian parents. Most of the men were members of the
1st Canadian Regiment of the
Continental Army, recruited in 1775 by
James Livingston in anticipation of an
invasion of northeastern Quebec. As the expedition failed, they, their families, and the American militias were driven out of Canada. Approximately 900,000 French-Canadians emigrated to the United States in the period of 1840-1930 as part of the
Quebec diaspora. The vast majority of these francophones settled in the six New England states:
Connecticut,
Maine,
Massachusetts,
New Hampshire,
Rhode Island and
Vermont, as well as northern
New York state. of French Americans according to the
2000 census Emigrants moved to states close to Quebec, particularly those bordering the province, because of their generally impoverished condition and lack of jobs as a result of a poor economy over-reliant on
agriculture. In the 19th century, the United States was one of the most industrialised and prosperous nations on earth. The emigrants left behind a traditional rural society to enter an industrial world.
Ludlow, Massachusetts;
Manchester, New Hampshire;
Lewiston, Maine; and
Woonsocket, Rhode Island were major destinations for Quebec laborers. French Canadians from other provinces often moved elsewhere: those from
Ontario typically emigrated to
Illinois and
Michigan, while those from
Manitoba and other Western provinces usually emigrated to
Minnesota and
Wisconsin.
Minneapolis and
Saint Paul, Minnesota, boasted a large French Canadian community in 1900. One of the more famous "Little Canadas" was the
West Side of Manchester, New Hampshire, a city with a large French-speaking population due to the recruitment of laborers in Quebec to work in the textile mills in the 19th and 20th centuries. "La Caisse Populaire Ste. Marie", or
St. Mary's Bank, located in Manchester's Little Canada, was the first
credit union chartered in the United States, specifically founded to serve the French Canadian population. The credit union, or "people's bank" ("la caisse populaire") was a financial institution pioneered in Quebec by
Quebecers who had difficulty obtaining credit from banks controlled by
anglophone Canadians. The most noted resident of Manchester's "petit Canada" was
Grace Metalious, author of the best-selling novel
Peyton Place. Metalious denied her French Canadian heritage and mostly lived in non-French Canadian neighborhoods in Manchester, due to her mother's desire to avoid prejudice. During
World War II, Metalious eventually had to live in Little Canada after her husband went off to war due to a housing shortage. In contrast, novelist
Robert Cormier of
Leominster, Massachusetts, highlighted the culture of fictitious but representative Little Canadas in New England in many of his works, notably "Frenchtown Summer."
Revlon founder
Charles Revson, of Russian-Jewish extraction, grew up in a cold-water
tenement in Manchester's Little Canada. Other prominent Little Canadas were found in
Lowell, Massachusetts, the home of novelist
Jack Kerouac, and
Lewiston, Maine. Another notable Franco-American community sprang up in
Fall River in southeastern Massachusetts. As a result, a number of cultural and charitable organizations, such as the Franco-American Civic League, the Club Richelieu, La Fédération Catholique Franco-Américaine de Fall River, and L'Association Culturelle Française de Fall River, were founded to foster French language and culture within the Franco-American community. Today,
New England French (essentially a variety of
Canadian French) is spoken in parts of New England, in particular
Maine. ==References==