Who are you the past whispered? I wasn't sure. Born in Montreal to French - Irish parents and moved to America at age 4, I wasn't able to connect with my roots. The past whispered again and I began my search. The search for my elusive great-grandparents took me to County Cavan, Ireland, northern France and Belgium. The Past Whispers...
A solid contribution to social and urban studies, this fascinating collection of oral histories details the life and times in Canada's "cradle of industrialization." Contributors to this book were all born between the 1920's and 1950's and remember growing up around the east end of the Lachine Canal near the Montreal harbour. It was a time when ships from far away places still navigated the canal and this historic working-class area hummed with the sounds of factories. Families were often large and the streets teemed with children. These oral histories follow contributors' lives to the present day. The book also discusses the redevelopment and evolution of the area. Well-illustrated with archival photos, with bibliography, and an introduction by the author.
The Past Whispers is once again entered in Blogging from A to Z 2020 This years inspiration is 'Good Reads', books about the Irish and French in Canada and the United States. I hope you come back every day for new books to consider.
From the Emerald Isle to the Cream City by Carl Baehr.
Irish-Milwaukee history begins with the first Irish immigrants who arrived during Milwaukee's founding in the mid-1830s. Irish laborers helped shape the city by cutting down bluffs, filling in marshes, digging a canal, and creating streets. They were joined in the late 1840s by more Irishmen who were fleeing the Great Famine and starvation in Ireland. It's a history populated with heroic figures like Patrick O'Kelly, the city's first Catholic priest and the founder of Milwaukee's first Catholic church; John O'Rourke, the first editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel; and Timothy O'Brien, who emerged as a hero during the cholera epidemics as well as other colorful characters like the scoundrel Robert B. Lynch, kindhearted Hannah Kenneally, the "White Irishman" John White, firefighting hero Patsy McLaughlin, and militia leader John McManman. And it's a tale of overcoming some of Milwaukee's biggest tragedies: the sinking of the Lady Elgin, which cost the lives of 300 people, most of them from the Irish Third Ward; the Newhall House hotel fire, which took more Irish lives; and finally, the Third Ward Fire, which destroyed hundreds of buildings and scattered the Irish to other parts of the city. This historical tour captures it all--from the difficulties in adapting to American ways, as seen through events like the Leahey riot and the lynching of Marshall Clark, to the successes, such as the founding of the city of Cudahy by a poor Irish immigrant, the film stardom of Tory Hill's Pat O'Brien and Merrill Park's Spencer Tracy, and the many people who have Milwaukee streets and parks named for them. From the Emerald Isle to the Cream City describes how the Irish influenced the political, educational, religious, and sports landscape of Milwaukee and their impact on other ethnic groups, overcoming early poverty and bigotry to help make Milwaukee the city that it is today.
In the later 19th century, French-Canadian Roman Catholic immigrants from Quebec were deemed a threat to the United States, potential terrorists in service of the Pope. Books and newspapers floated the conspiracy theory that the immigrants seeking work in New England's burgeoning textile industry were actually plotting to annex parts of the United States to a newly independent Quebec. Vermette’s groundbreaking study sets this neglected and poignant tale in the broader context of North American history. He traces individuals and families, from the textile barons who created a new industry to the poor farmers and laborers of Quebec who crowded into the mills in the post-Civil War period. Vermette discusses the murky reception these cross-border immigrants met in the USA, including dehumanizing conditions in mill towns and early-20th-century campaigns led by the Ku Klux Klan and the Eugenics movement. Vermette also discusses what occurred when the textile industry moved to the Deep South and brings the story of emigrants up to the present day. Vermette shows how this little-known episode in U.S. history prefigures events as recent as yesterday’s news. His well documented narrative touches on the issues of cross-border immigration; the Nativists fear of the Other; the rise and fall of manufacturing in the U.S.; and the construction of race and ethnicity. Available nationwide.
A group of Irish amateur genealogists from a small Galway town are seeking to connect with descendants of 156 emigrants known as the “Primrose” girls after the name of the ship they sailed on to Canada in 1853...more
