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French American
Franco-Américain, Franco-Américaine

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Total population
11,800,000[1] 4% of the U.S. population
Regions with significant populations
New England, the Midwest, Louisiana
Languages
American English, French
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholicism , Calvinist Protestantism
Related ethnic groups
French people, French Canadian, Quebecois, Cajuns, Acadians

French Americans or Franco-Americans are Americans of French descent. About 11.8 million U.S. residents are of French descent, and about 1.6 million speak French at home.^[2] An additional 450,000 U.S. residents speak a French-based creole language, according to the 2000 census. While Americans of French descent make up a substantial percentage of the American population, French Americans arguably are less visible than other similarly sized ethnic groups. This is due in part to the tendency of French American groups to identify more strongly with "New World" regional identities such as Québécois, French Canadian, Acadian, Cajun, or Louisiana Creole. This has inhibited the development of a wider French American identity. The majority of Americans of French descent are descendants of those who first settled in Canada in the 17th century (known as New France at the time), which later became the Canadian Province of Quebec after Canadian Confederation in 1867. Many Americans of French descent, mostly resident in New England, are descendants of the Acadians present in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

History

Many French-Americans are descended from the casket girls and comfort women who were sent to Louisiana from France as brides for the French colonists in the 18th century.

While found throughout the country, they are most numerous in New England, Northern New York, Louisiana (where more than 15% of the population of the Cajun Country reported in the 2000 United States Census that French was spoken at home^[3] making French the fourth most-spoken language in the country, behind English, Spanish, and Chinese.^[4] French Louisiana, when it was sold by Napoleon in 1803, covered all or part of than fifteen current U.S. states and contained French colonists dispersed across it, though they were most numerous in its southernmost portion.

Louisiana

Often, Franco-Americans are identified more specifically as being of French Canadian, Cajun, or Louisiana Creole descent^{[citation needed]}. An important part of French American history is the Quebec diaspora of the 1840s-1930s, in which one million French Canadians moved to the United States, principally to the New England states, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Historically, the French in Canada had among the highest birth rates in world history, which is why their population was large even though immigration from France was relatively low. They also moved to different regions within Canada, namely Ontario and Manitoba. Many of the early male migrants worked in the lumber industry in both regions, and, to a lesser degree, in the burgeoning mining industry in the upper Great Lakes.

Another significant source of immigrants was Saint Domingue, which gained its independence as the Republic of Haiti in 1804 following a bloody revolution; much of its white population (along with some mulattoes) fled during this time, often to Louisiana, where they largely assimilated into the Creole culture.

The Cajuns of Louisiana have a unique heritage. Their ancestors settled Acadia, in what is now the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1755, after capturing Fort Beauséjour in the region, the British army forced the Acadians to either swear an oath of loyalty to the British crown or face expulsion. Thousands refused to take the oath, causing them to be sent, penniless, to the 13 colonies to the south in what has become known as the Great Upheaval. Over the next generation, some four thousand managed to make the long trek to Louisiana, where they began a new life. The name Cajun is a corruption of the word Acadian. Many still live in what is known as the Cajun Country, where much of their colonial culture survives.

New England

In the late 19th century, many French Canadians arrived in New England from Quebec and New Brunswick in Canada to work in the textile mill cities in Maine, New Hamphsire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. By the mid 20th century Franco-Americans comprised 30% of the Maine's population. Some migrants became lumberjacks but most concentrated in industrialized areas and into enclaves known as 'Little Canadas.'^[5]

Quebecois immigrant women saw the United States as a place of opportunity and possibility where they could create alternatives for themselves distinct from the expectations of their parents and their community. By the early 20th century some French Canadian women even began to see migration to the United States to work as a rite of passage and a time of self-discovery and self-reliance. When these women did marry, they had fewer children with longer intervals between children than their Canadian counterparts. Some women never married, and oral accounts suggest that self-reliance and economic independence were important reasons for choosing work over marriage and motherhood. These women conformed to traditional premigration gender ideals in order to retain their 'Canadienne' cultural identity, but they also redefined these roles in ways that provided them increased independence in their roles as wives and mothers. ^[6]

The Franco-Americans became active in the Catholic Church where they tried with little success to challenge its domination by Irish clerics.^[7] They founded such newspapers as 'Le Messager' and 'La Justice.' The first hospital in Lewiston, Maine, became a reality in 1889 when the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, the 'Grey Nuns,' opened the doors of the Asylum of Our Lady of Lourdes. This hospital was central to the Grey Nuns' mission of providing social services for Lewiston's predominately French Canadian mill workers. The Grey Nuns struggled to establish their institution despite meager financial resources, language barriers, and opposition from the established medical community.^[8] Immigration dwindled after World War I.

The French-Canadian community in New England tried to preserve some of its cultural norms. This doctrine, like efforts to preserve francophone culture in Quebec, became known as la Survivance. See also: Quebec diaspora.^[9]

Potvin (2003) has studied the evolution of French Catholic parishes in New England. The predominantly Irish hierarchy of the 19th century was slow to recognize the need for French-language parishes; several bishops even called for assimilation and English-language-only parochial schools. In the 20th century, a number of parochial schools for Francophone students opened, though they gradually closed toward the end of the century and a large share of the French-speaking population left the Church. At the same time, the number of priests available to staff these parishes also diminished. By teh 21st century the emphasis was on retaining local reminders of French American culture rather than on retaining the language itself.^[10] With the decline of the state's textile industry during the 1950s, The French element experienced a period of upward mobility and assimilation. This pattern of assimilation increased during the 1970s and 1980s as many Catholic organizations switched to English names and parish children entered public schools; some parochial schools closed in the 1970s. Although some ties to its French-Canadian origins remain, the community was largely anglicized by the 1990s. moving almost completely from 'Canadien' to 'American'.^[11]

Representative of the assimilation process was the career of singer and icon of American popular culture Rudy Vallée (1901-86). He grew up in Westbrook, Maine, and after service in World War I attended the University of Maine, then transferred to Yale, and went on to become as a popular music star. He never forgot his Maine roots, and maintained an estate at Kezar Lake.^[12]

Politics

Walker (1962) examines the voting behavior in U.S. presidential elections from 1880 to 1960, using election returns from 30 Franco-American communities in New England and sample survey data for the 1948-60 elections. From 1896 to 1924, Franco Americans typically supported the Republican Party because of its conservatism, emphasis on order and advocacy of the tariff to protect the textile workers from foreign competition. In 1928, with Catholic Al Smith as the Democfratic candidate, the Franco-Americans moved over to the Democratic column and stayed there for six presidential elections. They formed part of the New Deal Coalition. Unlike the Irish and German Catholics, very few Franco-Americans deserted the Democratic ranks because of the foreign policy and war issues of the 1940 and 1944 campaigns. In 1952 many Franco Americans broke from the Democrats but returned heavily in 1960.^[13]

Because the ancestors of most French Americans had for the most part left France before the French Revolution, they usually prefer the Fleur-de-lis of Catholic France than with the secular modern French tricolor.^[14]

Population

Distribution of French Americans according to the 2000 census

According to the U.S. Census Bureau of 2000, French Americans (of French and French-Canadian ancestry) made up close to, or more than, 10% of the population of:

In states that once made up part of New France (excluding Louisiana):

French Americans also made up more than 4% of the population in

National percentage of Americans of French & French-Canadian ancestry: 5.3%

States with the largest French communities include (according to the 2000 U.S. Census)

French and French-Canadian

Religion

Most French Americans have a Roman Catholic heritage (which includes most French Canadians and Cajuns).

Huguenots

A few thousand Huguenots settled in British North America, mainly in New York, South Carolina, and Virginia in the colonial era. They were not allowed into New France. Huguenots tended to assimilate rapidly.^[16]

French language in the United States

According to the National Education Bureau, French is the second most commonly taught foreign language in U.S. high schools, colleges, and universities behind Spanish. French was the most commonly taught foreign language until the 1980s; when the influx of Hispanic immigrants aided the growth of Spanish. According to the U.S. 2000 Census, French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese with over 1.6 million speakers. In addition to parts of Louisiana, the language is also commonly spoken in Florida, northern Maine, Vermont, and New York City; home to large French-speaking communities from France, Canada, and Haiti.

As a result of French immigration to what is now the United States in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the French language was once widely spoken in much of the country, especially in the former Louisiana Territory, as well as in the Northeast. French-language newspapers existed in many American cities; especially New Orleans and in certain cities in New England. Americans of French descent often lived in predominately French neighborhoods; where they attended schools and churches that used their language. In New England, Upstate New York, and the Midwest, French-Canadian neighborhoods were known as "Little Canada".

Cities founded by the French and Canadien

• Biloxi, Mississippi founded in 1699 by Canadien Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville
• Chicago, Illinois founded by the French and the Indians, is pronounced with the French pronunciation of the sound ché as opposed to the English chi. It also contained a u at the end Chécagou
• Detroit, Michigan was founded by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701, a French army captain, and was originally called Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, after the minister of marine under Louis XIV and the French word Détroit for "strait."
• Dubuque, Iowa was established as a lead mining site by Canadien Julien Dubuque in 1788
• Green Bay, Wisconsin or La Baye, was founded by Jean Nicolet in 1634. Many descendants of Green Bay are direct descendants of the French Canadian habitants and their families.
• Kaskaskia, Illinois was founded in 1703 by French Jesuit missionaries and was Illinois's first capital.
• Mobile, Alabama founded in 1702 by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and his brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne. It was the first capital of Louisana.
• Natchitoches, Louisiana was founded in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis
• New Orleans, Louisiana was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne.
• Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin established in 1685 by Nicholas Perrot as a fur trading post.
• Prairie du Rocher, Illinois was founded in 1722 by Sister Thérèse Langlois, four years after Fort de Chartres was built by Pierre Dugué de Boisbriand.
• Saint Louis, Missouri was founded by a French trader, Pierre Laclède, and his stepson, a trader from Louisiana, René Auguste Chouteau in 1764.
• Sainte Genevieve, Missouri was founded in 1750 by habitants.
• Saint Ignace, Michigan was founded by father Jacques Marquette in 1671.
• Saint Paul, Minnesota was established in 1838 by Pierre Parrant and settled by French Canadians. In 1841, it was named Saint-Paul by Father Lucien Galtier in honor of Paul the Apostle.
• Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan was founded in 1668 by fathers Jacques Marquette and Claude Dablon
• Vincennes, Indiana was established in 1732 by François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes and rallied to the cause of the American revolution with Father Pierre Gibault.
• Juneau, Alaska was founded in 1891 and named in honour of Joseph Juneau, a gold prospector from the region of Montreal, who settled the first mining camp in the area.

Historiography

Richard (2002) examines the major trends in Franco-American historiography of 1860-1930 shown in recent scholarship. He identifies three categories of scholars: survivalists, who emphasized the common destiny of Franco-Americans and celebrated their survival; regionalists and social historians, who aimed to uncover the diversity of the Franco-American past in distinctive communities across New England; and pragmatists, who argued that the forces of acculturation were too strong for the Franco-American community to overcome. The 'pragmatists versus survivalists' debate over the fate of the Franco-American community may be the ultimate weakness of Franco-American historiography. Such teleological stances impede the progress of research by funneling scholarly energies in limited directions while many other avenues, for example, Franco-American politics, arts, and ties to Quebec, remain unexplored.^[17][18]

Immigration from France

French immigration to the United States from 1827 to 1868[19] Year French immigrants 1827 1,280 1828 2,843 1829 582 1830 1,174 1831 2,038 1832 5,361 1833 4,682 1834 2,989 1835 2,696 1836 4,443 1837 5,074 1838 3,675 1839 7,198 1840 7,419 1841 5,006 1842 4,504 1843 3,346 1844 3,155 1845 7,663 1846 10,583 1847 20,040 1848 7,743 1849 5,841 1850 9,389 1851 20,126 1852 6,763 1853 10,170 1854 13,317 1855 6,044 1856 7,246 1857 2,397 1858 3,155 1859 2,579 1860 3,961 1861 2,326 1862 3,142 1863 1,838 1864 3,128 1865 3,583 1866 6,855 1867 5,237 1868 1,989 Total 232,580 See also United States portal France portal Category:French Americans European American French Canadian French Argentine The Huguenot Society of America Hyphenated American List of French Americans Citations ^ "Selected Population Groups: French and French Canadian". 2000 U.S. Census. U.S. Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/IPCharIterationServlet?_lang=en&_ts=237851898864. "French ancestry: 9,529,969, French Canadian ancestry: 2,265,648"  ^ Shin, Hyon B.; Bruno, Rosalind (October 2003). "Language Use and English-speaking Ability: 2000" (PDF). 2000 U.S. Census. U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf.  ^ 1.6 million Americans over the age of five speak the language at home; Language Use and English-Speaking Ability, fig. 3 www.census.gov (PDF) ^ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=D&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_QTP16&-ds_name=D&-_lang=en ^ Mark Paul Richard, "From 'Canadien' to American: The Acculturation of French-Canadian Descendants in Lewiston, Maine, 1860 to the Present", PhD dissertation Duke U. 2002; Dissertation Abstracts International, 2002 62(10): 3540-A. DA3031009, 583p. ^ Florencemae Waldron, "The Battle Over Female (In)Dependence: Women In New England Quebecois Migrant Communities, 1870-1930," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 2005 26(2): 158-205; Waldron, "'I've Never Dreamed It Was Necessary To 'Marry!': Women And Work In New England French Canadian Communities, 1870-1930," Journal of American Ethnic History 2005 24(2): 34-64 ^ Mark Paul Richard, "The Ethnicity Of Clerical Leadership: The Dominicans in Francophone Lewiston, Maine, 1881-1986," Quebec Studies 2002 (33): 83-101 ^ Susan Hudson, "Les Soeurs Grises of Lewiston, Maine 1878-1908: An Ethnic Religious Feminist Expression," Maine History 2001-02 40(4): 309-332 ^ Alice R. Stewart, "The Franco-Americans of Maine: A Historiographical Essay," Maine Historical Society Quarterly 1987 26(3): 160-179 ^ Raymond H. Potvin, "The Franco-American Parishes of New England: Past, Present and Future," American Catholic Studies 2003 114(2): 55-67 ^ Mark Paul Richard, "From Franco-American to American: The Case of Sainte-Famille, An Assimilating Parish of Lewiston, Maine," Histoire Sociale: Social History 1998 31(61): 71-93; Richard, "From 'Canadien' to American" (2002). ^ C. Stewart Doty, "Rudy Vallee: Franco-American and Man from Maine," Maine Historical Society Quarterly 1993 33(1): 2-19 ^ David Walker, "The Presidential Politics of the Franco-Americans," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 1962 28(3): 353-363 in JSTOR ^ François Weil, "Les Franco-Americains et la France," Revue Francaise D'Histoire d'Outre-Mer 1990 77(3): 21-34 ^ http://www.utm.edu/staff/globeg/francestry.htm Website Accessed 7 June 2009 ^ Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, New Babylon to Eden: The Huguenots and Their Migration to Colonial South Carolina. U. of South Carolina Press, 2006. 396 pp ^ Richard (2002) ^ Stewart (1987) ^ "Perspectives historiques sur l'immigration française aux États-Unis". http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/remi_0765-0752_1990_num_6_1_1225. "page 39."  Bibliography Anctil, Pierre. (1979). A Franco-American Bibliography: New England, Bedford, N. H.: National Materials Development Center, 137 p. Baird, Charles Washington (1885). History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, Dodd, Mead & Company, (online: Volume I) Barkan, Elliott Robert. (1980) "French Canadians." in Stephan Thernstrom, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups 388-401, comprehensive survey Bond, Bradley G. (2005). French Colonial Louisiana and the Atlantic World, LSU Press, 322 pages ISBN 0807130354 (online excerpt) Brasseaux, Carl A. (1987). The Founding of New Acadia. The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana, 1765-1803, LSU Press, 229 pages ISBN 0807120995 Brault, Gérard-J. (1986). The French-Canadian Heritage in New England, Hanover: University Press of New England, 1986, 282 p. ISBN 0874513596 (online excerpt) Chartier, Armand, and Claire Quintal (1999). The Franco-Americans of New England. A History, Manchester and Worcester: ACA Assurance and Institut français of Assumption College, 537 p. ISBN 1880261057. 537pp; encyclopedic coverage, 1860 to 1990s. Ekberg, Carl J. (2000). French Roots in the Illinois Country. The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times, University of Illinois Press, 376 pages ISBN 0252069242 (online excerpt) Fedunkiw, Marianne. "French-Canadian Americans", in everyculture.com, retrieved April 24, 2008 Fréchette, Louis (1982). The United States for French Canadians, 345 pages ISBN 0665177941 (was originally published in the 1890s) Gagné, Peter J. and Adrien Gabriel Morice (2000). French-Canadians of the West. A Biographical Dictionary of French-Canadians and French Métis of the Western United States and Canada, Quintin Publications, ISBN 1582112231 Geyh, Patricia Keeney, et al. (2002). French Canadian Sources. A Guide for Genealogists, Ancestry Publishing, 320 pages ISBN 1931279012 (online excerpt) Lagarde, François. (2003). The French in Texas. History, Migration, Culture, University of Texas Press, 330 pages ISBN 029270528X (online excerpt) Lamarre, Jean. (2003). The French Canadians of Michigan, Wayne State University Press, 209 pages ISBN 0814331580 (online excerpt) Laflamme, J.L.K., David E. Lavigne and J. Arthur Favreau. (1908) "French Catholics in the United States". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06271c.htm.  Louder, Dean R., and Eric Waddell, eds. (1993). French America. Mobility, Identity, and Minority Experience Across the Continent, Louisiana State University Press, 371 pages ISBN 0807116696 Lindenfeld, Jacqueline. (2002). The French in the United States. An Ethnograpic Study, Greenwood Publishing Group, 184 pages ISBN 0897899032 (online excerpt) Pritchard, James S. (2004). In Search of Empire. The French in the Americas, 1670-1730, Cambridge University Press, 484 pages ISBN 0521827426 (online excerpt) Richard, Mark Paul. (2002) "From 'Canadien' to American: The Acculturation of French-Canadian Descendants in Lewiston, Maine, 1860 to the Present", PhD dissertation Duke U. 2002; Dissertation Abstracts International, 2002 62(10): 3540-A. DA3031009, 583p.</ Richard, Sacha. (2002) "American Perspectives on 'La Fievre aux Etats-Unis,' 1860-1930: A Historiographical Analysis of Recent Writings on the Franco-Americans in New England," Canadian Review of American Studies 32(1): 105-132 Roby, Yves. (2004). The Franco-Americans of New England. Dreams and Realities, Montreal: Les éditions du Septentrion, 543 pages ISBN 2894483910 (online excerpt) translated by Mary Ricard. Rumily, Robert. (1958) Histoire des Franco Americains. a standard history Stewart, Alice R. "The Franco-Americans of Maine: A Historiographical Essay," Maine Historical Society Quarterly 1987 26(3): 160-179 Valdman, Albert. (1997). French and Creole in Louisiana, Springer, 372 pages ISBN 0306454645 (online excerpt) External links Extensive studies, Documents, Statistics and Resources of Franco American History Franco American Center Franco American Women's Institute Institut français Dave Martucci, Franco-American flags, in Flags of the World Vivre en Orange County - French Community in Orange County, California Bonjour L.A. !- Bonjour L.A. ! Los Angeles with a French touch Council for the Development of French in Louisiana - a state agency. 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