Keywords: Le Messager
Item 79912
Le Messager Newspaper Staff, 175 Lincoln Street, Lewiston, 1908
Contributed by: Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries Date: 1908 Location: Lewiston Media: Photographic print
Item 18880
Jean-Baptiste Couture, Lewiston, ca. 1900
Contributed by: Franco-American Collection, University of Southern Maine Libraries Date: circa 1900 Location: Lewiston Media: Photographic print
Exhibit
Lewiston, Maine's second largest city, was long looked upon by many as a mill town with grimy smoke stacks, crowded tenements, low-paying jobs, sleazy clubs and little by way of refinement, except for Bates College. Yet, a noted Québec historian, Robert Rumilly, described it as "the French Athens of New England."
Exhibit
In the early 1600s, French explorers and colonizers in the New World quickly adopted a Native American mode of transportation to get around during the harsh winter months: the snowshoe. Most Northern societies had some form of snowshoe, but the Native Americans turned it into a highly functional item. French settlers named snowshoes "raquettes" because they resembled the tennis racket then in use.
Story
Where are the French?
by Rhea Côté Robbins
Franco-Americans in Maine
