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Salem
as "Little Canada": French-Canadian Connections
By Elizabeth Blood
Although the city of Salem is most well-known for its colonial settlers, sea captains, and literary figures, it has also welcomed several waves of immigrants who have brought cultural and linguistic diversity to its streets. One of the first immigrant groups to populate the city were French-Canadian immigrants who started coming to Salem in the mid-19th century to work in its leather and shoe factories. By the year 1900, French-Canadian immigrants and their Franco-American children made up 20% of the city's population, and Salem was one of a handful of U.S. cities dubbed as a "Little Canada."
As they did in Lowell, Worcester, Fall River, and Woonsocket, the French-Canadians of Salem built churches and schools where masses and classes were taught in French. They opened shops and started businesses. They published a French-language newspaper called the "Courrier du Salem". They built houses and had families. They became teachers, business people, nurses and doctors. Eventually, they began to assimilate into middle-class American society and new waves of immigrants replaced them. Parents stopped teaching their children French, children stopped celebrating the customs of their French-Canadian ancestors. However, we still see evidence of this history in the city of Salem--in the names of its businesses, in its churches and buildings, in its cable television offerings (a French channel from Québec is included in the basic cable package in Salem), and in the family names of many local residents, college students, and professionals. Anyone who has traveled or lived in Québec recognizes the names that are, in Québec, as common as Smith and Jones: Gagnon, Côté, Lévesque, Desjardins, Soucy....these are names that still surround us today even if those who bear them no longer speak the French language fluently.
This website is an attempt to document the rich history of Salem and its Franco-American population. As it grows, I hope to include oral histories, works of art, and original fiction by Salem's Franco-American residents.
In Salem, the immigrant neighborhood called "the Point", now a largely Spanish-speaking Dominican quarter, was once home to many native speakers of French. The neighborhood is home to the St. Joseph's Church, which opened in 1873 and was closed in 2004 after 131 years serving the immigrant populations--first French-speaking and more recently Spanish-speaking--of the Point.
Photo of the Presbytère St. Joseph on Lafayette Street in the Point.
The nearby Lévesque Funeral Home on Lafayette Street.
In south Salem, another French church was built, the Église Sainte-Anne. Ste. Anne's, still in operation today, opened in 1901.
Street signs in south Salem where many French-Canadian immigrants lived. The streets are named after Samuel de Champlain (founder of the city of Québec) and the Saint-Laurent river (which runs through the Province of Québec).
Laurent Road.
A truck parked on Champlain Street in south Salem.
Many other businesses in the Salem-area bear French-Canadian surnames.
A business on Canal Street.
Another business on Canal Street.
There were numerous "French schools" where the Franco-American descendants of the French-Canadian immigrants were sent to learn the language of their ancestors. This school is now part of the Salem State College South Campus.
Sainte-Chrétienne, a former French Catholic school off Loring Avenue.
All photos copyrighted by E. Blood © 2007.
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