Franco-American Folk Traditions and Popular Culture in a Former Milltown : Aspects of Ethnic Urban Folklore and the Dynamics of Folklore Change in Lowell, Massachusetts

Franco-American Folk Traditions and Popular Culture in a Former Milltown : Aspects of Ethnic Urban Folklore and the Dynamics of Folklore Change in Lowell, Massachusetts

From Lane: "Being Americans of French-Canadian descent, the Franco-Americans of New England possess a rich and original traditional culture which has been little documented up to now, especially in English....As a result, this dissertation, which is a study in ethnic folklore and popular culture, attempts to provide an overview of the folk-traditions of French expression still existing today among the Franco-American community of Lowell, Massachusetts....This work is basically divided into two parts. The first two chapters of Part I deal with the general historical and cultural background of the Franco-Americans of New England, in general, and Lowell, in particular, while the third chapter looks at previous research in the domain of ethnic folklore and, more specifically, Franco-American folklore. Aspects of folklore performance and context are considered from the historical point of view of the Lowell Franco-American community....Part II, on the other hand, deals mainly with the documentation of the various realms of Franco-American folk-traditions, here classified according to genre. Traditional narratives ("contes"), popular jokes ("histoires droles"), children's songs and rhymes, and elements of oral history as well as aspects of traditional singing, music and dance are consecutively considered with sample texts of each genre given and analyzed. Further supporting documents are also presented in the appendices....Because Franco-American culture (and therefore Franco-American folklore and popular culture) is the historical result of successive migrations (from France to what is known today as Canada and, from Canada to New England) this study also takes into account the phenomenon of cultural continuity as well as some aspects of the dynamics of culture change which are viewed here as a process resulting from the conflict having taken and still taking place between two opposing forces: cultural maintenance and assimilation....Most of all, however, this work is a first step into the field of Franco-American oral-traditional genres, popular culture and an homage to ethnic creativity."

Lane, Brigitte Marie

1983

en

Thesis/Dissertation

1830-1980; Lowell, Massachusetts

No

608

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Ph. D.

Harvard University

Franco-American Folk Traditions... @ Harvard University

Franco-American Folk Traditions... @ Google Books