Eloise A. Brière Franco-American Oral History Collection - Finding Aid
Item Description
The interviews in this collection, conducted mostly in French between August 8, 1982 and Jan. 18, 1983, document the lives and experiences of forty-four Franco-American residents of Massachusetts, concentrated in the areas around Easthampton and Lowell. Transcripts are available for five interviews: Paul Racine, Paul Morrisette, Mme. Dauphinais, Eugène St. Pierre, and Vivianne Potvin.
In 1982, Eloise A. Brière received support from the Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities for a series of oral histories with Franco-Americans in Massachusetts. A noted scholar of Francophone communities, Brière interviewed 44 first and second French-speaking generation immigrants from Canada of varied backgrounds, ranging from parish priests and nuns to former textile workers, activists in language preservation, and the Mayor of Holyoke. These interviews were in turn used as part of fourteen one-hour episodes for the radio show "Tout en Français," broadcast by WFCR radio in Amherst./n Earning degrees at UMass Amherst (BA), Middlebury College (MA in French literature), and the University of Toronto (PhD), Brière began her teaching career at the College Sainte-Jeanne D'Arc, a secondary school in Dakar, Senegal, while also earning a second master's degree (Maitrise) at the University of Dakar. A specialist in the culture of French-language communities throughout the world, she was co-author of the important textbook, Rendez-vous: La France et la Francophonie (1982). She and her husband Jean-François enjoyed distinguished careers on faculty at the University at Albany (SUNY), from which she retired in 2012./n Provenance: Gift of Eloise Brière, 1984.
Processed by I. Eliot Wentworth, July 2015.
Requests to publish, redistribute, or replicate this material should be addressed to Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries.
Eloise A. Brière Franco-American Oral History Collection (MS 123). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.