An historical preservation project about French-Canadians who settled in Cohoes, N.Y. and made it that city’s largest ethnic group has resulted in a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for two Siena professors.
Dr. Janet Shideler, professor of modern language, and Dr. Karen Mahar, professor of history, received the $9,000 grant as part of the NEH’s Common Heritage program. Their project is called “Je me souviens (I Remember): Presenting and Preserving the Heritage of Upstate New York’s Franco-American Communities.”
With the help of the NEH grant, the two will work with a team of students, librarians, and community volunteers, who will digitize and preserve a broad array of artifacts and oral histories that reflect the rich cultural heritage of French-Canadians who settled in Cohoes. They were the largest ethnic group in that city in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
This team will present a public digitization and cultural event in Cohoes in June. Siena will host its own celebration of the project in September.
“The heritage of French-Canadian immigrants to Cohoes and elsewhere in New York state is largely overlooked, and so we are excited about giving their descendants—Franco-Americans—an opportunity to tell their story of how they left behind grueling poverty to become a thriving immigrant population and eventually proud Americans,” said Dr. Shideler. “Men, women, children, laborers, business owners, journalists, and civic and religious leaders all came in the hopes of achieving a better life for themselves and contributing to their new home, even as they transplanted familiar and revered aspects of their former home.”
Dr. Shideler, a former dean of liberal arts, specializes in Francophonie, which is the study of the culture, language and history of French-speaking people outside of France. Dr. Mahar has studied extensively in the field of public history, including historic preservation and museum studies.
