Immigrant odyssey

Felix Albert was born in rural Québec in 1843. In 1881, after his farm and other business ventures had failed, Felix and his family joined the migration of thousands of other Québecois streaming into New England's industrial cities. The Alberts settled in Lowell, Massachusetts where the whole fsamily was able to find work in the textile mills. Although Felix was illiterate, he dictated his life's story to a parish priest and his story was published in French in 1909. The story recounted an experience which was re-enacted numerous times during the nineteenth century as an estimated 300,000 French-Canadians migrated to New England looking for better jobs.