Eloise A. Brière Franco-American Oral History Collection

Background on Eloise A. Brière

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.

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.