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"Little Canada" or "le petit Canada" (a.k.a. "la petite Canada") is the name traditionally given to neighborhoods in cities and towns settled by immigrants from the Province of Quebec, known as French Canadians.
Approximately 900,000 French Canadians emigrated to the United States in the period of 1840-1930, the vast majority of whom settled in the six New England states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Emigrants preferred moving to states close to Quebec, particularly those bordering the province, due to the physical proximity to Quebec but also because their generally impoverished state obviated greater movement. The New England textile industry was a major recruiter of Quebec labor.
Of French Canadians from other provinces, those from Ontario typically emigrated to Illinois and Michigan, while those from Manitoba and other Western Provinces usually emigrated to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota boasted a large French Canadian community circa 1900.
One of the more famous "Little Canadas" was the West Side of Manchester, New Hampshire, a city with a large French Canadian population due to the recruitment of labor in Quebec to work in the textile mills in the 19th and 20th centuries. "La Caisse Populaire Ste. Marie," or "St. Mary's Bank," located in Manchester's Little Canada, was the first credit union chartered in the United States, specifically founded to serve the French Canadian population. The credit union, or "people's bank" ("la caisse populaire") was a financial institution pioneered in Quebec by French Canadians, who had difficulty obtaining credit from banks controlled by anglophone Canadians.
The most famous resident of Manchester, New Hampshire's "le petit Canada" was Grace Metalious, author of the best-selling novel Peyton Place. Interesting, Metalious denied her French Canadian heritage and mostly lived in non-French Canadian neighborhoods in Manchester, due to her mother's desire to avoid prejudice. During World War II, Metaliuous eventually had to live in Little Canada after her husband went off to war due to a housing shortage.
Another famous resident of Manchester's Little Canada was Charles Revson, of Russian-Jewish extraction, who grew up in a cold-water tenement in the area.
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