page_title: History of the French in Holyoke
section_title: Institutions
hierarchical_section_title: History of the French in Holyoke / Institutions
context_page_description: During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Holyoke saw an influx of Franco-Americans, predominantly French-Canadians, who immigrated to Massachusetts to work in the city's growing textile and paper mills. By 1900, 1 in 3 people in Holyoke were of French-Canadian descent, and a 1913 survey of French Americans in the United States found Holyoke, along with other Massachusetts cities, to have a larger community of French or French-Canadian born residents than those of New Orleans or Chicago at that time. Initially faced with discrimination for the use of their labor by mill owners to undermine unionization, as well as for their creation of separate French institutions as part of the La Survivance movement, this demographic quickly gained representation in the city's development and civic institutions.
context_section_description: The earliest enduring cultural institutions of Holyoke's Franco-Americans were in large part the city's French Catholic Churches. The first of these being L'Église du Precieux Sang (the Precious Blood Church), which was established in 1869 and remained extant until its 1987 closure, and Notre Dame du Perpétuel Secours in 1890, which continued until the parish merged with Sacred Heart to form Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2005. The latter would eventually establish the Notre Dame du Perpetuel Secours Credit Union of Holyoke in 1911; though the credit union was originally created to help students understand thrift, it soon gained accounts of many other members of the community and has been known since 1918 as simply the Holyoke Credit Union.
  Other financial businesses included the City Co-operative Bank, which was founded in 1889 and remained extant until it was purchased by United Bank in 1994. Featuring the motto "Faire Fructifier L'Epargne" ("Boost Savings"), the bank was founded to provided greater credit to working French. Longtime city treasurer Pierre Bonvouloir was not only instrumental in founding this bank, but also the aforementioned credit union, as well as the Home National Bank, Holyoke Savings Bank, and the PeoplesBank, all of which he had served as a member of the board of directors.
  In 1912 the Alliance Française de Holyoke was established, with Louis LaFrance's wife being president of the branch, however the organization, which teaches the French language and provides cultural exchange, had only 15 members in 1922 and appears to have folded at some time in the 20th century. Today the closest chapter is that of Hartford and the French Cultural Center in Boston.
caption: Emblem of the Union Saint-Jean-Baptiste d'Amerique; though based in Woonsocket, where its first national congress was held, the group's first meeting was originally organized and hosted by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of Holyoke, whose leader, Edward Cadieux, would serve as the national body's first president[4]