Above all, Le Progrès was the newspaper of the Detroit River French-Canadian Community. It was at once the community’s window on the world and the mirror in which people could see themselves and read about themselves, the place where they could express their ideas and develop a spirit of solidarity and regional identity. For modern-day readers, Le Progrès can provide a vivid picture this community in an era that has been largely overlooked by historians of Francophones in South-Western Ontario.

At the end of the 19th century, the entire length of the Detroit River still maintained a French character. Detroit itself might have been a burgeoning industrial giant in which French-Canadians played an ever-decreasing role, but the latter were still very much part of the cultural scene north and south of the city, from Grosse Pointe on the shores of Lake St-Clair to Monroe at the head of Lake Erie. On the Canadian side, Windsor was still 50% Francophone. Sandwich, home of Assumption parish, was even more French than that. Further downriver, the descendants of the first French-Canadian settlers in Ontario still comprised the greater part of the population at Petite Côte (modern day LaSalle), Rivière-aux-Canards and McGregor.

Windsor’s Francophone population included members of this earlier group as well as more recent arrivals from Quebec. This second group of Francophones had started arriving in earnest once the Great Western Railroad was built in 1854. Most of them settled along Lake St-Clair, establishing communities and parishes in Tecumseh, Belle-Rivière, Saint-Joachim, Pointe-aux-Roches, Tilbury, Pain Court and Grande Pointe.(Interactive Map)

To some extent, all of the above-mentioned communities maintain a French presence to this day. But it must be said that Le Progrès and its contemporaries published at a time in which the Detroit River French community was at its height, a period in which the local French scene was bubbling over with the mix of an already two-hundred-year-old Detroit River French culture and that of the new French-Canadians arriving daily from the Saint-Lawrence River valley. The local community was starting to assert itself and to realize its unique position in the great North American French diaspora. But this period of effervescence was not to last long. The twentieth century was about to bring about unimaginable changes on the economic, industrial, political and demographic fronts. These developments would take hold in Windsor before any other place in Canada. As you will see, Le Progrès was well attuned to this tumultuous era, striving for a balance between change and stability, tradition and innovation and even - let it be said - between Progress and looking back.

We will attempt to show several aspects of this vibrant French-Canadian community through the pages of Le Progrès, Le Courrier d’Essex / de l’Ouest, and Le Courrier. These papers reported news from all of the local French communities. As well, they frequently drew on the area’s rich history to instil their readers’ pride in their own heritage. Le Progrès did its share to promote the view of agriculture as French-Canadians’ natural vocation but, true to its name, it also pushed a more modern agenda and just as much space is devoted to various other commercial activities in the community. These two views provide us with a balanced picture of the local economy. Much ink is spilled on the question of French schools and the state of local education, for Le Progrès realized that it was only through education that the local Francophone community would take its rightful place in modern society. The issues discussed foreshadow the great debates that would rage in this domain throughout the twentieth century. Le Progrès also reflected many aspects of French-Canadian culture and ideology of its day, both on the official and the popular levels. And finally, for those interested in the history of the French language in the Detroit River area, Le Progrès supplies numerous examples of how it was spoken in the late 19th century.