User:Vlh1224/Dyke Hendrickson

Biography
Dyke Hendrickson (born August 20, 1945) is the author of two books on Franco-Americans in Maine and an expert on Franco-American heritage in Maine and New England. Hendrickson is a journalist who has worked for newspapers in Biddeford, Portland, Waterville, and Bangor. He has also worked for papers in New Orleans and Boston. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 1967.

After writing a series of articles on Franco-Americans for the Portland Press Herald in the late seventies, Hendrickson published Quiet Presence: Stories of Franco-Americans in New England. Quiet Presence has been excerpted at the Museum of National Heritage at Ellis Island in New York.

Quiet Presence sets down the history of French-Canadian immigration into New England and brings to life the identity of the ethnic minority of Franco Americans. This collection of oral histories succinctly sums up Franco-Americans’ attitudes toward their difficult lives working in New England mills. Discussing a hard life in the mills as a child, following her father’s death, one older woman says, “We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves, we didn’t want a handout.”

This book was one of the first collections of oral history stories about Maine and New England's Franco-Americans and it describes the cultural diversity of the Quebecois and Acadians within Maine's Franco-American communities at a time when the culture was at risk of disappearing.

In 2010, he wrote Images of America: Franco-Americans of Maine published by Arcadia Publishing. This book is a collection of over 250 photographs culled from libraries and historical societies all over Maine. Many of them have not been seen in print before. The book reflects the entirety of the Franco-American experience, not just the difficult work conditions of many mill workers.

Books

 * Quiet Presence: Stories of Franco-Americans in New England, 1980
 * "Images of America: Franco-Americans of Maine, 2010