And why is New Year’s Day an official holiday in Massachusetts? Here’s the Lowell connection from worcester.bettysgenealogy.org :
New Year’s Day, however, was not an American holiday. It was for many years distinctively the French-Canadians’ day. All the mills were open as usual but the French-Canadian help refused to work. This presented difficulties in maintaining operating crews and frequently resulted in trouble between management and employees. It was not until 1914 that New Year’s Day became a legal holiday in Massachusetts. Urged by a demand made by French-Canadians throughout the state, Representative Henry Achin of Lowell obtained passage of the bill in that year. It was preceded by a hard fight having been before our state government for a number of years. Frank P. Allen (Ed. Note: A well known Franco-American resident of Fitchburg) was a member of the legislature in the year of its passage. So, when we celebrate New Year’s Day, we should remember that our own Frank was instrumental in making the holiday possible.
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