“Men with Queer Nerves”: The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine

by The Public Domain Review on publicdomainreview.orgArticle

In the late nineteenth century, visitors to Maine observed something strange: French-Canadian lumberjacks who, at the slightest stimulus, seemed to jump, strike out with their limbs, or mimic languages they could not speak. Ross Bullen introduces us to these so-called “Jumping Frenchmen” and to…