Why Blérancourt? What is the allure, what is it with this museum that has beckoned to so many of us?

I first went to our museum in 1976 to do research for a film on the French participation in the American War of Independence. The Blérancourt archives were vast and I was to spend days there, unable to drag myself away, lost in the pleasure of delving into the museum’s wonderful treasure of information on Lafayette, Rochambeau, de Grasse and so many others who risked - and often gave! – their lives for the young country that was to become the United States of America… I was deeply moved by this compelling example of the French working side by side with the Americans.

La Fayette, nous voilà! Even before General Pershing uttered his famous cry in 1917, Anne Morgan was organizing her extraordinary campaign of humanitarian aid for the GIs wounded on the nearby battlefields of Picardie and especially for the starving civilian populations.

At the same time she had a dream: to found a museum that would honor and preserve the memory of this mutual reaching of hands across the ocean, in the name of French-American friendship and relations. In 1924 the Château-Musée franco-américain de Blérancourt opened its doors. Miss Morgan’s action made me proud to be an American and anxious to continue her dream…

And I was not alone. In the early 1980s a group of American and French friends decided to work together with the French Ministry of Culture to expand the museum, enhance the role of its historical collections and bring attention to this small, but great, museum. It was decided that Blérancourt would become the museum of French American history, illustrating over three hundred years of relations between France and the USA, from the day that the very first Frenchman set foot on American soil to today.

The American Friends of Blérancourt are joined regularly by new members coming from all over the States and France, all willing in the name of French American relations to contribute to the development of our museum. Recently one of our members said to me, “I shall continue to give to Blérancourt because I believe so much in what it stands for.” It is this spirit of working together towards a common goal that moves me and inspires me to continue my participation in the American Friends of Blérancourt.

Eugénie Anglès, President