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The 500th Anniversary Of The Swiss Reformation: How Zwingli Changed And Continues To Impact Switzerland Today, Thomas Quinn Marabello

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The year 2019 began the 500th anniversary of The Reformation in Switzerland. The man who would forever change the country we now know as Switzerland was Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli, a Catholic priest educated in humanism, who arrived in Zurich in 1519. Zwingli’s writings, sermons and alliances with Zurich’s political class allowed him to change the church in Switzerland and influence other reformers and faiths over the centuries. Often overlooked in the history of the Protestant Reformation due to the dominance of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Zwingli is getting renewed attention with the 500th anniversary of The Swiss Reformation. …

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: President's Report For 2020, Albert Winkler

Swiss American Historical Society Review

It is a pleasure to greet everyone and to wish you good fortune in all that you do. I deeply appreciate your interest in and continued support for the Swiss American Historical Society.

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: Sahs Review Report, Dwight Page

Swiss American Historical Society Review

This year, 2021, promises to be another productive and interesting year in the history of the Swiss American Historical Society Review. In the current February 2021 issue, we provide a brief history of the Helvetia Beneficial Society of Columbus, Ohio, prepared by Dr. Donald G. Tritt, a native of Columbus and a longtime leader in our Society. Starting in the 1980’s, Dr. Tritt agreed to serve as the volunteer historian for five clubs making up the Swiss community in Columbus, so he has first hand knowledge of this information. We also provide a most interesting report on the current …

Helvetia Unterstützungs Verein (Helvetia Beneficial Society) Columbus, Ohio: Founding Documents & Membership, Donald G. Tritt

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Having grandparents, aunts, and uncles who emigrated from Switzerland in the 1860s, I treasured the many occasions hearing stories of our ancestral homeland—the “old country.” With peers of my Swiss relatives, I reveled in August 1st celebrations, picnics, club house gatherings, sängerfests, and shooting events. Captivated by these stories and events, I wanted to know more about their life and times in Switzerland and—what happened after their arrival in America. My Swiss grandparents settled in a German-speaking area of Columbus, Ohio, known today as “German Village.” The first Swiss club in Columbus, the Grütli Verein, was founded in 1870. Beneficial …

Black History Month At The Swiss Embassy February 2020, C. Naseer Ahmad

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The Swiss Embassy in Washington has a unique place historically, diplomatically as well as culturally. It ties the United States with Switzerland in a way that no other diplomatic representative office can: the parcel of real estate on which the Swiss Ambassador’s residence is built on what was once considered as a possible location for the United States Congress.

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: Membership Report, Ernie Thurston

Swiss American Historical Society Review

To: Members of the Swiss American Historical Society

From: Ernie Thurston, Membership Secretary

Subject: Annual Membership Report

IN BRIEF: We have 209 current members, a 2% decrease from the 214 reported last year at this time.

Annual Reports Of The Swiss American Historical Society October 2020: Annual Report Of The Swiss Chapter, Switzerland, Barbara Müller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Dear Members:

The Friends of the Swiss American Historical Society are able to look back on a successful year here in Switzerland. At present, we have 45 members, which shows a small increase in total membership but does not reflect that actual growth is larger, since we have lost members due to age and health issues over the years.

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Lives Well-Lived: My Danish American Ancestors In Shelby And Audubon Counties, Iowa, Cindy Larsen

The Bridge

My childhood was filled with my parents’ voices describing their love of history and knowledge of their Danish heritage in conversations that linger in my memory. My mother, Elizabeth Aagaard Larsen, and dad, Chester B. Larsen, were both children of Danish immigrants to the communities of Elk Horn and Kimballton, Iowa.

Danish Cedar Falls, Carrie Eilderts

The Bridge

In 1855, Frederick Petersen’s family became the first Danish immigrants on record to settle in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Petersens came from the Schleswig area on the Danish/German border, and in 1860, Christian Petersen came to Cedar Falls, also from Schleswig. More Danish families moved to Cedar Falls from Pine River, Wisconsin in 1866, and the next year Danes began arriving directly from their homeland after enduring a long journey by ship and train. By the early 1870s, Danes were settling in Cedar Falls in large numbers. By 1871, three hundred Danes called the city home, making up about ten …

Danes In Kenmare, North Dakota, Bertel Schou

The Bridge

The town of Kenmare, in Denmark Township in the northern part of Ward County, North Dakota, is famous for its Danish windmill, one of only three in the United States (the other two are in Elk Horn, Iowa and Solvang, California). The mill, with its gears of hand-hewn maple, was built eleven miles north of Kenmare by a Danish immigrant named Christian C. Jensen in 1902 and was in daily operation until 1918. It was transported into the center of Kenmare in 1958, restored in 1961, and moved to its current location on downtown Park Square in 1965. It doesn’t …

From Bornholm To Jamestown: C. C. Beck And The Settlement Of Danish Immigrants In Chautauqua County, New York And Warren County, Pennsylvania, John Everett Jones

The Bridge

One of the earliest Danish immigrant settlements in North America was a community in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania called Jamestown. Marcus P. Jacobsen has been recognized as the first person from Bornholm to settle in the Jamestown area1 in 1855 or 1856, and early on, members of this community came almost exclusively from Bornholm. However, histories have not recognized the importance of Charles C. Beck in the origin of this community. Emigration from Bornholm has been written about by Henning Bender2 this article adds to that research by situating Beck within the larger community of Danish immigrants who …

Nordlyset And The New York City Danish Community, 1891-1953, Catrine Kyster Giery

The Bridge

The Danish community in New York City was never more than a speck on the Big Apple. At the same time, however, New York City and the surrounding area was for decades—and still is—home to a larger number of Danish-born people than most other places in the United States. Unfortunately, New York City’s popularity among Danes has not translated into a large amount of historical research about the city’s Danish community.

Danish Settler-Colonial Communities In Australia And New Zealand, Julie K. Allen

The Bridge

The vast majority of Danish emigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, around four hundred thousand people between 1850 and 1950, settled in the United States, from whom more than 1.3 million Americans claim descent. Significant numbers of Danes also went to other countries, however, including about 15,000 Danes who settled in Argentina; 3,500 Danes who immigrated to New Zealand, reaching their peak at one percent of the New Zealand population in 1878; and around 50,000 Danes who immigrated to Australia,1 a significant percentage of which later re-immigrated to Denmark; in 1988, approximately 165,000 people, or one percent of Australia’s …

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Beautiful Dannebrog, Nebraska, Christie Jensen Gehringer

The Bridge

In June, a yearly festival is held in Dannebrog, Nebraska, in conjunction with Grundlovsdag (Danish Constitution Day). The festival, which observes Denmark’s independence and honors the town of Dannebrog, named for Denmark’s flag, began in 1987. Dannebrog celebrates its Danish Days, known as Grundlovsfest, every year during the first weekend in June; however, the festival was previously held from the late 1800s through the 1930s when it was called Gorbennad (Dannebrog spelled backwards). Driving down the main street in Dannebrog today one can find an antique store, an ice cream shop, and a bakery, which showcase the town’s Danish …

Little Denmark In Nebraska, David Hendee

The Bridge

No charming Old World architecture. No Main Street decorated with Danish flags flapping in the breeze. No annual ethnic festival celebrating Danish roots. And it can’t be found on a map. But a small cluster of farms and ranches carved out of the prairie by Danish immigrants in sparsely settled western Nebraska in the late nineteenth century has maintained its identity as “Little Denmark” long after the homesteaders and their families assimilated into American culture. This obscure and remote Little Denmark was founded, flourished, and faded in the shadows of other Nebraska communities with vibrant Danish populations and institutions— Blair, …

Edgar B. Madsen. The Shoestring Letters: A Tribute To The Immigrant, Inger M. Olsen

The Bridge

Edgar Madsen’s parents, Niels and Signe Madsen, left their home and family in Denmark in 1928 to seek their fortune in the United States. For three decades after their emigration, their only contact with their loved ones back home was through letters, which inspired the name of Edgar B. Madsen’s charming, thought-provoking book, The Shoestring Letters: A Tribute to the Immigrant. After being stored in a thatched roof attic for decades, the letters Niels and Signe sent to their loved ones in Jutland came to light when the family cleared out their grandfather’s house; they made their return journey …

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Swiss American Historical Society Review

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The Eidgenössisches Schützenfest: A Traditional Shooting Festival, Stephen P. Halbrook

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The Eidgenössisches Schützenfest (Swiss federal shooting competition), the largest rifle shooting match in the world, is held every five years in a different region of Switzerland. I have participated in five of the matches at Thun in 1995, Bière in 2000, Frauenfeld in 2005, Aarau in 2010, and Raron (Visp) in 2015. The Luzern 2020 matches have been rescheduled to 2021 due to the coronavirus.

Where Are The Sons Of Tell? A Brief History Of The Formative Years Of Swiss Biathlon, 1957-1964, Robert Sherwood

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Despite the lack of international success in biathlon, the sport has a long history in the Swiss Confederation. Biathlon, which combines the long-distance endurance of Nordic skiing and the precision marksmanship of rifle shooting, would seem a perfect match for the Swiss. In the 2010s, the Gasparin sisters (Elisa, Aita and Selina), along with Benjamin Weger, have helped Switzerland start to realize its potential as a player in the world of biathlon. But in the early years of the sport, the Swiss were not at the top of the list for strong biathlon nations. The reasons for this lack of …

Meeder, Sven, The Irish Scholarly Presence At St. Gall—Networks Of Knowledge In The Early Middle Ages, Ken Shonk

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Founded in 720 C.E., the Monastery at St. Gall is located in the modern Swiss city of Saint Gallus. The complex is built on the grave of its namesake and is home to wide array of texts written by Irish scholars, or reflective of Irish learning during the “Carolingian renaissance.” How these works by Gaelic-Irish scholars arrived at St. Gall is the primary concern of Sven Meeder’s intellectual history of Hiberno-Latin texts.

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Swiss American Historical Society Review

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The Swiss In The Swabian War Of 1499: An Analysis Of The Swiss Military At The End Of The Fifteenth Century, Albert Winkler

Swiss American Historical Society Review

By the end of the fifteenth century, the states of the Swiss Confederation had enjoyed almost complete autonomy from the neighboring feudal powers for generations. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the states of the Swiss Confederation were beset by external threats to their security, independence, and existence. The largest single menace to Swiss independence was the Habsburg family who often controlled their lands according to monarchal authority and a social structure which kept their subject peoples as unfree serfs.