History Commons^™

Johannes V. Jensen's Discovery Of America, Inga Wiehl

The Bridge

Johannes V. Jensen, the most influential Danish writer of the century and Nobel prize winner, chose to live his life in Denmark; yet it is entirely conceivable that given two, he would have spent one in this country. He is rightly acclaimed among his contemporaries as the first Danish writer to have pointed the way westward. His writings show the influence of America and her people as well as of American writers, notably Walt Whitman.

Questioning Our Danish Heritage: The Evolution Of An Ethnic Identity, Otto N. Larsen

The Bridge

Here we are over one-hundred persons ranging in age from 9 to 90 gathered for the first Pacific Northwest Danish Cultural Conference. Given the title of my remarks, I had better start with a question: why are we here?

The general answer must be that we are here to re-kindle the experience of our heritage, to learn more about it, and to enjoy our common bond. It is often said that whenever Danes get together they have a good time, even if they are melancholy about it.

The Feilberg Letters: A Danish Family's Reflections On Canadian Prairie Life, Jorgen Dahlie

The Bridge

So wrote Aksel Sandemose, noted Danish-Norwegian writer and himself an immigrant to Canada in 1927. When he spoke of iron determination and perseverance, he might well have been describing the Ditlev and Julie Feilberg family, a small part of whose experiences in Canada are recounted in the excerpts which follow. Without making too extravagant a claim for the uniqueness of any one immigrant encounter with a new land, one is nonetheless forced to acknowledge that each individual or family brought with them their own special cultural and intellectual resources. A reading of the Feilberg letters reveals that this family had …

The Wayfarer, Enok Mortensen, Nanna Mortensen, Translator

The Bridge

He stood on the deck and shivered in the raw morning air. It was beginning to get light but the dawn was veiled in a heavy wet fog. There was no rain but the air itself seemed like one big mass of cold wetness. He couldn't see anything at all but he kept standing there, nevertheless.

Back Cover

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The DANISH AMERICAN HERITAGE SOCIETY was established in 1977 in order to accomplish the following:

Preserve and promote interest in Danish American traditions.

Collect, evaluate, preserve, and display records (books, pictures, letters) as well as other artifacts pertaining to the life and culture of Danish Americans.

Encourage Danish American expression in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Promote research into the life and culture of Danish Americans and serve as an agency through which resulting studies might be shared and published.

Editorial Statement

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No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

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No abstract provided.

Some Thoughts On Acculturation, Otto G. Hoiberg

The Bridge

Three years ago an important work entitled Flight to America - The Social Background of 300,000 Danish Emigrants was published by Kristian Hvidt(1), Head Librarian of the Danish Parliamentary Library in Copenhagen. Dr. Hvidt's painstaking demographic study of 58 handwritten volumes of data ralating to America-bound Danish emigrants between 1868 and 1914, together with computer analysis, revealed a wealth of interesting information relating to the age, sex, family status, occupation, motivation and other characteristics of the people concerned.

Do Your Homework!, Thorvald Hansen

The Bridge

I once heard a young American ask a Danish visitor whether or not he was acquainted with the inquirer's uncle in Denmark. It quickly developed that the only thing which the young man knew about his uncle was his family name. Incredible as it may seem, such things happen and though to a lesser degree, they happen frequently when a search is made for overseas ancestors. Denmark is a relatively small country and the unspoken assumption is often made that everyone there knows everyone else and, therefore, one need only know the name and the fact that an ancestor came …

The Limits Of Ethnicity, Irving Howe

The Bridge

Americans have often defined themselves through an unwillingness to define themselves. In the work of our greatest writers, notably Melville and Whitman, the refusal to succumb to fixity of definition comes to seem a cultural signature.

In opposition there has arisen a native industry of America-definers who offer a maddening plenitude of answers. But people in a hurry with answers have usually not even heard the questions. And finally it all comes to the same thing: many answers equal no answer.

The Danes In Winther's Trilogy, Norman C. Bansen

The Bridge

The harsh and forbidding aspects of immigrant life pervade Sophus Keith Winther's trilogy dealing with the experience of the appropriately named Grimsens, a Danish farm family in southeastern Nebraska, from the late 1890's through approximately the first quarter of the 20th century. Prominence is given to the struggle against economic odds and the problems of social adjustment in an area where there are not many Danes, so few, in fact, that the religious needs of the community are served through monthly visits of a Danish Lutheran pastor from Omaha. Den danske Pioneer provides the family with reading material and the …

Front Cover

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No abstract provided.

Inside Cover

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No abstract provided.

Looking Back And Looking Forward, Enok Mortensen

The Bridge

If the newly formed Danish-American Heritage Society is to accomplish what it so boldly visualizes it must focus on two primary aims.

It must somehow convince, it not thousands, then at least a substantial number of Danish-Americans of the importance of its stated purposes, so that the Society can be adequately supported and become a vital force. Secondly, it must solve the difficult problem not only of collecting archivalia, but of maintaining central depositories, museums, or at least some kind of cultural service center. Swedish-Americans have their fine institute at Minneapolis, Norwegians their St. Olaf's and Decorah, and Finnish-Americans have …

Heritage, Johannes Knudsen

The Bridge

The term "heritage" brings up associations of "heredity" and this again reminds us of genes and the genetic code. Heritage in this sense is terribly important. We are programmed by our genes. Our appearance and condition are pre-determined in many ways, ranging from the color of our eyes to the state of our health and the potential of our mind, and including negative as well as positive features. Genetic heritage can be a blessing and it can be a burden. It has the greatest significance for the individual, but is also an important corporate factor. Ethnic groups have genetic features …

Ribbons Of Memories, Ed Sundberg, Gerda Sundberg

The Bridge

Gerda and I are in our mid-fifties. We have survived and enjoyed nearly thirty-five years of marriage, three sons, three daughters-in law, and four grandchildren.

We are not sitting back in our rocking chairs waiting for the kids to drop by or bemoaning the fact that each year our hair is a little greyer. We don't have time for that. And we're not flying off to Timbuktu, Shangri La, or any place else to "start a new life."

Elfrida Pedersen Collection, Clinton M. Hyde

The Bridge

Elfrida Jensen, born September 13, 1886, in Horsens, Denmark, came to Seattle with her parents ca. 1904. Within a short time she had a role in a Danish play presented by the Danish Young Peoples Society "Dagmar". Her association with this Danish Dramatic Club (later called Harmonien) lasted a lifetime. Besides playing the lead roles in many Danish plays, "Frida", as she became called, wrote and adapted scripts, wrote songs and poems in Danish and English for the stage in Washington Hall in Seattle and for parties and wedding anniversaries.

Oscar W. Lund (1862-1953) A Memoir, Harald Hans Lund

The Bridge

He was twenty years old when he stepped aboard the S.S. Hekla in Copenhagen to work his way to a country where he had no acquaintances and did not know the language. Fifteen days later Oscar Lund landed in New York City.

"There were streets which it was almost impossible to cross because of the great number of vehicles of all sorts," he notes in his diary. "One feels that he has come to the great free America."

Danes Came To Central Wharton County In 1894 Bringing Church, Language, Culture, John L. Davis

The Bridge

The grass reached to the bottoms of the wagons when the first group of Danes came to central Wharton County, Texas, in 1894. Land had been bought by J. C. Evers, an agent for the Danish Folk Society, to be resold to immigrants. The Dansk Folkesamfund was interested in founding an agricultural settlement in which the Danish culture and language, and the Lutheran church, might be preserved. Like many people who came to Texas, the settlers were looking for a new place to live - a place they could farm and raise their children .

Dark Nights And Long Days: Myths Of The North, Erik S. Hansen

The Bridge

The following is a "retelling" of the major tales of Norse mythology. It seemed that a periodical of a society devoted to heritage might well pay homage to the deepest roots of our history, to the beginnings of it al/, to the earliest records of our forefathers and foremothers, who first grappled with who they were and where they came from . The author notes that "people need to be reminded that the Norse gods were not just a bunch of unruly pagans -- they were GODS in their own day, and not only that, they were a lot like …

Membership Form

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Please enroll me as a member of the Danish American Heritage Society.

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

Social Workers, Immigrants, And Historians: A Re-Examination, Leslie Leighninger

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

As a profession frequently caught in a "middleman" role between society at large and specific client groups, social work is often charged with adjusting client behavior to societal demands, rather than working from the other end of the continuum. In terms of their relations with ethnic and minority groups, social workers are sometimes pictured as representatives of a dominant, white Protestant culture, acting, intentionally or unintentionally, as standard bearers for that culture among dissident minority groups. In light of this picture, the addition of courses like "Black Dor Chicano] Culture and American Social Work" to the social work curriculum appears …

Bar Harbor: The Hotel Era, 1868-1880, Richard A. Savage

Maine History

This article is a review of the "hotel era" on Mount Desert Island, centered in Bar Harbor in the period 1868-1880.

Intellectuals: A Critique, Leon J. Apt

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Social History And Stratification In The Ante-Bellum South, Dean C. Taylor

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Nature Of Southern Regionalism, O. Orland Maxfield

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Mississippi Politics During The Progressive Period, Charles Granville Hamilton

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.