History Commons^™

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."

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."

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

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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 …

Membership Form

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

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

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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 …

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Ethnicity, Irving Howe

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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.

Elfrida Pedersen Collection, Clinton M. Hyde

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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.