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New Glarus' Original Settlers A New Listing, Robert A. Elmer, Duane H. Freitag

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Published histories of New Glarus have been inconsistent in the names and numbers of original settlers. They generally peg the number at 108, 118 or even 122. The Settlers' Monument in New Glarus, erected in 1915 to commemorate those pioneers, has a listing (only the men!) that differs somewhat from written histories. A comprehensive listing based upon the primary sources of the time has never been fully enumerated or fully referenced.

Niklaus Durst's Journey, Robert A. Elmer, Duane H. Freitag

Swiss American Historical Society Review

A notebook kept by one of the two men who selected the site for the Swiss colony of New Glarus in Wisconsin has been located and translated from German, providing additional insight into a unique story of Swiss immigration. While two pages from the 28-page notebook had been photographed and preserved in Switzerland years ago, the original was thought by some to be missing. However, it has been safely archived at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in Madison since 1929.

Introduction, Bob Elmer, Duane Freitag

Swiss American Historical Society Review

It is indeed an honor to have been given the opportunity to be guest editors for this "Searching for a New Home" edition of the esteemed Swiss American Historical Society Review. While we are both ardent students of history, we are not historians by profession but rather a scientist and a journalist - both born and raised in New Glarus, Wisconsin. Our goal is not to retell the story of New Glarus' birth 160 years ago, but to examine this beginning through three documents of that significant year.

Book Review: Ambiguous Loss. Learning To Live With Unresolved Grief., Virginia B. Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The author, Professor of Family Social Services at the University of Minnesota, is the daughter of the late Paul and of Verena Magdalena Grossenbacher, born Elmer. Her father was a native of Burgdorf, Canton Bern, and had been a main promoter of New Glarus' Swiss American institutions. 3 Thus Dr. Boss begins her book with a personal narrative which describes growing up with the effects of the immigrant experience on family members. Her people had left their homeland Switzerland and many beloved relatives in the early 1900' s for life in the American Midwest, only to encounter yearning, homesickness, and …

My Journey Through The World In Happiness And Sorrow, Ida Mooser Hattemer, Theodore Alphonse Hattemer

Swiss American Historical Society Review

This is my mother's story of her Swiss family's immigration from Switzerland to Kentucky in 1895, and the story of her own American family. My mother, Ida Mooser Hattemer, dearly loved her native Switzerland, her family, and her Swiss relatives whom she talked about so much that her children felt as if they knew them intimately.

New Glarus: Past Success And Future Challenges, Jessica T. Skropanic

Swiss American Historical Society Review

New Glarus had a good foundation for colonization. It had financial support from the sending society via the Emigration Society of Glarus. It was settled in a pleasant location with the resources necessary to gain a good start. Also, the surrounding communities were supportive of colonization. Many people from these communities were of German or Swiss origin and could speak the language fluently. This helped the newcomers to feel some connection with their new environment. The founders came in nuclear family units. This benefitted them in several ways. First, there was the emotional support family members gave to each other. …

Arrival And First Days In New Glarus, Niklaus Dürst

Swiss American Historical Society Review

1845 on July 17th, we purchased for the esteemed Emigration Society of the Canton of Glarus, at the land office in Mineral Point, Wisconsin Territory, 1200 (twelve hundred) acres of land, namely in Greene County township 4 range 7, at the government price of 1 1/ 4 dollars per acre which on the following days we had surveyed and divided up in 60 lots (parcels) by the surveyor Comfort whom we had to pay wages of 3 dollars per day. Sunday, 20th inst. Mr. Friedrich Streiff and myself, together with our present wagoner, Mr. Friedrich Rudolf of Zurzach (Switzerland) have …

Farewell Address To The Glarnese Emigrants Bound For New Glarus, April 15, 1845, Casper Jenny

Swiss American Historical Society Review

What our forefathers, who now rest in God, tried about 130 years ago, namely to organi7.e an emigration of Glarnese people, has now after many efforts become a reality in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century. On the 16th of April 1845, 196 citizens are leaving the homeland that is so dear to all of us, to seek under the guidance of the Emigration Society, which was founded in the year 1844, a new fatherland across the Atlantic Ocean. In order to safeguard all the best interests of the emigrants, the committee has seen fit to appoint two men …

Book Review: Yodeling In Dairyland: A History Of Swiss Music In Wisconsin., Philip V. Bohlman

Swiss American Historical Society Review

One of the most striking indexes of ethnic identity is the extent to which an ethnic group is able to demonstrate that its significance in the history of a region is greater than its number. I've never known whether this was an advantage or disadvantage to Swiss-Americans, whose numbers, after all, have rarely overwhelmed those of other ethnic communities. Southern Wisconsin, nevertheless, has long offered Swiss-Americans the exception that many took as proof of the rule. In Green county, particularly in the towns of New Glarus and Monroe, numbers were on the side of Swiss-Americans, creating for them what James …

Book Review: Historia De San Jeronimo Norte: Una Colonia Agricola-Ganadera De Inmigrantes Suizos En La Republica Argentina, Paul Neufeld Weaver

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

In the second half of the nineteenth century Argentina experienced a demographic explosion due to immigration which was unrivaled in the Western Hemisphere. Between 1857 and 1930, 3.5 million people immigrated to Argentina, almost all of them Europeans. Simultaneously, Argentina experienced a prolonged period of sustained economic growth, and by 1914 its Gross National Product surpassed that of many European countries.

Book Review: Notes In Brief

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Includes Notes in Brief for the following titles:

• Turning Swiss: Cities and Empire, 1450-1550
• A Castor Family in America, or: The Descendants of Hans Georg Gerster/John George Castor
• Schwester Gertrud Leupi, 1825-1904
• Fur Trade Letters of Francis Ermatinger, written to his brother Edward during his service with the Hudson Bay Company 1818-1853
• "Schweizerische Uberseeauswanderungen 1816- 1913. Ein quantitativer Ansatz
• "People of Choice: Decision Making in an Eighteenth Century Swiss-German Peasant Family"
• "'One's Own Hearth is Like Gold': A History of Helvetia, West Virginia"

Book Review: History Of Switzerland. The First Hundred Thousand Years: Before The Beginnings To The Days Of The Present, Lukas Burckhardt, Ernest Menolfi

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Includes two sections:

1. Homage to a fervent friend of Switzerland, J. Murray Luck

In my job as Swiss cultural attache in the United States I had the chance to get help and inspiration- from Americans who were in love with our country and who acted as our good will ambassadors. Quite sincerely aware of our own shortcomings, I had some difficulties in understanding their unswerving belief in our exemplary qualities. Finally, I had to admit that there must be a deeper reason behind this strange phenomenon. Maybe we really have, as a sober small state, a political mission in …

Joshua Frey's Diary, Joshua Frey

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The following material was translated from a report published in 1847 regarding the emigration and founding of New Glarus two years earlier. Joshua Frey was Pennsylvania-born and of Swiss ancestry. Frey, known to Wilhelm H. Blumer of Allentown, was chosen to accompany Niklaus Durst and Fridolin Streiff on their trip to select and purchase land for the Glarus Emigration Society. Information contained in this diary has been used by New Glarus historians over the years, however it seldom if ever has been properly referenced as a primary source. Any copy of this document, whether in German or perhaps even an …

First Letter From New Glarus, Niklaus Dürst

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The following letter comprises the first official report on the emergence of New Glarus. It was written by Judge Niklaus Durst, and signed by both Durst and Fridolin Streiff, several days after the group of colonists arrived in Wisconsin. Dürst wrote beautiful but complicated German. The original letter is archived in the Pulverturm at Schwanden, Canton Glarus, where many of the records of the Emigration Society are kept. This translation, by Peter Etter and Leo Schelbert, tries to adapt to Dürst' s style as much as possible without making the letter too difficult to understand. It is based on the …