History Commons^™

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The Bridge

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The Bridge

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Tycho Brahe: Science And Life In The Danish Renaissance, John Robert Christianson

The Bridge

Today, we are constantly using data; some even say that we live in an Age of Data. Most of us hardly realize that a Danish astronomer set the whole process in motion more than four hundred years ago. Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) changed the world with his innovative approach to astronomy and observational data. My interest in him started with a college term paper and eventually led to writing and editing books and articles about his life and work in Renaissance Denmark. This research led me to develop new interpretations of his revolutionary approach to understanding the heavens and the natural …

Danish Doughboys: Danish American Soldiers In The Us Army And Navy In World War I, Bjarne S. Bendtsen

The Bridge

In the park justbelow Marselisborg Castle in Aarhus-the Queen's preferred summer residence-stands the official Danish monument for Danes killed in World War I. It is a beautiful and solemn monument, placed in a scenic setting in the park that stretches from the small castle down to the Bay of Aarhus, with a view of Mols and Helgenaes in the distance. But wasn't Denmark neutral in that war, you may ask? Why, then, a monument for the fallen in a war that the country did not participate in? It is a rather complicated story, which this article outlines by showing the …

Markus Lampe And Paul Sharp. A Land Of Milk And Butter: How Elites Created The Modern Danish Dairy Industry, J. R. Christianson

The Bridge

In her Copenhagen apartment, she had a gray stoneware jug decorated with a verse in blue letters: Før sled de bønder rent forbandet, nu er de herrerne i landet – “They used to slave with little say / But farmers rule the land today.” My wife’s grandmother had come to Copenhagen from Jutland as a pretty sixteen-year-old on the eve of the First World War, leaving behind her deep rural roots to become a city woman. The legend on her jug came true in 1901, when the farmers’ party (Venstre) took control of the Rigsdag and forced King Christian X …

Jacob A. Riis: The Ideal American Citizen, Flemming Just

The Bridge

At his death in 1914, Jacob A. Riis was one of the US's best-known and most admired citizens, who had been able to effect more social change than most of his peers. President Theodore Roosevelt had earlier declared Riis to be "the most useful citizen of New York," and now called him "the ideal American citizen." In one of many obituaries of Riis we read:

Denmark gave him to us, and if we gave Denmark millions in return, we could not pay her for what Riis did for us and for what Riis inspired us to do. He landed in …

St. Roch Military Marches In Wallonia: Memory, Commemoration, And Identity, 1866-1940, Erik Hadley

Quidditas

Ritualized public processionals known as military saint marches thrive in popular memory and define local identity in Francophone Belgium (Wallonia). The annual processionals involve thousands of marchers dressed in Napoleonic-era military uniforms, carrying authentic muskets and escorting a statue of St. Roch, the patron saint of disease protection. Many of these marchers trace family participation through multiple generations and two St. Roch marches received UNESCO recognition as examples of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” in 2012. While participants claim there is no historical rupture between the modern marches and the processionals celebrated prior to the French Revolution, there is a …

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

“That Kingdom Is Mine”: On Spain’S Early Modern Polemics Of Possession Over Jerusalem, Circa 1605, Chad Leahy

Quidditas

Spanish claims to the throne of Jerusalem in the early modern period have often been viewed in light either of royal mythologies connecting the Habsburgh monarchy to the biblical kings David and Solomon or to prophetic discourses of imperial Messianism relating to universal monarchy. This paper broadens our understanding of Spanish claims to Jerusalem through close reading of two archival documents produced in 1605. In defending Spanish preeminence and sovereignty in Jerusalem, I argue that these documents participate in a “polemics of possession” that crucially informed cultural production related to the Holy City in the period more broadly. These documents …

Allusive Fontaines, Sicamors, And Pins: Figurative Prophecies Of Grail Piety In The Prose Lancelot, David S. King

Quidditas

At the conclusion of Chrétien de Troyes’s twelfth-century verse Chevalier de la charrete, a spring and sycamore allude to concupiscence and betrayal in Scripture, evoking the hero’s and the queen’s adulterous liaison. The author of the thirteenth-century French Prose Lancelot translates this allusion from a moment of joy for the queen to one of terror, foreshadowing a change in fortune for the hero and his prowess. Every subsequent adventure where the hero encounters a spring and sycamore points to his love for the queen as a source of corruption. Springs shaded by a pine tree hint at the sanctity of …

The Vanishing Lady: Mélusine, Emblems, And Jacques Yver’S Le Printemps D’Yver (1572), Joshua M. Blaylock

Quidditas

In the opening pages of Le Printemps d’Yver (1572), the narrator evokes Mélusine, the cursed half-snake fairy queen, as the architect of the idyllic castle that serves as the locus amoenus of the novella collection. And yet, as suddenly as she appears, Mélusine vanishes from the text with only one other explicit reference to her at the transition point between the third and fourth novellas. While literary scholars have analyzed the two explicit references to Mélusine in Le Printemps as well as Yver’s emblematic prose, none has systematically explored the possibility that her presence pervades the novella collection in ways …

The History Of A Cemetery: An Italian Swiss Cultural Essay, Plinio Martini, Richard Hacken

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Years ago, there was no cemetery in my village. This absence,

which weighed heavily upon the people as a cruel stroke of

fate, was a result of our village having earlier been part of a neighboring

community, whose more favorable location—sunny and protected

from the north winds—had allowed it to prosper while our community

dwindled.3 After long discussions and arguments, the mountain pastures,

valley meadows and forests—formerly communal property—

were divided up into separate realms with precise boundaries: everything

was written down on parchment and sworn to in the name of

God.

Canton Ticino And The Italian Swiss Immigration To California, Tony Quinn

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The southernmost of Switzerland’s twenty-six cantons, the

Ticino, may speak Italian, sing Italian, eat Italian, drink Italian and rival

any Italian region in scenic beauty—but it isn’t Italy,” so writes author

Paul Hofmann1 describing the one Swiss canton where Italian is the

required language and the cultural tie is to Italy to the south, not to the

rest of Switzerland to the north.

Back Cover

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

"The Finest Of Any In The World": Silk Production And The Politicization Of Women In Utah, Hannah Chapman

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Orem [Utah]: Pioneering On The Provo Bench, Jay H. Buckley

Faculty Publications

The Timpanogos Indians--the original inhabitants of Utah Valley--lived in villages along the Timpanogos (Provo) River and the shores of Timpanogos (Utah) Lake. But they regularly climbed the nearby bench--a large delta shaped by ancient wave action as Lake Bonneville began to drain. Although the rocky sagebrush-covered bench was not suitable for cultivation since it had no natural streams, the Timpanogos went there to find crickets and rodents or to hunt the antelope, deer, elk, and bison that grazed freely throughout the foothills, benches, and floors of the valley.

Front Matter

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Contributors

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Church Ships, Finn Bille, Krister Strandskov

The Bridge

Three ships hang in Fanefjord,

the church looks out to sea

and paintings in the ceiling

tell stories of the fall of man.

Language Shift And Maintenance Among Danish Immigrants In The Us, Karoline Kühl

The Bridge

The destination of most participants in the mass emigration from Denmark around the turn of the twentieth century was North America. In total about 400,000 to 450,000 Danes immigrated to the United States between 1820 and 2000, the majority between 1880 and 1920 (Grøngaard Jeppesen 2005, 265ff., 323). Danish immigration to the United States was, generally speaking, a story of socioeconomic success due to rapid assimilation based on both sociodemographic factors and attitudes. Between 1870 and 1940, when most Danish immigrants settled in the United States, the group included, to a larger degree than most other European groups, young, unmarried …

From The Eider River To The Great Plains: The Danish American Community And The 1920 Slesvig Plebiscites, Ryan J. Gesme

The Bridge

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on the German Empire, officially entering the three-year-long conflict now known as the First World War. At the time the US entered the conflict many American-born citizens felt uneasy about the recent immigration of thousands of Europeans and the possibility of those new residents having divided loyalties between their homelands and adopted country. These fears proved to be largely unfounded, as millions of naturalized Americans took up the call to arms issued by the United States, even in the face of increasingly xenophobic laws and policies. This included the Danish American …

My Life As A Danish American Archive And Library (Daal) Intern, Chantal Powell

The Bridge

Scouring through archives provides a person with a glimpse into the details of the past not provided by just reading a history book. Homemade Christmas cards and PanAm airplane tickets, award ribbons and family pictures, newspaper clippings and handwritten letters are just a few of the details of people’s lives I got to go through and experience for myself at the Danish American Archive and Library (DAAL) in Blair, Nebraska.

Table Of Contents

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

The Transformation Of Chris Madsen In 1875-76: From Troubled Young Man In Denmark To Mature Wild West Hero In America, Frans 0rsted Andersen

The Bridge

In October 2018, I pub- lished a book about Chris Madsen with the title Et liv pa kanten. En biografisk fortcel- ling om Chris Madsen's utrolige liv (A life on the edge. A bi- ography about the incredible life of Chris Madsen). The second edition, which I cite in this article, was published in 2019. This book grew out of two separate projects: one aimed at publishing texts that can encourage boys and men to read more books (again), and another focused on Dan- ish emigration to the US in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Close-Order Combat At The Battle Of The Little Big Horn: The Use Of The Model 1873 Colt Revolver, Albert Winkler Dr.

Faculty Publications

Scholars have paid much attention to the use of the Model 1873 Springfield Carbine at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, which was designed to be used in combat at relatively long distances, and the nature, reliability, accuracy and rate of fire of this weapon has been frequently examined. Yet many other weapons were involved in the battle, including those wielded at close quarters. At critical junctions in the fight, these firearms were important in the progress of the contest and contributed significantly to the final outcome of the battle. The purpose of this paper is to assess the …

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Jorge Baron, Maria Kolby-Wolfe, Kristen Smith Dayley, Twila Bird, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

The Northwest Immigrant Rights Program has been around for 35 years, started in 1984 specifically to help Central American refugees during the mid-1980s, when they were fleeing civil wars. A pro-bono group of attorneys performing "direct legal representation", helping low income community members who are navigating different aspects of the immigration system. NWIRP also engages in "systemic advocacy" which attempts to change systems and policies revolving around asylum and immigration rights.

Temple Excursions From Tonga To New Zealand: Stories Of Faith, Mark D. Ogletree, Ph.D.

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a presence in Tonga since July of 1891, when Mormon missionaries, Brigham Smoot and Alva Butler arrived in Nuku’alofa on the island of Tongatapu.1 Although the Tongan mission was organized as early as 1916, the Church did not began to grow at a steady rate in Tonga until the 1920s. The first stake in Tonga was created in 1968, and the Nuku’alofa Tonga Temple was dedicated in 1983. However, where did Tongan Latter-day Saints attend the temple between from the 1920s until 1983?

Swiss-American Missionaries For The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In The Nineteenth Century, Cindy Brightenburg

Swiss American Historical Society Review

In the fa ll of 1888, Gottfried Buehler left his home, wife and small children in Utah for a two-year return to Switzerland. He had been ass igned by his church to serve a miss ion in the land of his birth with the goal to preach the tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon church, and hereafter referred to as "the church") to the people of Switzerland, baptize them into membership , and encourage them to emigrate to the land of Zion, or the Utah Territory. From the mid- to late-nineteenth …

The Comparative Study Of Civilizations And Its Relation To China, David Wilkinson

Comparative Civilizations Review

Chinese scholars have recently expressed much interest in the comparative study of civilizations, lately carried on mostly in the West, but long open to, and increasingly of interest to, diverse perspectives. This essay is intended to suggest a road toward the development of comparative-civilizational studies centered on some questions of both historical and contemporary significance, with particular attention to one question concerning which the initial presuppositions of Western and Chinese scholars, in particular, may be at variance, but where there may be room for the development of agreed empirical-theoretical conclusions.

Book Reviews

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.