European History Commons^™

Happenstance Or Providence, Or How I Found All My Jobs, Fritz Marti

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

A man's life is shaped by decisions often not his own. Even before my conception it was decided what I was to be, and the date of my birth, too, was decisive.

The Marti School, 1947=1964, Fritz Marti

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

The Marti School was founded in 1947 in lower Salem, Ohio, first under the name of the Marti Farm Home School, and then the Berglihof School, for the benefit of the six Marti children. Dr. and Mrs. Marti felt they could not let the children waste half of their youth in the necessarily slow moving rural school of the neighborhood.

"Religion And Philosophy": Selections From Fritz Marti's Collected Papers, L. S.

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

For the layman the philosopher's quest is at times difficult to comprehend, and yet, we neglect his world at our own peril. Even if we do not grasp the full meaning of his answers, or worse, if we do not even understand his questions, our effort will nevertheless be rewarded. It will at least reveal that surface reality may be likened to a shield that protects from those arrows of questions that target the mysterious abyss of which we humans are all a part and whose contemplation is bound to set us free.

Memories Of My Father, Margot Ammann Durrer

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Father's childhood was spent in Feuerthalen, a small town in Canton Zurich, Switzerland. The beautiful city of Schaffhausen lies on the right bank of the Rhine and the town of Feuerthalen on the left, just above the magnificient Rhine Falls. The sharp turn of the Rhine makes a partial island of this district, so bridges form an important part of communication for the inhabitants.

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Othmar Hermann Ammann, 1879-1965. His Way To Great Bridges, Urs C. Widmer, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

In 1904, O. H. Ammann, aged 25, freshly graduated civil engineer of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, went to the United States encouraged by his former teacher in hydraulics, Professor Karl Emil Hilgard, who had himself worked as bridge engineer on the Northern Pacific Railway. More than anything else the young engineer wanted to widen his horizon and to gain some experience to follow-up his sound professional training, which he owed in part to Professor Wilhelm Ritter and to three years in the field in Switzerland and Germany. To his surprise he was immediately employed by Joseph …

Introduction, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

By accident, or evolution if you will, rather than by design, this issue of the SAHS Newsletter has become a special number devoted entirely to the great Swiss-American bridge builder Othmar H. Ammann who was born one hundred years ago in Feuerthalen, Canton Zurich. Sincere thanks are due to Mr. Urs Widmer, mayor of Winterthur, whose special interest in Ammann led to the production of most of the materials used in this Newsletter, and to Dr. Margot Ammann Durrer whose personal reminiscences add a delightful human touch to the story.

Bibliography: Publications By And About O. H. Ammann

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

A collection of publications by and about Othmar Ammann.

Emigration: New Beginning Or Premature End? A Book Review, Heinz K. Meier

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

Why were certain experiments of planned emigrati.0n crowned with success while others ended in dismal failure? What went wrong in one case and turned out well in the other? What were the factors that determined the outcome of such experiments? These and similar questions arise in reading and comparing two small books, published last year in Switzerland, that deal with the history of two different emigration ventures from Switzerland to the United States of America

Miscellanea

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

The Monaco family of Verscio, Switzerland--when and how did five brothers and sisters immigrate from this canton of Ticino in the early 1850's and 1860's to California and Nevada?

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Minutes Of The 15th Annual Business Meeting Of The (Reactivated) Swiss-American Historical Society, John Brunner

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

President Leo Schelbert called the meeting to order at 10:20 a.m.

The President welcomed the sixteen members present and communicated the regrets of Professor Rolf Kieser and Bruno Gujer for not being able to attend (Professor Kieser was giving a lecture in Canada; Bruno Gujer was having his wedding day).

Front Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Summary Of Replies To The Questionnaire On The Future Of The Swiss American Historical Society, Alice H. Finckh

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

In the early summer of 1978 Marianne Burkhard, of the University of Illinois, circulated a questionnaire among the members of the Swiss American Historical Society designed to probe their opinions regarding the future course of the Society. The varied responses she received run the gamut of strong support for new directions to emphatic warnings against becoming involved in expensive programs or diluting the purpose and goals of the Society. Dr. Burkhard asked me to try to summarize the responses. The first part of this report summarizes and tabulates, so far as possible; the second part condenses individual comments written on …

Front Cover

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Editorial Statement

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Carl Hansen, Prairie Iconoclast, Donald K. Watkins

The Bridge

In 1906 Ivar Kirkegaard, editor of the magazine Norden in Racine , Wisconsin, asked the writer Carl Hansen for personal information that might be included in a biographical sketch in the journal. Carl Hansen of Tyler, Minnesota, was forty-six at the time, and by his own count the author of some seventy sketches and short stories. In reply to Kirkegaard, Hansen revealed that in his student days in Copenhagen he has been caught up in the intellectual ferment of "the Modern Breakthrough," the assertive embrace by Scandinavian intellectuals of socially critical realism. "Det moderne gennembrud" had no single philosophical doctrine …

A Comparative Study Of Sophus Keith Winther And Carl Hansen, Rudolf J. Jensen

The Bridge

This short poem written by Carl Hansen expresses the essential conflicts of the Danish emigrant in the United States. In their relentless struggle to survive on the plains of the American midwest, two concerns dominated the consciousness of the emigrant. One was the continuous sense of doubt about the wisdom leaving the old country and the other was the necessarily unanswered question of whether the privations of their present life would be rewarded by the success of the following generations. The dreams and hopes of most Danish-American emigrants were in fact not fulfilled in accordance with their expectations. Neither the …

Danish American Political Behavior: The Case Of Iowa, 1887-1936, Stephen H. Rye

The Bridge

Although thousands of Danish immigrants settled in Iowa, often in communities which can readily be identified, there is some difficulty in isolating voting units which were composed largely of Danish Americans. For example, Fredsville, a settlement located west of Cedar Falls in Grundy County, became the home of a sizeable Danish community, but in the voting unit of Fairfield Township, census materials demonstrate that the non-Danish voters slightly outnumbered the Danes in the late nineteenth century. However, at least five Iowa townships can be identified as having a clear majority of voters who were Danish in background, and this study …

Thoughts At Sunrise, Olaf R. Juhl

The Bridge

Good Morning - and will the class please come to order.

Could it be that I choose this opening because I, as far back as I can remember, wanted to be a teacher? Somehow I never quite made it, although I believe that I could have if circumstances during a certain period of my youth had not had other designs for me. Let me add that any regrets I might have today are purely of a sentimental nature.

This morning we shall attempt to analyze the trials and tribulations, the mental problems and misgivings of an American, by adoption, in …

P.S. Vig And The Americanization Issue During World War I, Peter L. Petersen

The Bridge

World War I and the Americanization campaigns which accompanied it had a pr0found impact upon ethnic relations in the United States. Although German-Americans bore the brunt of rapidly emerging anti-foreign sentiments, no ethnic group was totally free of suspicion and public condemnation. In Iowa, Governor William Lloyd Harding defended his proclamation forbidding the public use of foreign languages by attacking the Danish element in the Hawkeye State's population. According to the Governor, who was speaking before a large crowd at Sac City on July 4, 1918, young Danes in Iowa were not getting a proper American upbringing. Pointing to the …

"Schools For Life", Harold Petersen

The Bridge

A man having read Schools For Life remarked, "It is a good book, but Enok still hasn't told us what a folk school is." I doubt that there is any living American today who knows better what a folk is than Enok Mortensen. If he has not defined what a folk school is through the pages of his book it is because- the folk school cannot be defined in such a way that it has- meaning to a person who does not know what the folk school is. It has to be experienced . It carries with it a spirit …

"Heinrich Tonnies", Egon P. Bodtker

The Bridge

Heinrich Tonnies has been known to Danish archivists and photo-historians primarily for his topographical views of Aalborg. His pictures made Aalborg the second most photographed city in Denmark in the 19th century. Alexander Alland has ensured Tonnies a place among recorders of social history by the exhibit in Aalborg he arranged in 1975. For this redirection of our attention we in D.A.H.S. and others are indeed thankful.

Membership Form

The Bridge

Please enrolI me as a member of the DANISH AMERICAN HERITAGE SOCIETY. GENERAL MEMBERSHIP (ind ividual or family) . $ 10.00

SUSTAINING MEMBERSHIP (individual or family) . $ 25 .00

I would like to support the Danish American Heritage Society with an additional contribution of $

Full Issue

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Editorial Statement

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Front Cover

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

The Bridge

No abstract provided.

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.

Danes Worldwide Archives Contains Treasures Of Immigrant Life, Marion Marzolf

The Bridge

A typical four-room apartment in an average Danish neighborhood in Aalborg, Denmark, houses an extraordinary treasure for those interested in their Danish roots. It looks like an ordinary apartment from the outisde, but once the door is opened by Curator Inger Bladt, it is clear that housed here are the living memories of many of the 300,000 Danes who left their homeland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to seek work, land, fortune and fate in foreign countries, mainly the U.S.