"Transnatioalism and the Norwegian-American Experience"

This collection of essays is published in memory of Jon Gjerde, who was professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley until his premature death on October 26, 2008. He was 55 years old. For years Jon Gjerde worked incessantly within the field of Norwegian-American history. His research, publications, and teaching had taken him from Balestrand to Berkeley, from a study of emigration from a small community on the western coast of Norway to an important chair in American history at Berkeley. Like few others, Gjerde had the capacity to focus on details of immigration history and culture and, in the same way, to generate an interest in the overall picture of immigration. As he admitted in the preface to From Peasants to Farmers (1985), this historical inquiry was also in part “a personal search.” Norwegian-American studies has always been a cross-disciplinary field of research embracing history and cultural studies, art and literature, as well as music and religion. Norwegian-American documents and records have been studied and continue to be read and analyzed in the context of both Norwegian and American history, and in the light of contemporary international migration studies. Six of the essays included are based on papers delivered at the NAHA-Norway conference held at the Norwegian Emigrant Museum in June, 2009. The remaining essays were all solicited especially for this volume.

Contents

Øyvind T. Gulliksen: Introduction

Jon Gjerde: “The United States: A Nation of Immigrants in the Past and Future”

S. Deborah Kang: Jon Gjerde’s Immigrant America

Laura Ellestad: “Emigrant Hardanger Fiddlers from Valdres, Norway: An Examination of Cultural Contacts”

Karen V. Hansen and Ken Chih-Yan Sun: “Localizing Transnational Norwegians: Exploring Nationalism, Language, and Labor Markets in early Twentieth Century North Dakota”

Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger: “The Challenge of the Land: The Norwegian-American Immigrant Farmer”

Jens Christian Eldal: “Altarpieces in Early Norwegian Lutheran Churches in America”

Peter A. Scholl: “Lessons from the China Missions: The Legacy of Nikolai Astrup Larsen”

Orm Øverland: “Listening to Immigrant Voices: Reflections on Completing Seven Volumes of Letters from Norwegian Immigrants 1838–1914”

Odd S. Lovoll: “The Past Before Us: Oral History and the Norwegian-American Experience”

Terje Garvik: “The Karmøy Club of Washington”

NAHA-Norway Publications

Contributors

ISBN 978-82-7099-633-9, 260 pp., paperback
Format: 15x22,5 cm, weight 0,5 kg, year of publication 2011, language: English