Date of Award
2-2000
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
History: M.A.
Department
History
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
William Morgan
Second Advisor
Don Hofsommer
Third Advisor
Philip M. Keith
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Rural Studies, Immigration, Ethnicity, 19 Century US History, Norwegian Assimilation
Abstract
This study of rural community formation on the Midwestern frontier is constructed through the lens of a specific immigrant family. It attempts to determine what institutions buttressed the efforts of Norwegian immigrants to def end and transmit their ethnic identity and Old World traditions and what factors ultimately precipitated change.
The story begins in 1814 with a brief synopsis of Norwegian history and life in the community of Vik in the Sognefjord of Norway prior to the emigration in 1854 of Endre and Anna Brekke and the establishment of the Norwegian community at Ridgeway, Iowa. Endre and Anna's children prospered in Iowa. Two of them, John and Laura, sought new land in Dakota Territory where over 75 families from Vik and Central Sogn eventually settled. The formation and continuance of the Dakota Settlement is the focus of this thesis.
Norwegians who settled in relatively isolated, homogeneous rural communities were able to sustain their ethnic identities well into the twentieth century. Most influential in this process were the Norwegian Lutheran Church as the community center and conservator of the Norwegian language, and the retention of family values, especially those that assured the continuance of the family on the land. Partial dissolution of the ethnic community was primarily caused by social and geographic mobility.
Recommended Citation
Benson, Susan J. Brekke, "From Mountains to Prairies: A Case Study of Rural Ethnic Community Formation" (2000). Culminating Projects in History. 36.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/hist_etds/36
