Norwegian-American Studies

8 Letters to Immigrants in the Midwest from the Telemark Region of Norway* by 0yvind T. Gulliksen Scholars who have studied Scandinavian immigrant letters have focused almost entirely on letters sent by immigrants in the United States back to family and friends in Scandinavia. For historians of Scandinavian immigration to the United States, these letters provide valuable source material. They contain firsthand observations and comments about American life, written by newcomers to inform readers back home about life in the New World. People in Scandinavia then often decided whether or not to emigrate on the basis of these letters. The label "immigrant letters" could possibly be extended to include that part of the correspondence which went the other way. The study of "Amerika-brev" (letters from America) has not given enough attention to the fact that letters back to Scandinavia were part of a two-way process of communication . Reading Theodore Biegen' s extensive collection ♦Earlier versions of this essay have been presented as the annual Knut Gjerset Lecture at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, in 1984 and at the conference of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus, in 1985. The Council for Cultural Affairs, Telemark county, and The Norwegian Research Council supported the research by travel grants. 157 158 0yvind T. Gulliksen of America letters published in the volume Land of Their Choice (1955) one wonders what happened to the letters from Norway which at least some of these letters writers must have received. What do letters sent to immigrants in the United States from various parts of Norway during the period of mass immigration tell us? Obviously these letters do not reveal much about immigrant experience, but they may tell us something about the effects of emigration on those who stayed at home. Letters sent from the Old World did not contribute to such important changes as did the letters from America, although they may perhaps have convinced some immigrants to stay in America and others to return home. But on the whole such letters had another function. If letters from immigrants in America informed Norwegian readers of a world they did not know, the purpose of letters from home was primarily to help the immigrants stay in touch with a known world, a familiar world they did not want to forget and could not completely let go. Of course many recipients of these letters, at least before the turn of the century, realized that they would not see their mother country again. Letters from home helped to keep alive that private world which had shaped the immigrants before they decided to leave. The letters, for as long as they kept coming, were reminders of a past which the process of assimilation could not eradicate. The most serious problem for the scholar who wants to study letters which immigrants received from home is the lack of available source material. Surprisingly little has been done to study or even to collect letters in this category, despite the fact that such letters to Norwegian settlers in the Midwest must have been almost as numerous as letters going from Norwegian-American communities back to Norway. It may already be too late to acquire a significant number of these letters from the time of mass emigration, 1837 to the early 1920s. Most such letters are irretrievably lost. Since they were the only written records left behind by a good many people, the loss is a tragedy. Such letters could have contributed to our Letters from Norway 159 understanding of regional history in Norway, particularly of life in rural communities in times of great change. Because of the scarcity of collected material in public archives , a scholar interested in this particular kind of research must undoubtedly devote much time and effort to hunting for sources himself. Easiest to find are letters from home printed in the Norwegian- American press. Sometimes private letters of more general interest were sent to such newspapers; some letters were even written for newspaper publication, just as were some letters sent the other way. Letters seem to have been a popular genre in newspaper publishing on both sides of the...