From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West - 1985

From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West - 052126068X

Jon Gjerde, From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West, © 1985 Cambridge University Press, New York, Paperback, 319 Pages, 0-521-36822-7.

From the Publisher

This book examines a trans-Atlantic chain migration from a Norwegian fjord district to settlements in the nineteenth-century rural Upper Middle West and considers the social and economic conditions experienced in Europe as well as the immigrants' cultural adaptations to America.

Back Cover, From Peasants to Farmers - 1985

From the Back Cover

Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book Award in American Immigration History

From Peasants to Farmers examines a transatlantic chain migration from Balestrand, a Norwegian fjord district, to its daughter settlements in the nineteenth-century rural Upper Middle West.

The book considers the social and economic conditions in Europe prior to the emigration as well as the immigrants' cultural adaptations to the American environment.

Stressing these transatlantic linkages, Professor Gjerde views the adaptations in American not simply as “Americanization", but as part of a world-wide process of cultural change.

Jon Gjerde is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Gjerde delivers a well-conceived, clearly formulated, and thoroughly researched scholarly investigation. This book is an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the transatlantic cultural impulses produced by the mass migration of the last century."
American Historical Review

"Jon Gjerde has given us a book marked by careful writing and skillful research." Reviews in American History

"One of the finest treatments available of the movement of people from rural Europe to rural America."
Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"Gjerde's book is marked throughout by clarity of thought and expression. Written for scholars, it remains accessible to interested lay readers . . . Never constricted by assumptions about the primacy of economic variables, Gjerde accords due weight to ethnocultural and religious variables. The result is a model study, based on hard evidence, of how the dialectic between culture and environment can illuminate social history." Minnesota History

"This book is of great interest and is an impressive achievement."
Economic History Review

"He has carried out a distinguished analysis of demographic, economic, and cultural conditions in Balestrand, an analysis that shows that he has a command of important materials of different kinds."
Historisk Tidsskrift (Oslo)

Table of Contents

  • Tables
  • Plates and figures
  • Preface
  • 1 Introduction
  • 2 "The worlds we have lost": regional differences in trade, migration, and emigration in Norway
  • 3 "The grass so fat it glistened": the social and economic structure of peasant Balestrand
  • 4 "It will be man's fortune to see business extended": economic development of Balestrand, 1800-1865
  • 5 Inheritance, marriage, fertility, and economic growth: social development of Balestrand, 1800-1865
  • 6 The children of Askeladden: emigration from Balestrand to the United States
  • 7 "They rushed from place to place": American settlement patterns among Balestrand's immigrants
  • 8 "Norwegians . .. must learn anew": economic development of the American communities
  • 9 "There is good moral fiber in the sons of the mountains": social development of the American communities
  • 10 Conclusion
  • Notes
  • A note on secondary sources
  • Index

Library of Congress Catalog Listing

LC control no.: 84021428
Type of material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Personal name: Gjerde, Jon, 1953-2008.
Main title: From peasants to farmers : the migration from Balestrand, Norway to the upper Middle West / Jon Gjerde.
Published/Created: Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Description: xiv, 319 p. : ill.; 24 cm.
ISBN-10: 052126068X
ISBN-13: 978-0521260688
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: Norwegian Americans --Middle West --Economic conditions.
Norwegian Americans --Middle West --Social conditions.
Peasants --Norway --Balestrand.
Farmers --Norway --Balestrand.
Balestrand (Norway) --Economic conditions.
Balestrand (Norway) --Social conditions.
Balestrand (Norway) --Emigration and immigration.
Middle West --Emigration and immigration.
Series: Interdisciplinary perspectives on modern history
LC classification: F358.2.S2 G54 1985
Dewey class no.: 304.8/77/0483
Geographic area code: n-usc-- e-no---
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