Rural Route Bookstore

Books about Farm Life, Small Town Life, the Midwest, and Scandinavian-Americans

Featuring the Heartwarming Humor of "Those Lutheran Ladies"

History

Norwegians on the Prairie: Ethnicity and the Development of the Country Town by Odd Lovoll

Lovoll, born in Norway and professor emeritus of history at St. Olaf College, has authored many books and articles on Norwegian immigration to the Upper Midwest. His earlier books, and those by many other authors, have generally been centered on experiences immigrants faced in big cities or on the hardships and adversity they lived through as they cleared the prairie preparing for a livelihood of farming.

In this book, however, Lovoll's subject is the lingering impact on small towns that 100 and 150 years earlier had served as trading centers for farmers. Lovoll focuses on three communities located on Minnesota's western prairie; Benson, Madison, and Starbuck, MN. In this work, he points out that "family stability and inmarrriage," reinforced by the Lutheran Church, sustained the Norwegian language and customs for an extended period" and this theory led Lovoll to examine the historical, economic, cultural, religious and political history of these communities from the 1860s until the present. The author's academic background becomes obvious to the reader. Lovoll's meticulous research into census data, careful reading of local newspapers, and extensive interviews with descendants of Norwegian immigrants support his conclusion that strong ties to homeland are visible today in each town’s social, political and religious character.

IM - 9A Hardcover $32.95

IM - 9B Paperback $19.95

They Chose Minnesota June Drenning Holmquist; ed.

Why did emigrants leave their homelands and move to Minnesota? Where in the state did they settle? What did they do, and how did they organize? How did they maintain their ethnicity? These are just a few of many deep questions addressed in this massive document making the subtitle, "A Survey of the State's Ethnic Groups", almost a misnomer. This is not "survey", as in quick scan or exit poll. This is an 8 1/2" X 11", 614-page tome with photos, illustrations, and charts covering 60 ethnic groups that settled in Minnesota. This is by far the largest and most expensive book carried by Rural Route Bookstore, and if it weren't worth the price, we wouldn't carry it. The various scholarly contributors read like a Who's Who of ethnic studies.

When published, the St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press wrote, "If you are a descendant of Icelanders or Lebanese, Greeks or Japanese, you will find interesting material in this book about your forebears and how it was when they settled in Minnesota." And yes, all five Scandinavian groups are covered in detail in this "must have" book for historian or genealogist.

G - 04 Paperback $39.95

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All Caragana Press products are available at wholesale prices to qualified retailers, organizations, churches, schools, and libraries. Call 800 494-9124 for details.

Scandinavian-American and Rural Humor Books