The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 195
576 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Norwegian Migration to Texas
Furthermore, I have studiously attempted to translate the four
letters just as they are:-with respect to style, punctuation, and
atmosphere. It should be quite evident that few at the present
time would even know how to write in the Norwegian language as
quaintly and cumbersome as we find that language represented in
these four letters. And, as to spelling, punctuation, and phrase-
ology, the authors of the two first letters were on par with a
present-day sixth grader. In addition a good many "mixed"
words and phrases have been used (Texas-Norwegian terminology).
Marcus Thrane, the editor of Arbeider-Foreningernes Blad (the
Labor Unions' Paper)-the first "labor paper" in Norway-was
heartily in favor of the emigration movement. He saw in it a
means to an end:-to lower the supply of laborers in Norway
and thus indirectly cause a rise in the wages for the workers
"left behind"; and, as he so often said, since America offered
such wonderful opportunities to the poor but industrious people,
he could not understand why a single dependent and poor man
would care to remain in the old home-country. Thrane used his
paper extensively to infect the workers with the "America fever";
and optimistic letters from Norwegians in America were often
published by him for the purpose of spreading the "good tiding."
He, himself, emigrated in 1863. The "upper classes," as a whole,
worked against the emigration movement, and lamented the "na-
tional loss" of so much labor-power.Commerce.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940, periodical, 1940; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101111/m1/209/?rotate=90: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.