An Update on the Letter Project from Alastair Brown, Lands Museum
Sometimes one
starts
a
project that
just grows
and grows.
Family researchers
will know
what
I
mean! My
initial idea
was
that this
was
a
not too
demanding project.
We
should gather
in
letters from
both
sides
of the
Atlantic, take
excerpts from
them and
make
a
theatre
where
we
read these.
The
theatre would
be chronological
and
with some
historical facts
about developments
in both
countries. Perhaps
we
could
use
some
pictures
of
those who
wrote
the
letters together
with their
homes. The
letters reflect
how both
countries have
changed
through the
years,
and
the emigrant-immigrant
experience
for those
who left
from Land.
Kari
Nordal
We had
thought it
would be
difficult to
get
letters,
especially
those
sent
to
America,
but
that those
we got
hold of
would be
easy to
handle.
Alas,
I
was very
wrong!
It began
on a
rather
negative note
when
our
biggest hope
for letters
did not
metrialise,
-
no
one
in
Arvid
Sandaker's
family
knows what
happened to
his
collection
of
several
hundred letters.
We have to
accept
that we
will
never find
them. But
since
then we
have been
able to
get
hold
of
a surprising
number
ofletters
written
to
Norway.
We found
some
in
our
archives,
some in
publications and
others
are still
at
the farms
where they
were initially
received.
Just this
week
I
got a
plastic bag
filled with
letters
and Christmas
cards
sent
from America
to the
Erstad
farm
in
Torpa.
Most
are
from the
1960s and
1970s
and are
in Norwegian
-
which
is
really
surprising.
I
also
have a
binder
with
letters
sent to
Fmisland in Torpa
from the
1860s
-
1890s.
They are
written
on
the usual
small
paper
with as
much
written on
each side
as
possible.
We
are grateful
that the
letters are
so well
kept in
the binder,
but it
was a
bit
of
a
blow that
all
the
letters have
holes punched
in them
so
that they
could sit
in the
binder. I'm
sure you
can
guess
that an
awful
lot
of
words have
now
got to
be guessed.
From another
farm (Lunde)
I
got
a
binder
with
photocopies
of
letters
sent
to America. The
letters had
been translated
into
All letters
from
and
to America
are
of course
in
varying
degrees
of
completeness,
condition
and
legibility.
To work
with
them they
must be
scanned (for
the
archive and
future
use)
and
good
photocopies made
for Kari
to
work
from
(she
has
only
one pc
so she
can't
look
at
documents
on one
screen
and write
and write
on another).
This means
that
every original
has
to be
individually scanned
with
adjustments to
make
the copies
legible.
This is
a
special challenge
concerning some
of
the letters
I
get
from Sandra.
People
send
her
scanned
letters
that are
much too
light.
So
many have
to
be
opened
in Photoshop
and
adjusted
before
we can
print
them.
It takes
a
huge amount
of time.
But
at
the
same
time it
is also
a luxury
problem!
We could
never have
imagined
that
we would
get so
many letters
from
America
-
and
this
is all
due to
Sandra,
who
has used
and continues
to
use
an
unimaginable amount
of time
on this
project.
Without
her
there would
have been
almost
no
letters
from Norway.
Thanks
Sandra!
So we
intend to
work
on the
letters through
2014,
then in
2015
begin
with choosing
excerpts,
translating,
finding background
historical
details,
photos
...
then
we
must try
to
find
how
it will
be presented!
Financing
that will
be our
problem,
but I hope
the lag
will
be able
to
give Kari
payment for
one
month.
We
must
also
make
a
Norwegian version
for the
schools
and
film both
versions for
future showing.
As I
said initially,
this is
a project that
just
grows
and
grows. Questions
we
will
meet are
amongst
other
things how
representative the
early
letter
are.
Are the
letters we
have mostly
from the
larger farms
with well-educated
people,
or
have
we
underestimated literacy
amongst
the
former
cottars? And
isn't
it more
likely that
letters have
been preserved
on the
larger farms
in Norway
than by
the cottars
who moved
very
often?
Obviously the
Norwegian
class divisions
disappear
with time
in
America
so the
later
letters
will
be more
and more
representative for
all of
the emigrants
and their
descendants.
Landingslaget i Amerika |