En Norsk-Amerikansk Faertelling: The Novels of Waldemar Ager, Eau Claire, Wisconsin and the Norwegian-American Ideal

Abstract

Americans retaining linguistic and cultural ties with their ancestral homeland, so-called ?hyphenated Americans,? experienced great internal and external pressure to assimilate into American society, never more so than the early twentieth century, during the era of Progressivism and the First World War. In response, writers of various ethnic groups emerged to espouse the benefits of maintaining their own language and customs in America. Among them was Waldemar Ager, a Norwegian immigrant living in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who wished to form a new Norwegian-American identity combining the best elements of Norwegian and American culture. His novels, set in Eau Claire, are not only vehicles for expressing the author?s visions for his people but give us a glimpse of Eau Claire as it was in the nineteenth and twentieth century and the lives of Norwegian immigrants and Norwegian-Americans, not just ideally, but as they were.