We are working to upload thousands of newly digitized materials to the digital collections. We appreciate your patience during this process! Please contact the NAHA archivist if you have any questions.
This volume of essays was translated in 1998 under the title Concerning Our Heritage. Rølvaag divided this collection into three parrs, dealing respectively with heritage, literature, and the name change. Much of the material in the first section of the book is taken loosely from lectures he gave to students at St. Olaf and from essays in newspapers and magazines. The second section comes largely from a series of polemical newspaper articles defending Norwegian-American literature from a series of anonymous attacks, and the third section is based on a series of articles he wrote in a church publication where he was objecting to removing the word “Norwegian” from the name of the Norwegian Lutheran church in America, and also to the reduced use of the Norwegian language in church services. Concerning Our Heritage was aimed at Rølvaag’s fellow Norwegian Americans and was his attempt to convince them of the value of maintaining their own cultural, linguistic, and religious heritage and adding it to the mosaic that makes up the American society of which they are now a part.
Karl, Ole, and Jennie enjoying a picnic outside their family home in Northfield, Minnesota. A previous picture of a picnic states that they ate outside often in the summer.