Customer Reviews

Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917

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Gjerde has written a useful book for understanding the conflict immigrants experienced while trying to recreate their native cultures in the American Middle West amid the materialism and individualism they encountered in the process. Gjerde terms it "complementary identity": the immigrants (German, Irish, and Norwegian are who Gjerde focuses on) viewed themselves as Americans enjoying traditional republican freedoms while practicing their native traditions and rituals. The tension resulted in large part because there was no way the immigrants could keep American commercial values from invading their communities, no matter how isolated they were. The main weakness of the book is its structure. The chapters start out dense and abstract and end the same way with hard to grasp conclusions. The guts of the chapters, though, are easy to read and contain enjoyable examples from diaries, letters, and newspapers. Another weakness is that Gjerde paints a picture of the American migrants as being materialist nativists of all one mind set, which is simplifying the situation too much. Having limited knowledge of the subject matter, I found the book enjoyable if at times difficult to read.

The author did deep research into the immigration history of the upper mississippi valley (Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota) about the upper european immigration from 1850 to 1890. If you had family who settled in that time, it will enlighten your impressions of your ancestors. Be prepared for a tough academic read though.

Gjerde's premise is interesting--there were two groups of immigrants to the upper mid west in the mid to late 1800's. One was "Yankee" from New England and the other foreign, particularly Germans, Swedes, Norwiegens and some Irish. The latter formed isolated, insular communities and tried to reconsturct communities based on a shared religous, cultural and linguistic commonality. This was looked on with alarm by many Americans, who worried that these folks would not assimilate and were dangerous to traditional American republicanism. Unfortunatley, Gjerde sounds much more like a sociologist than a historian, esp. when he comes to describe the "tension filled" families of those from Europe who (to Gjerde) were too hard on their spouses, made their children work without paying them for it (horrors!) and perhaps had loveless, unemotional relationships with their spouses (though Gjerde provides no credible evidence for this last concoction.) He also has a Berkeley professor's view of the farm----he continually describes the work as onerous, arduous, brutal, drudgery, etc. He never considers the joy and satisfaction from working the land, even if it is at times hard. I suspect the nearest Gjerde has been to a farm is the produce section at his food coop.

Although there are some merits to the book, Gjerde's poor use of evidence (relies on novels as factual evidence instead of, well, facts!), his overuse of academic jargon, ridiculous depiction of children and the family, and omiting a discussion of populism make this book one to avoid.