Books

A rare first-hand look into the lives of New World immigrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of Icelanders emigrated to North and South America. Using letters, Icelandic and English periodicals and newspapers, and census reports, Jonas Thor offers a detailed social history of the Icelanders in North America, from the first settlement in Utah to the struggle in New Iceland.

In the 1870s, approximately 18,000 Mennonites migrated from present-day Ukraine to the North American grasslands. In Hidden Worlds, Royden Loewen illuminates the ways they adapted to the New World, including new concepts of social boundary and community, and new strategies of land ownership and legacy.

In this richly illustrated volume, the authors trace the continuity of tradition in achitecture, art, and community life from Ukraine to the parishes of the Manitoba prairie.