The Cups of Blood Are Emptied Pietism and Cultural Heritage in Two Danish Immigrant Schools on the Great Plains

Authors

John Mark Nielsen, Dana College in Blair, NebraskaFollow

Date of this Version

Summer 2003

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly (Summer 2003) 23(3): 175-192.

Comments

Copyright 2003, Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Abstract

Following the American Civil War, the vast sweep of the Great Plains exerted a powerful force on the imagination of Americans and Northern European immigrants, resulting in a period of rapid settlement. Immigrant communities in particular attempted to establish institutions through which their language, beliefs and cultural heritage might be preserved. The history of these immigrant institutions mirrors the challenges immigrant communities faced in confronting not only the vicissitudes of climate and evolving economic conditions but also the pressures of assimilation.

Numerous works of both fiction and nonfiction explore the broader challenges of life in the Great Plains; none captures the experiences of immigrants as does Ole Rolvaag's trilogy, Giants in the Earth, Peder Victorious, and Their Fathers' God. Rolvaag depicts not only the environmental challenges immigrants faced but the religious conflicts that arise from denominational differences. Ever present, particularly in the first novel, is the Great Plains, which Rolvaag personifies as a she-monster, a primordial giantess, patiently biding her time as Norwegian immigrants coming to this vast, open grassland in 1873 struggle to gain a foothold and to transform the "American Desert" into a land of "milk and honey."

Novels such as Rolvaag's focus on the experiential level of individuals and communities and help readers to enter vicariously into that experience. While historical and geographical studies have focused on the broader experience, few have addressed specific immigrant groups or explored the institutions they founded. Such an investigation can offer insight into how these institutions provided opportunities for both self-expression and identification. The history of individual institutions can also serve as a barometer, reflecting the pressures that the forces of environment and assimilation exerted on individual immigrant communities.