Scandinavian Traveling Trunks

 By Amanda Munro 

When you visit the Nordic Heritage museum there is a lot to take in, but one thing that always intrigued me was the trunks on display that were once used to immigrate to America. These old trunks interest me simply for the fact of how they traveled with something so big and bulky unlike our more manageable suitcases, but also for the fact of bringing all of your belongs into a limited amount of space to a unknown land that claimed to have its streets paved with gold. What on earth would you bring? Nordic immigrants filled these beautifully decorated trunks with clothes, linens, shoes, bibles, pots and pans, and whatever else they needed for the long trek to a new land.

These trunks were always decorated ethnically to where that individual was from. Most commonly rosemaled, these trunks also had the name of the trunks owner, along with the year, stylistically written. After being used these trunks were kept in the home as a piece of furniture and a reminder of their native land. These trunks are admired and passed down through generations. I admire these trunks whenever I see them because they are a big piece of our heritage to see what our family members did and how even through traveling they preserved their culture.

Cursive Handwriting

The Nordic Heritage Teen Council has been discussing heritage through the lens of arts and crafts.  We have also talked about what makes up our own personal heritage, so I decided to write about cursive handwriting because it is a part of how I identify my own heritage.  

Cursive handwriting has been prevalent ever since there was written language.  From Ancient Egyptian to Roman, from Arabic to Chinese, these languages all developed a type of connected or continuous style for their handwriting.  Cursive means “running” and comes from Italian cursivo and Medieval Latin cursivus.  Fine handwriting was considered a professional skill in 18th and 19th century America because all professional correspondence was done in cursive.  There were even entire schools dedicated to handwriting. Since the 18th century to the present, there have been many different styles of cursive.  Here is a famous example of handwriting; the Declaration of Independence.

Today, there is a debate on the legitimacy of continuing to teach cursive handwriting in schools.  Keyboarding is now being taught so students become proficient using electronic communication. A lot of school curriculum is no longer requiring cursive because it is no longer used in society.  Many argue that if teaching cursive becomes a thing of the past we will lose the ability to read important documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  I will finish this blog post in my own handwriting because why type about the importance of handwriting?

Winter 2014 Highlights

It's hard to believe it's almost mid-winter break already, but we've had a stimulating and productive Winter session so far. Check out a few of the highlights and stay tuned for blog posts from the NHTC members soon!

LEGOS!
After some exploration, and an in-depth discussion of the ideas of craft and heritage, we kicked back for a little thematically appropriate Lego-time (Legos are a Danish product-- didn't you know?)  Everyone was happy to spend some time building Legos at the end of the session!

ROSEMÅLING!
We were very lucky that Museum volunteer Barb Johnson was able to join us as a guest presenter a few weeks ago.  She shared her knowledge and skills about the art and craft of traditional Norwegian rosemåling.  In addition to bringing her work, and some painting supplies, she also brought her famous almond cake! Another thing we learned about Barb-- she's not even Norwegian!  A good example of personal heritage.  Thanks for a great experience, Barb!

Barb starts off with some information about the origins of rosemåling.

Here Barb explains that the Rogaland style of rosemåling 
is characterized by a symmetrical design. 
(On the back table is a small sample of Barb's own work). 

How do you even read this pattern? Where do you begin? 
Barb had some good tips.

After Barb's presentation, the NHTC members got to try their hand  at rosemåling. 
Here are Amanda, Sophia and Eli.

And here Nigel and Evan are working away.