Memories
BACKGROUND
The project
Emigration
Memories
IN AMERICA
The
emigrants
Their
destination
Work
Daily
life
Returning home
IN NORWAY
House
and home
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phrases
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The last generation of blueberry muffins
America played a major role in everyday life in Vest-Agder for much of the twentieth century. In the coastal districts and the rural dales young people ate large muffins with blueberries sixty years before Seven Eleven began to sell them in Oslo. And they had thick wall-to-wall carpet several decades before it became common in Norway in the 1970s and 1980s. They lived in prefabricated houses with built-in garages, modern room design and panorama windows at a time when most others had to make do with houses financed by the housing bank. Many southern Norwegians had refrigerators, dishwashers and luxurious bathrooms long before a similar standard became the norm here at home. And they also had things that have never been particularly common here: everlasting aluminium lights, crocheted plastic tablecloths, and coloured lights along the cornices before Christmas.
Despite the fact that return migration and the cultural influence from America is still strongly present in the consciousness of southern Norwegians, it is only a question of time before much of the knowledge and the material culture associated with this phenomena disappears. Today it is the last generation of return emigrants who are still alive – those who set course across the Atlantic during the years after 1945 to return in the 1960s and 1970s. It is important to document their history and to convey this cultural heritage to those whose task it will be to take care of it in the future.
Old photograph from America
Many children of the emigrants from Vest-Agder spent their early years in America, some of them returning to Norway when they had to start school
American white goods and a double set of wall sockets!
Many of the students who have taken part in the Amerikakofferten project have grandparents who have lived in America or parents who were born there:
Grandparents who have lived in America:
Kvinesdal Junior High School 49%
Lista Junior High School 36%
Berge Junior High School, Lyngdal 31%
Marnar Junior High School, 15%
Parents born in America:
Kvinesdal Junior High School 26%
Lista Junior High School 23%
Berge Junior High School, Lyngdal 10%
Marnar Junior High School, 3%