Pictures of Longing

"This exhaustively researched book, written in a highly readable style, presents a gold-mine of material for anyone interested in Scandinavian-American history, immigrant history, history of the Midwest, Norwegian history, and the history of American photography. Developments in photographic technology and distribution at the turn of the last century made it possible for the great wave of Norwegians arriving in the United States at that time to keep up contact with their homeland and present detailed records of their encounter with a new country. This excellent study brings these people and the experience of immigration to life."—Linda Haverty Rugg, University of California, Berkeley

"Pictures of Longing provides an intriguing new perspective on the immigration story, told both through Sigrid Lien’s careful selection of photographs and through her accompanying text which brilliantly interprets these visual images. Instead of using photographs to illustrate the text (as in most immigration histories), the text is used here to show the reader how to interpret them. After reading this book you will never look at photographs the same way again."—Solveig Zempel, author of In Their Own Words: Letters from Norwegian Immigrants

"This meticulously researched book resituates photography and its development into the American narrative, specifically the historicity of these pictures within immigration history."—Michigan Historical Review

 

"Sigrid Lien’s scholarship is keen and illuminating, as is her reverence and joy in the subject. Put this book on an easily reached shelf."—Star Tribune

 

"Throughout the book, Lien guides readers in this continuing work (or perhaps pleasure) of making meaning with photographs. Pictures of Longing will reward both the casual viewer and the serious student of photography and Norwegian immigration."—The Annals of Iowa

 

"Pictures of Longing investigates “this particular photographic genre that clearly has meant so much to so many,” and how these photos are not simple depic­ tions of “what happened” but are constructed, grassroots expressions, individual and collective, of the Norwegian migration."—Minnesota History

 

"The reader gets a glimpse into nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century lives and communities that are expertly elucidated through historical insight and with a strong methodological framework."—North Dakota History

 

"In the current political climates of both countries, a photogenic study viewed through the lens of migration is both timely and welcome. "—Norwegian American Studies

 

"Unquestionably, this foundational study will serve generations of historians, scholars, and students of history."—South Dakota History

 

"Lien's important volume traces the role photography played both in ancestral and adopted lands."—Norwegian American Studies