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History Post-confederation (1867-)

Hidden Worlds

Revisiting the Mennonite Migrants of the 1870s

by (author) Royden Loewen

Publisher
University of Manitoba Press
Initial publish date
Nov 2001
Category
Post-Confederation (1867-), Emigration & Immigration, 19th Century
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780887550584
    Publish Date
    Nov 2001
    List Price
    $24.99
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780887556555
    Publish Date
    Nov 2001
    List Price
    $22.95

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Description

In the 1870s, approximately 18,000 Mennonites migrated from the southern steppes of Imperial Russia (present-day Ukraine) to the North American grasslands. They brought with them an array of cultural and institutional features that indicated they were a “transplanted” people. What is less frequently noted, however, is that they created in their everyday lives a world that ensured their cultural longevity and social cohesiveness in a new land. Their adaptation to the New World required new concepts of social boundary and community, new strategies of land ownership and legacy, new associations, and new ways of interacting with markets.

In Hidden Worlds, historian Royden Loewen illuminates some of these adaptations, which have been largely overshadowed by an emphasis on institutional history, or whose sources have only recently been revealed. Through an analysis of diaries, wills, newspaper articles, census and tax records, and other literature, an examination of inheritance practices, household dynamics, and gender relations, and a comparison of several Mennonite communities in the United States and Canada, Loewen uncovers the multi-dimensional and highly resourceful character of the 1870s migrants.

About the author

Royden Loewen is a senior scholar at the University of Winnipeg. His books include Horse-and-Buggy Genius: Listening to Mennonites Contest the Modern World and Village Among Nations: "Canadian" Mennonites in a Transnational World, 1916–2006.

 

Royden Loewen's profile page

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