Description
Minnesota Historical Society Press, Published 2024. Paperback, xvi, 372 pp.; 23 cm; First Edition (with full number line); illustrated with black-and-white historical photographs and portraits.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
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Condition & notes
In Very Good condition. Mild bumping to the edges and corners and mild shelf wear to covers. Binding tight; pages clean and unmarked. A small "SCSH Lending Library" label affixed to the half-title page with handwritten dates; not an institutional ex-library copy. Otherwise unmarked.The first English-language translation of Bodil Stenseth's 2019 Norwegian study Fru Muus' klage, this volume reconstructs the 1880s Minnesota lawsuit in which Oline Muus sued her husband, Norwegian-American Lutheran pastor Bernt Julius Muus, to recover her inheritance. The case became a flashpoint in Norwegian-American religious life: Oline's refusal to defer to her husband and her decision to take her grievance to the secular courts rather than the congregation drew condemnation from the Norwegian Synod, while the underlying questions of inheritance law and women's rights placed the case at the intersection of immigrant assimilation, church authority, and the changing legal status of married women in late nineteenth-century America. Stenseth contextualizes the dispute within the founding of Holden Church in Goodhue County, the politics of the various Lutheran conferences, and the broader social conditions of Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota. Edited and translated by Kari Lie Dorer with co-translator Torild Homstad. Co-published with the Norwegian-American Historical Association.Contents: Prologue; Preface; Part I: Hand in Hand (To America; A Call from God; Land Rush and Pioneer Life; Oline's Disfavor; The Lay People's Church; "My Lost Arlien"; Before Darkness Came; Hellfire and Damnation Sermons; At War with the Dakota; The Churching of Women; A Norwegian Rabble-Rouser; In Sickness and in Health; The Mustard Seed of St. Olaf; In Her Husband's Long Absence; The Church and Women's Emancipation; A Precocious Confirmand; Clergy Shortages and Deceitful Preachers; The Family Gathered; Church Discipline on the Agenda; Hypochondria and Hysteria; The Norwegian American Elite; A Home in Deep Sorrow); Part II: Family Trials (Battle on the Home Front; The Complaint with a Capital "C"; A Psychological Puzzle; Fifteen Days Before the First Congregational Meeting; A Scandal Within the Scandal; Out of Control; Who Was the Complainant?; Like a Bolt of Thunder; Personal Punishment; Under Church Discipline?; The Big Defense Speech; The Money Question; A Christian Husband?; In the Backwoods; The Leadership Takes the Case; A "Spectacle" at the Parsonage; A Doctor, a Horse, and a Crutch; In Loving Jest; False Accusation; The Question of Blame; Staging the Scandal; Case Dismissed; A New Judge Presides; Not Much Merriment; A Troll of a Wife; Intentional Malice; Ghosts; Verdict and Departure); Part III: Disgrace (Helpers in a Time of Need; New Legal Proceedings; Divorce?; The Three Pastor's Wives; A Dangerous Man; Lonely and Abandoned; A Desire for Reconciliation; Mother and Daughter United); Appendix: The Muus Descendants; Editor's Afterword; Timelines; Notes; Bibliography; Index.