Swedish American Genealogist Volume 34 | Number 2 Article 13 6-1-2014 Book Reviews Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag Part of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons Recommended Citation (2014) "Book Reviews," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 34 : No. 2 , Article 13. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol34/iss2/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Book Reviews Here you will find information about interesting books on the immigration experience, genealogical manuals, books on Swedish customs, and much more. We welcome contacts with SAG readers, suggestions on books to review perhaps. If you want to review a book yourself, please contact the SAG Editor, at <[email protected]> so we know what you are working on. A film review Everlasting Moments (Maria Lars- sons eviga ogonblick), 131 minutes, Amazon.com $25.49 plus shipping, or watch on Amazon instant video. hide when he comes home late after not leave him in spite of his brutal- drinking. ity because she holds to her vows of This film is a 2008 Swedish drama Maria has won a camera in a lot- "until death do us part" and wants to with English subtitles, directed by tery soon after her marriage but, not keep her family together. Children Jan Troell. He was the director of the knowing what to do with it, she has keep coming along with regularity The Emigrants and The New Land hidden it away among her things. It with more mouths to feed and rent in the 1970's, the Swedish epic of Vil- is an early bellows-type camera with to pay. helm Moberg's account of Swedish glass plates, a good camera for its Sweden's mobilization for World immigrants to Minnesota in the mid- time, but complicated to use and to War I causes Sigge to be drafted into nineteenth century. handle and to develop pictures with the army in 1914 and his meager This film takes place in the first chemicals in a darkroom. This cam- income from dockwork, labor, ma- decades of the twentieth century era is to become the key to the trans- sonry work, and other odd jobs is lost beginning in the year 1911, and cen- formation of Maria from a battered to the family. Thanks to the kindness ters around a working family in the wife to a creative person with spe- of Mr. Pedersen in providing her with city of Malmo, a port city in the south cial artistic talent. She takes the more equipment, she is able to sup- of Sweden. Maria Larsson lives with camera to a photographer's studio to port her family by taking marriage her husband Sigfrid (Sigge), in a tiny try to pawn the camera to feed her photos and family photos, now in- apartment; Maria works as a clean- family, but is persuaded by the creasingly popular in Sweden. Sigge ing woman and as a seamstress and photographer, Sebastian Pedersen, to comes home from his army posting, Sigge is a dockworker. At the begin- borrow it back and learn to use it and and Mr. Pedersen later returns to ning of the film they have three to develop the photos she takes. Denmark to be closer to his family. children and by the end Maria has Timidly at first, she takes a few I do not wish to reveal the whole had seven. Maria is a shy woman and pictures and after a time has some story, but the film comes to a brighter Sigge, a good-hearted man when so- success in selling a few of her photos. ending than many other Swedish ber, is not able to handle his drinking She has a "gift for seeing," Pederson films. Although Maria dies within problem and becomes brutal when tells her, and encourages her to about ten years, probably of con- drunk. The children fear him and continue. sumption, the older children are /*" ^> It is apparent that Pedersen ad- admitted to college and seem des- SALE! mires and cultivates her talent and tined for a good future. Sigge has she is deeply appreciative of his inter- built up a drayage business based on Swedish Voters in est. He is older than she and always his having adopted a neglected horse Chicago 1888 polite and proper with her, but they a few years before, and becomes a By Nils William Olsson develop a deep affection for each much more reliable father and provi- 302 pages of Swedes, other. Her husband Sigge becomes der. But the real story is about Ma- comments, and indexes. suspicious, however, and tries in ria, who evolves from a shy, sub- every way, including threats on her missive housewife with little percep- $10 +$5S&H life, to make her give up her interest tion of her own worth, to an ac- Contact Jill Seaholm at and her camera. He continues with complished professional of great tal- <[email protected]> . his drinking and his woman-chasing, ent. She has, with Sigge's help, and she refuses to be bullied. She will acquired and renovated a studio for 26 Swedish American Genealogist 2014:2 Book Reviews Swedish with women and economics. Domestic Secrets:Women & Property in Swe- women's rights den, 1600-1857 chronicles changes to married women's property rights and 1600-1857 deals with the unintended conse- her photography business, which quences of the erosion of legal rights. continues to grow. Domestic Secrets: Women & Prop- The public sphere of influence - The story is beautifully told by Jan erty in Sweden, 1600-1857, by Ma- including the wife's family and the Troell and the cast with great sensi- ria Agren, University of North Carol- local community — held sway over ina, 2009, 285 pages, bibliography, spousal property rights throughout tivity and attention to details. It has map, and illustrations. won several awards at foreign film most of the seventeenth century. A- round 1700 creditors and lawyers festivals and been nominated for a Maria Agren is a professor of history number of others. To quote one re- campaigned to codify spousal prop- at Uppsala University and author or erty rights as an Arcanum domes- viewer, "Beholding Troell's exquisite editor of four previous books dealing images is like having your eyes al- ticum, or domestic secret. Their ef- most washed, the better to behold moving pictures of uncorrupted pur- ity and clarity." The story is based on the life of a family member of Agneta Add to your family history Ulfsater Troell, Jan's wife, who wrote a novel about her relative, the real Learn what Sweden and America were like Maria Larsson. Troell thought it was when your ancestors emigrated a story worth telling, and this film is the result. To add to the convincing Join the Swedish-American reality of the time of the story, it was filmed in 8 mm. black and white, then Historical Society enlarged to 35 mm in order to achieve a soft, slightly grainy look to the Four issues a year of the Swedish-American images. Historical Quarterly, plus dividend books For genealogy enthusiasts and those interested in the history of The Society' latest book is Conrad Bergendoff's Sweden in this early period of the Faith and Work: A Swedish-American Lutheran, Industrial Age, the film offers a very 1895-1997, by Thomas Tredway. convincing portrayal of the lives of the working poor who, rather than For more information, write immigrating to America or else- where, remained in Sweden and had Swedish-American Historical Society to find a way to make their living in 3225 W. Foster, Box 48 the emerging cities as they grew and Chicago IL, 60625 absorbed the population of the earlier rural communities and farms. Along or see www.swedishaniericanhist.org the way we see strikes and strike- Mention the Genealogist when you join or order books breakers, the pressures of Marxism and socialism, and relations between the working classes and their betters, the rise of temperance societies, and other features of these decades early in the twentieth century. Viewers will be well rewarded by seeing this fine film. Dennis L. Johnson Swedish American Genealogist 2014:2 27 Book Reviews contributions to society by men and of facts and real people. The story is women, usage of land, and the aboli- mostly told by Andrew Palm (b. 1839), tion of lineage property. whose mother was Annika (Anna) of Multiple issues of inheritance are the title. His father was Anders An- covered in the book, including the dersson from Barkeryd, a brother of treatment of spouses and children, Gustaf Palm and Svante Palm. When the different treatment of inherited Anders, his wife, and six sons im- forts led to regulatory changes that property and acquired property, and migrated in 1848 on the Augusta, reduced the amount of control a the variations of inheritance prac- they all changed their surname to woman's natal family could exert tices between classes of society and Palm. The Palm brothers were sibl- over her land and her husband's between urban and rural areas. ings to Margareta Andersdotter, born choices. But the new rules made Also included in the volume are a 1795 in Barkeryd, who was the mot- families less likely to give land to historical chronology of inheritance her of Sven Magnus Svensson, born women and insulated property mat- practices, a glossary of Swedish 1816, also in Barkeryd.