110 Volts at Home: the American Lista

Abstract

[. . .] For most of the twentieth century, America was an important part of everyday life at Lista [a small peninsula in the south-west of Norway]. A period of almost eighty years of work migration between this rural community and the States made its mark on upbringing, family life, building tradition, home furnishing, ideas and attitudes. This form of migration was common in many towns and villages on the Norwegian south coast, but particularly widespread in the western part of Vest-Agder county. Still, it is a little known part of emigration history compared to the more permanent emigration to the Midwest. [. . .] Much of the twentieth-century emigration from Norway consisted of unmarried youth going to the large American cities to work in service industries and manual labour trades, and who did not necessarily remain there for good. The emigration from, and remigration to, Lista is a case in point.