Theodore C. Blegen

Abstract

by CARLTON C. QUALEY i Theodore C. Biegen To torical the good Association, fortune of Theodore the Norwegian- C. Biegen American served His- as torical Association, Theodore C. Biegen served as managing editor for its publications until his resignation in 1960. During the thirty-five years that he held this post, fortyone volumes were issued. The credit roster of the association lists many names, but Dean Blegen's will, by common consent , head it, for he set the standards of selection and of editorial work. That these publications rank high in the field of immigration history is a matter of general agreement among scholars. In the writings put out by some immigrantAmerican historical societies, the variance in quality is apparent . Much of their product is colored by attempts to demonstrate the pre-eminence of special national stocks in American history. Anyone who is aware of the pressure groups that exist within the Norwegian element in America will recognize the significance of Dean Blegen's achievement. His independence from control by sectarian and filio-pietistic elements among the Norwegian Americans, his diplomatic ability , which carried the day in many a difference of opinion, and his devotion to high standards of historical scholarship enabled him to create for the Norwegian-American Historical Association a remarkable reputation as a learned society. To those who discount background as an important factor 3 Carlton C. Qualey in conditioning character, I would direct attention to the Biegen family of Augsburg College, Minneapolis, and of Saga Hill, Lake Minnetonka. The affection and intellectual discipline that characterized the home of a classical scholar were supplemented during vacations in that remarkable extension of the Augsburg faculty community at Lake Minnetonka, called Saga Hill. Theodore Biegen has himself described this summer colony in a charming article in Minnesota History.1 The intellectual competition afforded by a father who was a professor, by a mother who had been a successful businesswoman before her marriage in a day when such a career was unusual, by two sisters and three brothers (one of whom is an eminent classical archaeologist), and by faculty neighbors and their children must have contributed to "bending the twig" toward a scholarly career. To this gifted family environment was added a rugged physical inheritance. Dean Biegen 's undergraduate studies at Augsburg College and at the University of Minnesota were followed by graduate work at Minnesota that led to a doctorate in history. He did high-school teaching at Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, then served an apprenticeship under Solon J. Buck at the Minnesota Historical Society in the arts of editing and meticulous research. He succeeded to the position of superintendent of the historical society and taught at Hamline and Minnesota universities, eventually becoming a full professor at the latter. A Guggenheim fellowship year in Norway, 1928-29, proved stimulating and productive. Dean Blegen's career reached one of its peaks in his election to the presidency of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association in 1943. From 1940 to 1960 he served as dean of the graduate school in the University of Minnesota. 1 Parts of the first paragraphs of this essay are adapted from my article on Biegen in Norwegian- American Historical Association, News Letter , no. 9, p. 3 (May, 1960). Blegen's study, "The Saga of Saga Hill," in Minnesota History , 29:289-299 (December, 1948), was subsequently expanded to a mimeographed volume, Minnetonka Family: The Saga of Saga Hill (Minneapolis, 1952). 4 THEODORE C. BLEGEN Clara Woodward Biegen, a woman in her own way as able as her husband, has accompanied him in all his efforts during his adult years, bearing two handsome children, Theodore and Margaret. Those who know the Biegens realize full well how significant she has been in her husband's career. It has been a fortunate partnership. Although Theodore Biegens deanship increasingly took up his time after 1940, he continued as an active and productive historian, notably in his direction of the publication program of the Norwegian-American Historical Association, in important service on the executive council of the Minnesota Historical Society, in consultative functions for other state historical organizations, and, during World War II, in editing the GI Roundtable Pamphlets...