Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota

ND, over a century old, has more known about the state's soil and crop conditions than the national character of its peoples. That's how William Sherman, a pastor at St. Michael's Church in Grand Forks, and professor of sociology at ND State University, describes it. The book provides a comprehensive listing of the large number of ethnic groups that settled ND. With Census Bureau data, railroad records, church archives, country land atlases, and local sources and correspondents he tells of peoples comprising the state's rural population: the more numerous Norwegians, Germans, German-Russians, and Anglo-Americans; and also the less numerically significant ones, as Jews, Blacks, Syrians, Czechs, Swedes, and others. Double-paged maps show settlement patterns and ethnic topography of each of the six sections ND is divided for purposes of the study. In these commentaries, cultural pursuits and religious affiliations and habits and other interesting nuggets of information are given. Sherman deals with indigenous and immigrant groups by using well-reasoned paragraphs and prose, a style well-suited to describe ND and the nature of its great people. One important point Sherman raises is that national origins may underlie the behavioral patterns of present day relatives of those early settlers. ND was one of the last states settled and in the late 1880's had one of the greatest percentages of foreign born inhabitants in the USA. Many residents still remember the passage to this land. ND residents often seek to "know not only such usual information as name and home address, but also nationality. This is a unique question. In much of the US such knowledge is of little consequence, but for a North Dakotan it can be significant."