A Feminism of Its Own: Revisiting the Scandinavian-American Woman and Home, Circa 1888–1920

Abstract:This article examines the Scandinavian-American magazine Woman and Home (Kvinden og Hjemmet) circa 1888 to 1920 both as a contact zone, where different values and norms of immigrant groups and the Anglo-American society were negotiated, and as a cultural broker between Scandinavian and American cultures. This magazine was an important and popular communication medium for Scandinavian immigrant women, and in its peak year, 1907, it had a circulation of 83,000. The editor, Ida Hansen, aimed to help Scandinavian women adjust to American society at a time when women experienced greater freedoms in the United States than back home. Woman and Home offered information about, and promoted, women’s rights, but at the same time it zealously endorsed traditional American female ideals of domesticity. By synthesizing two opposite values—modern and traditional—the magazine served as an influential mediator and maker of a feminism of its own.