Kelsi Vanada - Bodtker Award May 2015

From The Bridge, Vol. 39, No. 1, p. 8 (2016)

Kelsi Vanada is from Denver, Colorado and is an MFA candidate in poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She also teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Iowa. Her poems and translations have been published most recently in Prelude, Berfrois, and New Delta Review.

Kelsi Vanada's article, Danish Midsummer: My Bodtker Grant from DAHS, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 28-43 (2016).

Sofie Krøgh Nielsen - Bodtker Award May 2014

From The Bridge, Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 7 (2014): Sofie Krøgh Nielsen has a B.A in History with a minor in Event Culture from Aarhus University. Later she was an M.A. student in Experience Economy at Aarhus University, planning to graduate in March 2015. She has worked in the summer at Den Gamle By (the Old Town) in Aarhus and was a Scan/Design Foundation Intern at the Museum of Danish America in Elk Horn, Iowa in spring 2014. She was rewarded a DAHS Bodtker Grant for her master’s thesis research into the relationship between tourism and heritage preservation in Danish-American communities.

Sofie Krøgh Nielsen’s article, Daily Life in Denmark in the 19th Century, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 41-52 (2014).

Signe Sloth - Bodtker Award May 2012

From The Bridge, Vol. 36, Nos. 1 & 2, p. 5 (2013): Signe Sloth has a B.A. in History from Aalborg University and an M.A. in the Study of Religion from Aarhus University. She has been an intern at the Danish Emigration Archives in Denmark. She was a recipient of a Bodtker Grant from the DAHS in 2012 and investigated “the contrast between being American and living by American myths … and on the other hand being an immigrant with roots in a different culture.”

Signe Sloth’s article, On Danish-American Cultural Identity, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 36, Nos. 1 & 2, pp. 9-21 (2013).

Pernille Buchholtz - Bodtker Award May 2011

From The Bridge, Vol. 34, No. 2, p. 5 (2011): Pernille Buchholtz received her Master of Arts in History from the University of Copenhagen in 2011 and wrote her thesis on Danish immigration to the United States from 1860 to 1914. Her research involved studying the letters of immigrants to determine their degree of assimilation into U.S. society. She received a Bodtker Grant from the DAHS and conducted her research partly at the Museum of Danish America in Elk Horn, Iowa and partly at the Danish American Archive and Library in Blair, Nebraska.

Pernille Buchholtz’s article, Danish Emigration: Using Private Letters as a Source - Two Examples, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 51-63 (2011).

Marianne Sletten Paasch - Bodtker Award 2009

From The Bridge, Vol. 34, No. 2, p. 5 (2011): Marianne Sletten Paasch received her Masters of Arts in History from Aalborg University in 2011. Her thesis dealt with religion and integration among Danish immigrants to the United States from 1848 to 1914. She served as an intern in the Family History & Genealogy Center at the Museum of Danish America in Elk Horn, Iowa in the Spring of 2008. Later she received a Bodtker Grant from the DAHS and returned to the United States to perform research for her thesis in 2009.

Marianne Sletten Paasch’s article, Religion and Integration Among the Danish Immigrants in the US 1848-1914, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 37-50 (2011).

Kirsten Bouwsema - Bodtker Award 2008

From The Bridge, Vol. 33, No. 1, p. 5 (2010): Kirstin Bouwsema is a third generation Albertan of Danish and Dutch parentage. She recently completed a Master’s Degree in History at the University of Calgary, writing her thesis on Danish immigration to Alberta in the early twentieth century. In 2008 she was awarded a Bodtker Grant, which enabled her to travel to Denmark to do research at the Danish Emigration Archives in Aalborg. Kirstin is interested in ethnic, agricultural and Western-Canadian history, and in preserving the stories of Danish-Canadian immigration.

Kirsten Bouwsema’s article, Dairying, Creameries and Cooperatives: Danish Agricultural Contributions to Early Twentieth Century Alberta, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 9-28 (2010).

Nana Mikkelsen - Bodtker Award c. 2007

From The Bridge, Vol. 32, No. 2, p. 5 (2009): Nana Mikkelsen took her B.A. degree in dramaturgy and museological studies at the University of Aarhus in 2007 and interned at Odder Museum in Denmark before coming to Hampton, Iowa in 2008 to spend two months at the Harriman-Nielsen Heritage Farm, a subsidiary of the Franklin County Historical Society. At the DAHS conference, “Innovation - The Danish Way,” in Minneapolis on 1-3 October 2009, Nana Mikkelsen reported on the project, and the article in this issue is her report. She is currently a graduate student at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.

Nana Mikkelsen’s article, Intern at the Harriman-Nielsen Farm: Where to Begin?, appears in The Bridge, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 56-67 (2009).

Additional Information: While in Iowa Nana Mikkelsen worked with James Iversen translating the Nielsen letters for the Harriman-Nielsen Historic Farm. The result of this project was the book The Nielsen Letters - Doorway to the Past, published by the Franklin County Historical Society in 2014.

Pia Viscor - Bodtker Award c. 2006

From The Bridge, Vol. 31, No. 2, p. 5 (2008):

Pia Viscor lives in a 240-year-old house in Jystrup, Denmark, where she has been chair of the Local Historical Society of Jystrup and Valsølille. She is a biologist, museum educator, and free-lance nature guide and historical tour guide.

Supported in part by a Bodtker Grant, Pia Viscor has visited Racine and other parts of Danish America to pursue her research on emigration from the four Sjælland parishes of Jystrup, Valsølille, Haraldsted and Allindemagle. She would like to hear from people whose ancestors came from those parishes.

Pia Viscor’s Bodtker-financed work, two articles and two reviews of these articles by John R. Christianson, comprises all of The Bridge, Vol. 31, No. 2.

Pia Viscors' earlier article, Emigration from Jystrup and Valsølille, translated by John R. Christianson, appeared in Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 11-45 (2002) of The Bridge.

Pia Viscor’s website is viscor.net.

Anders Kristian Bærholm Frikke - Bodtker Award October 2004

From The Bridge, Vol. 30, No. 2, p. 5 (2007): Anders Kristian Bærholm Frikke earned a Masters degree in history and Danish literature from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense in 2006. He also studied at Ohio University for two years. He was the recipient of a Bodtker Grant for research in the United States and has published several articles on Danish-American relations during the Cold War. Currently he is an associate professor at Middelfart Gymnasium and Højere Foberedelseseksamen. He lives in Odense.

Anders Kristian Bærholm Frikke’s article, American Images of Denmark During the Cold War, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 62-78 (2007).

Hanne Pico Larsen - Bodtker Award October 2004

From The Bridge, Vol. 29, No. 2, p. 10 (2006): Hanne Pico Larsen has a B.A. in folklore from the University of Copenhagen and an M.A. in folklore from the University of California, Berkeley. She is writing her Ph.D. dissertation at Berkeley on Solvang, California.

Hanne Pico Hansen’s article, Culture for Sale in Solvang, California, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 130-139 (2006) as part of the Proceedings of the 2005 DAHS conference in Des Moines, Iowa, Danish Culture, Past and Present: The Last 200 Years.

Freja Gry Børsting - Bodtker Award c. 2003

Excerpt from a Church and Life article describing Freja Gry Børsting’s presentation at the 2009 DAHS conference on Innovation - The Danish Way in Minneapolis:

Another recipient of a Edith and Arnold Bodtker grant was Freja Gry Børsting from Denmark. Her research investigated several Danish American communities and ways in which the residents are trying to preserve their heritage for themselves and for the next generations. She divided Americans of Danish heritage into three groups: those who don’t care about heritage, those who have a general interest and certain pride in the heritage, and the well educated who take part in heritage in a more intellectual way. In her opinion "‘Danishness’ has gone down but cultivation of it has increased." There was a lively response to her presentation.

Additional Information: Freja Gry Børsting was an intern at the Museum of Danish America in Elk Horn, Iowa in the Spring of 2004. As of October 2015, she is a curator at the Danish Immigration Museum in Farum between Copenhagen and Hillerød.

Anders Bo Rasmussen - Bodtker Award October 2003

From The Bridge Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 6 (2007): Anders Rasmussen holds a M.A. in American Studies from the University of Southern Denmark and is currently working as a journalist for the Danish television station TV 2. He studied history at Ohio University and contributed a talk to the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study Conference in April 2006. He has published several newspaper articles about American society and culture. He is recipient of the Honora Rankine-Galloway Student Award from the American Studies Faculty at the University of Southern Denmark.

Anders Rasmussen’s article, Not for the King, but for God and Country: Scandinavians and Ethnic identity during the American Civil War, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 9-38 (2007).

From The Bridge, Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 7 (2014): Anders Bo Rasmussen is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, in Odense. He has a PhD in Journalism History from the Political Science Department at the University of Southern Denmark, an an M.A. in American Studies. Prior to receiving his PhD, he was a freelance journalist of the Danish television station TV 2 Danmark.

Anders Bo Rasmussen’s article, “I long to hear from you”: The Hardship of Civil War Soldiering on Danish Immigrant Families, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 11-40 (2014).

Torben Tvorup Christensen - Bodtker Award October 2001

From The Bridge, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 5 (2007): Torben Tvorup Christensen was the first recipient of a Bodtker Grant from the DAHS. His thesis was based on his research at the Danish Immigrant Archive and Library, then based at Dana College in Blair, Nebraska. He was awarded a Master’s Degree from the University of Aalborg in 2003. Subsequently he worked as a project manager at the Aalborg City Archives. He coauthored (with Lucille Wlder) War Games, a book dealing with the Danish political environment in the days before the German occupation in April 1940.

Torben Tvorup Christensen’s article, Becoming American - According to the Jorgensens, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 39-52 (2007).

Additional Information: Torben Tvorup Christensen and Lucille Wilder’s book, War Games - Denmark on the Eve of the Nazi Invasion, April 1940, was reviewed by Rolf Buschardt Christensen in The Bridge, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 81-84 (2010). War Games was published by Historical Trust Publishing, Madison, Wisconsin, in 2009 and can be purchased through the Danish American Archives and Library in Blair, Nebraska.

From The Bridge, Vol. 34, No. 1, p. 7 (2011): Torben Tvorup Christensen was the first recipient of the DAHS’s Edith and Arnold N. Bodtker Grant for Research or Internship. Christensen was awarded a Master’s Degree from the University of Aalborg in 2003. From 2011 he has worked at the Danish Emigration Archives in Aalborg as a project manager.

Torben Tvorup Christensen’s article, News from the Danish Emigration Archives, appeared in The Bridge, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 99-101 (2011).​