The second of three book club discussions celebrating the 150th anniversary of Waldemar Ager’s birth is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday (May 21) at the Ager Museum, 514 E. Madison St.
The discussion, which is free and open to the public, will be led by Tim Hirsch, a UW-Eau Claire emeritus English professor. It will feature Ager’s 1917 novel, On the Way to the Melting Pot, as the starting point for a conversation about the language and stories of Norwegian immigrants.
The series is sponsored by the Waldemar Ager Association, which has invited the public to read and discuss Ager’s novels. Originally published in Norwegian, the books are available in English translations at public libraries and may be purchased at the Ager Museum.
Ager, a Norwegian-born journalist and novelist, came to Eau Claire in 1892 to work for Reform, a weekly Norwegian-language paper. He was a lifelong advocate of preserving the Norwegian language as a means of preserving Norwegian culture.
Ager was very interested in the experiences of Norwegian immigrants who settled and worked in Northwest Wisconsin. He learned that adaptation to American life was not always easy, according to a press release from the Ager Society.
The third discussion in this series is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on June 17 and will be led by Jane Pederson, emerita professor of history. It will deal with Ager’s 1910 novel Christ Before Pilate: An American Story.
The press release noted that the “first sentence tells us a lot about what is to come: ‘There were two Norwegian churches in town. (They don’t agree on everything.)’”
The first discussion in the series took place on Apr. 22. It was led by Ella Fossum and focused on Norwegian immigrants forging new lives in the logging industry in the time leading up to the Civil War.
The Ager Museum is open on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and on third Wednesdays from 4 to 7 p m. The Ager Association, which owns and operates the Ager Museum: A Center for Nordic Culture, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization..