Sylvia's Journal

I have just read, am listening to and reading books that are all set in the mid to end 1800s. Two of them are biographies and one is historical fiction but anchored in the reality of that time, all in different places. I finished the biography of the German doctor, botanist and well rounded scientist Philipp Franz von Siebold (written in Dutch – The Zwevende Wereld – by Annejet van der Zijl). Right after I finished that book I started to read and listen to Vilhelm Moberg’s four volume series ‘The Emigrants’ which chronicles the (fictitious) family of Karl Oskar Nilsson as he decides to emigrate to the US to move out of the clutches of poverty, the church and the governing class in Sweden at the same time that von Siebold was ‘discovering’ Japan. The Emigrant series was recommended by one of our Home Exchange hosts in whose house we will stay when in Stockholm. The Nilsson family leaves Småland to settle in Minnesota. The series is well informed by sources held by the Minnesota’s Historical Society. It appears that Axel’s grandfather emigrated from there, albeit it a little later. And then, the third world apart is the world of Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston’s High Society at about the same time (her biography – Chasing Beauty – written by Natalie Dykstra).

While Kristina Nilsson and her husband struggle to survive in the wilderness of Minnesota, not even able to pay the extra postage of 15 cents to claim a letter received from Sweden, the Stewarts and Gardners are living in the lap of luxury, awash in money. They travel back and forth to Europe, and are buying up real estate in the newly available Back Bay, and on the more accessible coastal lands on Boston’s North Shore. Their riches come from the influx of cotton from the south and trade with the Far East, with its riches of spices and other luxury items that only the wealthy could afford. In Japan von Siebold was stationed as doctor for the Dutch colony on Decima, the trade post island of Nagasaki that the Dutch had established in Japan, the only western country allowed into this very closed society of Shogun Japan. All of them lived in a time of huge changes in society because of inventions in just about every aspect of daily living (transport, science, trade, the arts, etc.). Von Siebold was not as poor as the Nilssons and not as rich as the Gardners, for him money was a constant concern but it did not keep him from his explorations and discoveries, adding to humankind’s trove of knowledge.

What all books have in common is the very corseted world that circumscribed precisely how each member in society was allowed to behave, to dress, to earn their living, to worship and to interact with others, especially the opposite sex (different of course for males and females) based on the societal rung their families occupied as they entered into the world. That made life easy or difficult and strapped them into a fated future in a way many people still are.

It feels like nothing has really changed in the 175 years since, even though some of the hierarchies may be less obvious and many people have risen above superstitions and prejudices, but this is not true everywhere. I am aware that there are still many Kristinas and Karl Oskars who are struggling to keep their heads above water after leaving behind their war torn homelands, deep poverty or oppressive regimes, and now with the added threat of ICE. Maybe I should send Mr. Miller the Emigrant series so he gets to read about the people he dismisses so easily and with such cruelty. I also wonder how many people living now in Minnesota are aware of the sacrifices of their forebears. The scientists, the tech bro billionaires and the immigrants – they are still worlds apart.