Photo Record
Images
Metadata
Object Identification Number |
1988.040.020 |
Object Name |
Print, Photographic |
Donor |
Kelgor, Jimmie P. |
Description |
Black and white photograph of an all-girls exercise class at the Elk Horn Folk School. The girls are posed on the grass outside with their right arm over head and legs bent as in forming a C pose. Most are dressed in light-colored shirts with a dark tie around the neck and dark bloomer pants with socks and shoes. Two on the viewer left side are wearing dark jackets. There is a clapboard building on the viewer right side and a group of large bare trees in the back. There is nothing written on the back. |
Print Size |
5.5 x 3.25 |
Place of Creation |
United States/Iowa/Shelby County/Elk Horn/Elk Horn Folk School |
Search Terms |
United States Iowa Shelby County Elk Horn, Iowa Elk Horn Folk School Elk Horn Højskole Elk Horn College gymnastics exercise athletics |
Provenance |
Pictured here is a girls exercise class at the Elk Horn Folk School (Højskole) (also known as Elk Horn College) in Elk Horn, Iowa. ---------------- The first Danish Folk School in America was founded in Elk Horn, Iowa in 1878. The school served as a magnet for Danish immigrants, drawing them to Elk Horn in great numbers. Historian P.S. Vig estimated that between two and three thousand Danish men and women studied at the school before fanning out across the globe to take up their different positions in life. Many of those associated with Elk Horn's Højskole- students, teachers, and administrators alike- became distinguished names in Danish American history. During the thirty-nine years of existence, the primary identity of the school remained definitively Danish, but through its various reorganizations, it bore testimony to the processes of acculturation. The school's last classes were held in 1917. ---------- Family Information: Jim Kelgor's great-grandfather was Peder Pedersen Kjeldgaard. He was born in Bonderup, Denmark in Hjørring County in 1839. He served in the Dano-Prussian War of 1864 and was later a rural mailman. He came to the states in 1885, and settled first in Walnut, Iowa, and later in Council Bluffs. Birgitta Kelgor was Jim's grandmother. His parents are Woersaa P. (1904-1984) and Ethel E. (Madsen) Kelgor (1903-1971). Woersaa was at one time the mayor of Elk Horn, Iowa. Both are buried in Kimballton, Iowa's Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery. Agnes Bonnesen (1905 - 1992) was Jim's stepmother; Hans P. Nielsen was her first husband. Hans was the postmaster and when he passed away, Agnes took the position. |
Images |
151\1988040020.JPG |
Accession number |
1988.040 |