About the MSU Frigaard Collection

Personal letters represent one of the most immediate ways to share the experiences of families in the early twentieth century. The letters between Bernhard Frigaard and his sister, plus other related letters, let readers share the details of everyday life in the American Midwest between 1909 and 1945. Frigaard's WWI letters are, with the exception of being mainly written in Norwegian, typical of those of thousands of letters sent by American soldiers to describe their training and service in Europe.

The pedagogical goals of the MSU's letters project include:

1. Access: Providing access to thousands of letters free of charge as an Open Educational Resource (OER).

2. Transcripts: Inviting the public to submit transcriptions of handwritten letters for inclusion alongside high-resolution scans of the original text. 

3. Translation: MSU's Frigaard collection includes letters extensively written in Norwegian. These cover family exchanges as early as 1909, WWI letters from a United States soldier serving in WWI to his family in Minnesota, and depression-era and WWII correspondence. We invite the public to submit translations of these letters for inclusion alongside the original texts.