Numerous documents from Icelandic emigrants now available for the first time
The Icelandic Immigrant Literacy Database (IILD) containing data on Icelandic immigrants’ manuscripts, letters, documents, and libraries in North America has been launched by the Árni Magnússon Institute at this website vesturheimur.arnastofnun.is. The database provides unique digital access to the general public to hundreds of historical written objects owned and created by Icelandic-Canadians and -Americans. Information on the people involved can be accessed as well as the places mentioned in the manuscripts.
The database is the product of project launched by the Árni Magnússon Institute called in the footsteps of Árni Magnússon in the New World to find manuscripts and letters by Icelandic immigrants in museums in Canada and the United States or privately owned. The project manager, Katelin Marit Parsons, adjunct lecturer of Icelandic at the University of Iceland, is also the editor of the Icelandic Immigrant Literacy Database. Katelin completed her doctoral degree in Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland's Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies in 2020. Five students at the University of Iceland's School of Humanities have worked on the project under her supervision: Brynjarr Þór Eyjólfsson, MA in Comparative Literature; Guðrún Brjánsdóttir, MA in Icelandic studies; Michael John Macpherson, doctoral student in Icelandic Linguistics and Ryan Eric Johnson and Ólafur Arnar Sveinsson, doctoral students in history.
Brynjarr Þór Eyjólfsson, Ryan Eric Johnson, and Guðrún Brjánsdóttir, at the opening of the Icelandic Immigrant Literacy Database, but they were part of the group of students working on the project.
This year marks 150 years from the departure of the first emigrants from Iceland to Canada and the Icelandic National League has generously supported the work on the database. Furthermore, the Government of Iceland, Eimskip University Fund, the INL of Iceland, Landsbanki, Eimskip, the Canadian Initiative for Nordic Studies (CINS), the Manitoba Heritage Grants Program, the Icelandic American Society of Minnesota, the Áslaug Hafliðadóttir Memorial Fund and the Icelandic Department of the University of Manitoba have lent their support.
