"And the immigrant letters, "America letters," as they were called everywhere in Norway, make one's understanding of the human side of the story more intimate. They are "documents that betray the spirit, hopes, and aspirations of the humble folk who tilled the soil, felled the forest, and tended the loom." Such personal records swing wide the door to the realization that immigrants are people, not lines in a graph or figures in a table". Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America, preface.