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““I am 479 days younger than Nilli" Diaries and Daily Life of Halldór Jónsson from Miðdalsgröf." (““Jeg er 479 dögum ýngri en Nilli" Dagbækur og daglegt líf Halldórs Jónssonar frá Miðdalsgröf.") Skírnir 169 (fall 1995), bls. 309-347.

This article explores a source which Icelandic historians have literally payed no attention to at all: the diary. It is argued that the diary is one of those personal sources which can give us an unusual insight into peoples everyday life in former times, and more so than any other historical source. Even the autobiography falls short in comparison. It can be argued that the autobiography is like snapshots of incidents from peoples life, but the diary more lika a motion picture with all the deatails which everyday life offers. This very nature of the diary creates enormous problems when it is suppose to serve as a historical source. It is so difficult to sort out the improtant aspects of peoples life from the one which is secondary or unimportant. But once that kind of analysis is done, the rewards are unmistakable.

The diary which is explored in this article belongs to a young man who was raised up in West fjord of Iceland. He started on his diary at the age of seventeen, 1888, and kept it for twenty four years or until he drawned at sea, the year 1912. There are number of intresting features about his diary. First, it is extreamly detailed and he writes something everyday; usually half a page or more. On the side he kept another type of diary, more like a book where he could collect all kinds of material which he found, notes on things he was wandering about, and his calculation about his economy or the productivity of the life-stock at the farm. In addition to all this he collected poetry, printed and unpublished, which filled up fifteen book which were up to 400 pages. Secondly, the period the diary spans covers three different life stages in his life-course. It began when he was a son of a farmer, then he became a hired hand (boarder) in his commune for ten years, and, at last, he got married and became an independent farmer. This mixture gives us an unusual opportunity to explore the possibilities which young people had for growth and maturity in this late nineteenth and early twenteenth century society.

At last, the content of the diary opens up possibilities for all kinds of analysis relating to different debates about this time period. The author gives us both a strait farward view of his daily affairs (like the weather, daily work, etc.) and also a personal evaluation of differnt situation which he encounters. It is just like the reader steps into the nineteenth century peasant society and becomes a dircet participant in peoples daily affairs. Descriptions of the struggle for surviving are so vivid and personal that it gives us an very unusual opportunity for studying this society.

Icelandic historians have usually aruged that the peasant society was a self-sufficiant society. Each farm was suppose to be an island both in economic and social sens. The production was mostly for domestic use and only the bear minimum was bought from the outside. Socially, each farm was supposed to be an isolated united with very little contact with the outside world and basicly non with larger cultural centers. The picture which has been drawn is, therefore, mostly of a stagnet and introversive people who ran their life in the same manners as had been done in Iceland since the country was settled, 1000 years ago, peacefully and in tact with the seasonal rhythm.

The diary gives an opportunity to actually test this theory of self-sufficiency as it is played out in the life of Halldór Jónsson and his contemporaries. One thing has to be kept in mind, that this commune which Halldór lived in was in a rather isolated part of the country, so if the theory holds, it certainly should have work there.

To make a long story short there are three noticable features which immediately stand out when one studies the life of Halldór Jónsson and his family and friends. First, it is intresting to find out how intens and busy all daily life was on his family farm. One task followed another, in tackt with the seasons, and with little or no break in between. Life was also extremely fragile and with a minor accident the whole family or for that matter the whole commune could be facing a major crisis. Life was for this reason a constant struggle for survival.

Secondly, one notice an extensive specialization within this little community. Halldór Jónsson, for exampel, had number of tasks which he specialized in and supported himself with during his days as a boarder (an independent worker). He was a tarweling teacher and construction specialist to name some of his skills. His brothers had other areas of expertise, so it can be argued that the whole comunity enjoyed considerble division of labor. In fact, one form of proto-indrustry did exist in this community. It was not in an advanced state, but nevertheless, it did give people who grew up there and opportunity to specialize in one or more tasks and that specialization was an important first step towards more modernization. This division of labor was not discussed in public debates because the focus was on the attempt to hold the peasant community together and boarders were considered to be one of the destroying factors at the time. To acknowledge the improtance of this part of the workforce would almost mean the end of the traditional order (between farmers and servants) which most farmers were trying desperately to protect, because it gave them an access to a very cheap labor. The phenomenon which one notices when the diary is read might be called “disguised specialization".

At last, there is no doubt that the people of this commune were extreamly progressive in their thinking. People like Halldór Jónson and his brothers used all their extra time to read and write and all their money was used to by books and look for some guidance from the those who were educated and lived in their neighborhood. This was all done for the shake of planing ahead for a future which they visioned. This gives a differnt picture from what is usually considered to be an appropriat portrait of life in the nineteenth century. It is aruged in this paper that the diary gives a great opportunity to analyses other aspect of peoples life. Open for study are topics like peoples attitude towards death, the relationship between the genders, etc. More over, the diary keeping is in itself a manifestation of the mental capacity of poor peasants in the late nineteenth century. This source is an unknown territory and can indeed change our understanding of societies in former times.

“Why gender history", is asked in this article which deals with learning gender roles in Iceland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century society. “Why should we make an attempt to draw attention to the mutural experience of both genders", is another crucial question which historians of both genders have not fully explored. It is argued in this article, that it could be vital for our understanding of the importance and the magnitute of the social development at this time period in Iceland, to approach the topic with the experience of both genders in mind.

The temptation of most historians to use only official documents when dealing with this time period has been all to great. The outcome has been a weak attempt to shed light on the social development, an attempt which has almost exclusively been baised on the voices of those who stood in the frontline of the political scene at the time. They all had good education and enjoyed some wealth. The history of this period has only been writen from their point of view.

In this article a special attention is payed to the myth about women in the peasant society and how it affected children who were growing up at the time. It is argued that women played a much fuller role in the family economy than the myth tends to portray, and as a result, parents did pay minimum attention to the upbringing of their children. They simply had their hands full with other and more important tasks; fighting for the survival of the whole family. Childrens welfare was most often in the hands of servants or older relatives. In fact, very early on children had to take care of themselves as they started to participate in the farmily everyday life. At the beginning, their work was often exicuted far away from the farmhouse and other farmily members. This was, for exampel, the case when they worked like shepards over the summer time. After the age of ten, they became more included in the world of adults and got much more first hand knowlage of the role playing between the gender. But it was not until after the confirmation when children came into more contact with the outside world that they fully relised the gap between the gender which was build in the formal culture of the society. That gap was in great contrast with what they had witnessed in their daily life at home. The everyday life experience had tought them that both genders attacked each task without asking whether it was appropriate for a women or a men to take it on. If it had to be done the only question asked was: who can do it?

Formal gender roles were not only experessed in laws and customes but also in contemporary debats in newspapers and journals were they were read and discussed by the general public. Discussions of this nature differ from time to time and in the late nineteenth century they were affected by the fact that the peasant society was considered to be under an attack from outside influences. To turn this development around authors of great many newspapers and journal articles encouraged farmers to have a better controle of their families and live up to their responsibilities as the masters of their housholds. These authors used the myth about women in the peasant society to strengthen their arguement and hold the myth up as a model which ought to be followed.

The continuity between the use of the myth in the peasant society and in the urban one is striking. The fast growing middle class picked up the pices in the early twentieth century and used the myth about women to force their world views upon the lower classes. In stead of working like a model for women and children the myth had a negative affect. It is agrued in this article, that the middle class mentality was so removed from the daily experience of the gerneral public that the challenge of the myth put a great burden on women of all classes and their overall social position. This is especially intresting since the greatest contribution to the creation (or the renewal) of the myth came from women who often are seen as those who stood in the frontline of the womens movment in its early days.

But how can we realy identify the importance of the myth about women in the twentieth century and estimate how effective it was? The best place to start with is formal education and the new primary school system at the beginning of the twentieth century. With compolsary education the middle class got a blank chek to fill and just as in other Western countries they used the schools to impose their standards upon the general public. When one looks at how the primary schools were structured, especially in urban areas, it is striking to notice how well they were arranged from the very start. That in it self, should indicate that the schools were in a great position to mold the gender roles of future generation.

Most historians have argued that the new schools did revolusinaze the outlook of the society at large. But the sources they have traditionally used are almost exclusively official records. Those records indicate the increas in the student population, the growth of the institution, how new buldings were used, etc. There is no wonder that this picture, which is drawn up in these studies, argue that the new school law changed the society.

In this article the subject is approached from a differnt angel. To be able to answer the question asked in this article one has to make an attempt to look for answers from those who enjoyed this education at the beginning of the twentieth century. The first step is then to contrast childrens school experience with their families expectations towards their work participation and their overall contribution towards the family economy. In an attempt to do this sources from the Department of Ethnology and autobiographies were used. The Department of Ethnology sent out a questionnair (which I constructed) randomly to 500 individuals who were at least 70 years old which dealt with everyday life in the twentieth century urban and rural society. I used life-course analyses to reconstruct the answers and grouped them into three categories which were baised on peoples own perception of what kind of life their families lived. The catagories are: a traditional path, a transitional path, and an emergent class path. This terminology is borrowed from the American social historian, Harvey J. Graff, and it has allowed me to use this source, which is extreamly large in scope, to illustrate the major emphasize in peoples everyday life. The results of this analysis is startling. The vast majority of people who responded to the questionnair followed the first two paths (traditional and transitional) which in essence means that work played a major role in childrens life but education did not.

When the autobiographies are analysed one soon finds out the source of childrens main attraction. The family economy insisted that every member of the family would make an attempt to do their share so there would be food on the table. The great majority of people in Icleand was part of the lower classes and life for this people was a constant struggle for survival. Children watched their mothers work constantly both at home and where ever they could find work. They soon realised, like their conterparts in the peasant society in the nineteenth century, that the family economy was a mutural task which their parents took an equal part in. The traditional division of labor between husband and wife was as much a myth in the urban early twentieth century society as it was in the pesant society in the nineteenth century. In other word, the lesson which children got in their everyday life was a differnt one from what was tought at school and discussed in newspapers and journals at the time. The lesson which they got from their everyday life participation did dominated their world view and outlook on life. The continuity between the rural and the urban society is striking during this time period and is much more important than the changes which historians have been so busy identifing.