• JØRGEN STRANGE (14 years old)
    BACKGROUND - JØRGEN
    When he was ten-year old, Jørgen was sent out to work on a farm five miles from his home on the island of Lolland. Every day he walked the long distance to work, leaving home early and returning late. After each summer’s work of tending geese, he is paid in wool for a pair of socks and cloth for a pair of pants.

    Jørgen is the youngest son in a family of nine. His father is a day labourer for a farmer, and his mother does housework and spins yarn for the farmer’s wife. The family rents a two-room cottage from the farmer. The floor is of clay, and there is only a small north-facing window. In addition to their daily work for the farmer and his wife, they cultivate their own vegetable garden and sell some of the produce at a local market in the evenings. There is, however, never enough food for everyone, so Jørgen, like his brothers and sisters, has to work.

    Jørgen is now fourteen, he has been confirmed in the parish church, and it is time for him to leave home.

    We are in 1862.
    BEGIN THE JOURNEY
  • CHOICE 1
    Jørgen chooses to run away from the farm and run home because the farmer whips him.
    CHOICE 2
    Jørgen takes the whip from farmer and beats him.
    CHOICE 3
    Jørgen escapes from the island of Falster to find work elsewhere in Denmark.
    FIRST CHOICE ON JØRGEN’S JOURNEY
    Jørgen agrees to work for a farmer on the nearby island of Falster. Soon, he discovers that the farmer is cruel and a heavy drinker.
    When he is dissatisfied with Jørgen, he beats him with a whip. After beating Jørgen for speaking rudely to one of his horses, Jørgen faces a choice.
    What will Jørgen do?

    Make a choice

  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen’s parents get angry because he has broken his contract to work for the farmer for one year, and he is sent back to the farm.
    PLAY VIDEO
    WATCH THE VIDEO TO THE END AND TRY ANOTHER CHOICE.
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen is be sent to an institution for badly behaving children, a kind of prison. Here, he becomes a true criminal, and the rest of his life he is in and out of prisons.
    CONTINUE
    Why do you think that Jørgen chooses to fight back?


    Is Jørgen as a young farmworker right to defend himself as he did?


    Could he have gone to the police or other institutes to complain?
    REFLECTION SCREEN
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen arrives in Horsens on the Jutland peninsula, where he meets a man who offers him an apprenticeship as a miller.

    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY and see what experiences and challenges Jørgen will meet.
    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY
  • Since the year is 1867 and the American Civil War has ended, Jørgen will travel to America and start over.
    CHOICE 1
    Jørgen decides to build his own mill in Herning.
    CHOICE 2
    It is difficult to find work as a miller, so Jørgen accepts the lower pay of an apprentice. He believes it is better than not having work.
    CHOICE 3
    JØRGEN LEARNS THE WORK OF MILLING
    After four years, Jørgen has fulfilled his apprenticeship and can become a journeyman miller which means higher wages. However, the miller is unwilling to raise Jørgen’s wages but wants find a new apprentice.

    What should Jørgen do?
    MAKE A CHOICE

  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen finds work as a sailor on a sailing ship bound for America.
    The destination is Galveston, Texas on the Gulf of Mexico. From here, he travels to the nearby city of Houston, a commercial center for the export of cotton.
    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY and see what experiences and
    challenges Jørgen will meet.
    CONTINUE
  • 1860s
    Correct answer is:
    Next
    Correct answer is:
    Brugsen
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE.
    Correct answers is:
    Next
    Dairies
    IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen borrows money and builds his own mill, but farmers choose to join forces and create their own cooperative mill. Jorgen goes bankrupt.
    CONTINUE
    QUIZ
    The cooperative movement began in what decade?
    1840s
    1860
    1890s
    In addition to cooperative mill operation, what did the farmers also own in cooperation?
    Dairies
    breweries
    farmland
    What Danish business you may know today, did the cooperative movement created?
    Føtex
    Brugsen
    Brugsen
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen stays and works for the miller. Although he works hard, he cannot afford to marry. Over time he develops a bad back and must move to a poorhouse.
    CONTINUE
    What conditions do you think were the condition of poorhouses?

    What alternatives to the poorhouse were there for people in Jørgen’s situation?
    REFLECTION SCREEN
  • His familiarity with milling equipment, allows Jørgen to find work in a cotton gin.
    CHOICE 1
    CHOICE 2
    Jørgen finds work building the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.
    Jørgen learns that silver has been discovered in the Rocky Mountains around Caribou, Colorado. Young and single, he decides to try his luck at silver mining.
    CHOICE 3
    JØRGEN ARRIVES IN TEXAS
    In 1867, Jørgen travels the long way from Denmark to seek happiness and to find work in Houston, Texas, a railroad hub and center of the Texas cotton export market.

    What does Jørgen do?
    MAKE A CHOICE

  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    At first, he is successful, but then one day his shirt sleeve is caught in the gearing, and he loses his arm. Single, without family support, and unable to work,
    Jørgen finds himself in the county poor farm.
    CONTINUE
    What were the conditions on a county poor farm?

    What are the alternatives to the poor farm would there be for people in Jørgen's situation?
    REFLECTION SCREEN
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Like many immigrant men, Jørgen finds work building a railroad during a period of intense railroad building.

    He is crushed when he slips before a rail car and dies from his injuries.
    CONTINUE
    Why was there so many railroads being built in the United States at this time?

    What were safety conditions like for workers during this period?
    REFLECTION SCREEN
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen learns that silver has been discovered in the Rocky Mountains around Caribou, Colorado. Young and single, he decides to try his luck at silver mining.

    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY and see what experiences and challenges Jørgen will meet.
    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY
  • Jørgen joins a cattle drive, driving a herd long horn cattle from Texas north to railroad in Abilene, Kansas.
    CHOICE 1
    CHOICE 2
    Jørgen acquires a horse and sets out for Colorado alone.
    Jørgen joins a group of other prospectors heading for Colorado.
    CHOICE 3
    JØRGEN’S JOURNEY TO COLORADO
    What should Jørgen do?
    MAKE A CHOICE

  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen reaches Abilene and is paid. The night before heading west to Colorado, he gets caught outside a saloon in the crossfire of a shootout between two fellow cowboys, is wounded and dies.
    CONTINUE
    Why do you think there was lawlessness in parts of America?


    By whom and in what ways was the lawlessness fought?
    REFLECTION SCREEN
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Overwhelmed by the wide-open spaces and after two weeks of wandering on the prairies of the Texas Panhandle, Jørgen turns around and returns to Houston. Here he finds work in the railroad yards and disappears from history.
    CONTINUE
    How might the vast spaces and long distances of the American West overwhelm an immigrant used to the close distances between villages and towns?


    Why do you think that Jørgen risks his live to get over the mountains?
    REFLECTION SCREEN
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen acquires a horse and a revolver and joins a group of men traveling northwest to Colorado. The journey is over a thousand miles, and it takes them a month. Along the way Jørgen is attacked by one member of his party, and he shoots him in self-defence. The group reaches Colorado.
    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY and see what experiences and challenges Jørgen will meet.
    CONTINUE JØRGEN’S JOURNEY
  • Jørgen discovers that minework is difficult, but he works hard and saves money.
    CHOICE 1
    CHOICE 2
    Jørgen finds that mining is too difficult but is successful in tending bar in a saloon where miners escape the dirty and difficult work in the mines.
    Jørgen sets up camp along a stream below the Caribou Silver Mine to prospect for silver.
    CHOICE 3
    CARIBOU SILVER MINE, COLORADO
    Jørgen becomes a silver miner in the Caribou Silver Mine.
    MAKE A CHOICE

  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    Jørgen struggles to find silver. When he finds a profitable vein, thugs from the mining company attack him one night, hoping to drive him away.
    It comes to a shooting, and he is killed.
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE
  • IMPACT OF YOUR CHOICE
    He does well in Caribou until the silver mine is exhausted. Like others, he follows the mining companies as silver is found in different areas of the Rocky Mountains.
    Never able to get ahead and always on the move, he becomes ill and dies in lonely poverty.
    TRY ANOTHER CHOICE
  • THE END IS REACHED
    Jørgen is able to save money to return to Denmark.
    He has enough money to build a mill in Gedved, near Horsens.
    He marries and is successful.
    GO TO START