A Boy in Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Norwegian Colony in the 1940s and ‘50s

A COLONY OF SOCIAL TRUST In the middle of the last century, 62,000 Norwegian immigrants and their families dominated a section of Bay Ridge, a neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn. Their primary distinction was expressed through social trust, a characteristic that is often uncommon today throughout this country and around the world.

Adolf Hansen was born into this colony and lived there until he graduated from high school. His experience of trust began during his preschool years with trust in his mother and father; continued with trust in others in the colony throughout his time in grade school; developed trust more fully within himself in junior high, as others trusted him; and then evolved in his trust in God, and God’s trust in him in high school.

This development of social trust was not unique to this predominantly Protestant colony. It was replicated in the lives of his peers and their families, as well as thousands of others in the colony. Similar experiences were also present in the lives of Italian Catholics and Eastern European Jews with whom he connected in the neighborhood.

Experiences of social trust are at the core of this book!