Thorstein Veblen Farmstead

Last updated

Thorstein Veblen Farmstead
ThorsteinVeblenHouse.jpg
The farmhouse in 2014
USA Minnesota location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location16538 Goodhue Avenue
Nerstrand, Minnesota
Coordinates 44°20′52″N93°02′49″W / 44.34778°N 93.04694°W / 44.34778; -93.04694
Area10 acres (4.0 ha)
Built1867-1870 [1]
Architectural style Greek Revival
NRHP reference No. 75001024 [2]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPJune 30, 1975 [2] [3]
Designated NHLDecember 21, 1981 [4]

The Thorstein Veblen Farmstead is a National Historic Landmark near Nerstrand in rural Rice County, Minnesota. The property preserves the childhood home of Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), best known for his 1899 treatise The Theory of the Leisure Class . [5]

Contents

Description and history

The Veblen farmstead stands east of Nerstrand in eastern Rice County, north of Minnesota State Highway 246. The ten-acre property includes a house, chicken coop, granary, and barn with attached milking shed. The house, granary, and barn were all built by Thomas Veblen, Thorstein's father, in the 1870s and 1880s. The house is a two-story frame structure, with a side gable roof, two chimneys, and clapboard siding. A single-story porch extends across the front, supported by square posts, with a balcony above. The granary is a small two-story clapboarded frame building, measuring about 25 by 30 feet (7.6 m × 9.1 m). The barn is two stories, and has a gabled roof. [5]

Thorstein Veblen, born in Cato, Wisconsin, in 1857, lived on this farm in his youth and returned often as an adult, due in part to his inability to find steady employment. The product of an austere agrarian upbringing, Veblen, who has often been called one of America's most creative and original thinkers, [6] coined the term "conspicuous consumption" in the widely influential The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). [1] The property's simple vernacular styling illustrates early influences on Veblen's life as the son of immigrants, growing up in a tightly knit Norwegian-American community.

The Veblens sold the property in 1893 and it continued to be an active farm until 1970, when the buildings fell into disrepair. The house has now been restored, and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota holds a preservation easement on the property. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nerstrand, Minnesota</span> City in Minnesota, United States

Nerstrand is a city in Rice County, Minnesota, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thorstein Veblen</span> American economist and sociologist (1857–1929)

Thorstein Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Scott Farm</span> United States historic place

The John Scott Farm is a historic farmstead near the community of Shandon, Ohio, United States. Established in the nineteenth century and still in operation in the twenty-first, the farmstead has been named a historic site because of its traditionally built agricultural structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valley Grove (Wheeling Township, Minnesota)</span> Historic church complex in Minnesota, United States

Valley Grove is a historic Lutheran church complex in Wheeling Township, Minnesota, United States. It consists of two 19th-century churches surrounded by a hilltop cemetery. The older building was constructed in stone in 1862 by a rural community of Norwegian immigrants. The congregation outgrew the first church and constructed a larger, wooden replacement in 1894, converting the original building into a guild hall. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 for its local significance in the themes of architecture, art, and religion. It was nominated for encapsulating two phases of rural ecclesiastical architecture in a dramatic hilltop tableau, and for its role in anchoring eastern Rice County's dispersed community of Norwegian immigrants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Rice County, Minnesota</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Rice County, Minnesota. It is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Rice County, Minnesota, United States. The locations of National Register properties and districts for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below, may be seen in an online map.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curtis-Shipley Farmstead</span> Historic house in Maryland, United States

The Curtis—Shipley Farmstead is a historic home located at Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland, United States. It is located on the first land grant in modern Howard County, then Anne Arundel County, to the English settler Adam Shipley in 1688 who settled properties in Maryland as early as 1675. The 500-acre estate was called "Adam the First".

Slack Farmstead is a historic farm complex and national historic district located at Mexico in Oswego County, New York. The district includes four contributing structures; the farmhouse, a dairy barn (1870), granary and a hen house. Also on the property are a contributing stone wall, hand-dug well, and farm pond. The farmhouse is a five-bay, 1+12-story frame building with a gable roof built about 1838.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nerstrand City Hall</span> United States historic place

Nerstrand City Hall is a historic city hall building in Nerstrand, Minnesota, United States, constructed in 1908. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on April 6, 1982, for having local significance in the theme of politics/government. It was nominated for being representative of Nerstrand's early growth, and for being Rice County's best example of municipal buildings of the early 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osmund Osmundson House</span> Historic house in Minnesota, United States

The Osmund Osmundson House is a historic house in Nerstrand, Minnesota, United States. The private home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on April 6, 1982. The house is significant for its association with a prominent Rice County pioneer and town founder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonde Farmhouse</span> Historic house in Minnesota, United States

The Bonde Farmhouse is a historic farmhouse located in Wheeling Township in Rice County, Minnesota, United States, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from Nerstrand. The private home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on April 6, 1982. The farmhouse is significant both for its association with a prominent Norwegian immigrant family as well as its local limestone construction and outstanding integrity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caspar Getman Farmstead</span> United States historic place

Caspar Getman Farmstead is a historic home and related farm outbuildings located near Stone Arabia in Montgomery County, New York. It includes the main house and ell, two lateral-entry English barns, a New World Dutch barn, limestone smokehouse, and former chicken coop. The house has a two-story main block, five by five bay, with a center entrance, with an attached 1 1/2 story ell. It has a moderately pitched gable roof and is clad in clapboards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Baumgardner Farm</span> United States historic place

The William Baumgardner Farm is a historic farmstead located near New Carlisle in Miami County, Ohio, United States. Constructed in 1857, the site remains typical of period farmsteads, and it has been named a historic site.

The John and Katharine Tunkun Podjun Farm is a farm located at 9582 East 1 Mile Road in Ellsworth, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bauserman Farm</span> United States historic place

Bauserman Farm, also known as Kagey-Bauserman Farm, is a historic farmstead located near Mount Jackson, Shenandoah County, Virginia. The main house was built about 1860, and is a two-story, three-bay, gable-roofed, balloon-framed “I-house.” It has an integral rear ell, wide front porch and handsome late-Victorian scroll-sawn wood decoration. Also on the property are the contributing chicken house, a privy, a two-story summer kitchen, a frame granary, a large bank barn, a chicken house, the foundation of the former circular icehouse and the foundation of a former one-room log cabin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crows Nest (Wilmington, Vermont)</span> United States historic place

The Crows Nest is a historic farmstead property at 35 Sturgis Drive in Wilmington, Vermont. The 75-acre (30 ha) property includes rolling woods and a hay meadow, and a small cluster of farm outbuildings near the main house, a c. 1803 Cape style building. The property typifies early Vermont farmsteads, and is now protected by a preservation easement. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Spangenberg Farmstead</span> United States historic place

The Charles Spangenberg Farmstead is a historic farm in Woodbury, Minnesota, United States, established in 1869. The three oldest buildings, including an 1871 farmhouse, were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 for having local significance in the theme of agriculture. The property was nominated for being one of Washington County's few remaining 19th-century farmsteads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hanaford Farmstead</span> United States historic place

The David Hanaford Farmstead is a historic farm in Monticello Township, Minnesota, United States. It was first settled in 1855 and features a farmhouse built in 1870 and a barn from around the same time. The farmstead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 for having local significance in the themes of agriculture and exploration/settlement. It was nominated for being "an excellent example of an early Wright County farmstead developed by a pioneer family from New England."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Witherell Farm</span> United States historic place

The Witherill Farm is a historic farm property on Witherill Road in Shoreham, Vermont. With a history dating to the late 18th century, the farm was for two centuries managed by generations of the same family, and was a noted early exporter of merino sheep to South Africa. Most of the farmstead buildings were built before 1850. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Louk Farm</span> United States historic place

The George Louk Farm is a rural farmstead located at 1885 Tooley Road near Howell, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

References

  1. 1 2 "Historic American Buildings Survey". Library of Congress. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
  2. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  3. "National Register of Historic Places". www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. October 31, 2007.
  4. "Thorstein Veblen Farmstead". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on September 1, 2012. Retrieved September 3, 2009.
  5. 1 2 James Sheire (May 21, 1981). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Thorstein Veblen Farmstead" (pdf). National Park Service.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) and Accompanying 4 images taken in 1971  (2.33 MB)
  6. "Thorstein Veblen Farmstead". National Historic Landmarks Program. National Park Service. Archived from the original on March 15, 2008. Retrieved October 1, 2007.
  7. "Restoring a national historic landmark". Benchmarks in Minnesota's Historic Preservation. Minnesota Historical Society. Retrieved November 2, 2007.