Applying Ethnicity: The Case of Olga Edseth’s Hot-Pink Rosemaled Pumps in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin

In 1998, Olga Edseth visited a garage sale near her hometown of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. During this shopping excursion, the then eighty-four-year-old Edseth came across a pair of hot-pink pumps. She picked up the pair of size eight shoes, paid fifty cents, and brought them home. Two decades later, these same shoes would be displayed as part of the first special exhibit at the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society’s (MHAHS) Driftless Historium (a portmanteau of history and museum). What makes this pair of secondhand pumps worthy of preservation and presentation as a symbol of the village’s Norwegian and Norwegian American