Folklore Collection of Torfhildur Þorsteinsdóttir Hólm

This collection relates to Torfhildur Þorsteinsdóttir Hólm (1845-1918) who emigrated from her homeland of Iceland to Canada in 1876, where she lived for 13 years. During that time, she collected folklore in the newly established settler reserve of New Iceland. She was the only woman to compile a major collection of Icelandic folklore in the nineteenth century and the only folklore collector to collect material from immigrant informants in the early Icelandic settlements in Canada. Many of her informants were also women who were recent immigrants to Canada.