ABSTRACT
Thorstein Veblen was born on July 30, 1857, on a Wisconsin farm, the child of Norwegian immigrant parents. When he was eight, the family moved to a farm in Minnesota where he grew up in an immigrant community composed of Norse, Irish, German, and “Yankee” farmers. Thus Veblen was bilingual in Norwegian and English from an early age. Thomas Veblen, his father, believed in the importance of education and determined to send all his children to college. 1 In 1874, his father sent Thorstein to Carleton College in the hope that he might become a Lutheran minister. Veblen did not fit easily into the social life of the college, but he did capture the affections of Ellen Rolfe, a niece of the president of the college. She was an exceptionally bright woman, but one who, like Veblen, found the college atmosphere stultifying. They were subsequently married, although the marriage would prove difficult for them both.
