Saga - 1962, Page 101

ÚR SÖGU ÍSLENZKRA ATVINNUSKIPTA
441
of a marked increase in the total population the rural population
has continually decreased.
Until 1910 only few persons of either R or S settled in towns or
villages. (In America, too, they remained in farming.) Even in the
period 1919—1962 surprisingly few descendants of this highland
stock became sailors or fishermen. Their old rural area of Mývatn
had exactly as many inhabitants in 1961 as in 1861, and the rural
shortage of young women, so common in other areas of the country,
had still not occurred there.
The flow of emigration from Iceland became sharply reduced in
the first decade of this century. Since that time the rather vivid
clan S has demonstrated the virtues of non-migrants, confining its
moves, in the main, to within the environments of their old homes.
Within that area S has shown some tendency to endogamy, which R
has not. Until recently the overwhelming majority of S has re-
mained farmers; however, the family numbers within it many semi-
rural craftsmen, industrial and skilled workers, co-operative society
employees, teachers, etc., no less than R. The advancement of S
through the higher schools to university studies and to soeial posi-
tions of esteem seems now to conform to what may be expected from
the average 1.2% of the population.
Th socio-economic dynamics of the 20th century have spurred the
clan R in a different manner. Less vivid, but somewhat more versa-
tile and ambitious than S it identified itself more closely to the new
conditions. Instead of its earlier search for better farms or entry
into the professions, it became urbanized and its members were to
be found in all parts of the country. By 1939 more than 33%, and
by 1962 more than 50%, had settled in Reykjavík and its neighbor-
hood; many others were in Akureyri and Húsavík.
No stress is laid on an explanation why R reacted so differently
from S. But the author is inclined to ascribe it more to qualities ac-
quired by its domestic migrations rather than to strictly hereditary
ones.
Not being chiefly hereditary the differences of reactions, and
their results, may be of interest to historians and sociologists.
Among those characteristics of R which may be noted are the
vmusual numbers to be found within it of clergymen, lawyers, engi-
neers, businessmen, and members of the Alþing. Not wealth, but a
thrifty competency were, in 1939, the distinctive feature of the living
standard of the ca. 400 family members residing in Reykjavík.
Beside the theme explained above the author contributes in vari-
ous other ways to the description of these “clans” in current migra-
tory history within Iceland.