Norwegian American

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Norwegian Americans are an ethnic group in the United States. They are the descendants of Norwegian immigrants who came to the United States primarily in the latter half of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century. There are more than 5 million[1] Norwegian-Americans according to the most recent U.S. census, and most live in the Upper Midwest.

Norwegian immigrants wearing their traditional outfit (bunad).
Norwegian immigrants wearing their traditional outfit (bunad).

Contents

[edit] Norwegians in America

[edit] History

Norwegians were the first Europeans to discover North America. The Norwegian/Icelander Leifr Eiríksson reached America via Norse settlements in Greenland circa A.D. 1000, nearly five centuries before Columbus. It is generally agreed that the Norwegian settlers in Greenland founded the capital settlement of Vinland at L'Anse aux Meadows, and that their territory encompassed the whole of the isle of Newfoundland.[citation needed] Just how much they explored further past the Canadian Maritime Provinces (known as Skrælingeland in Old Norse; later Acadia and then Nova Scotia) in North America has been a matter of debate for the past hundred years amongst romantic and ethnic nationalists as well as some lay historians. Some widely disputed evidence suggests that Norwegians may have made many settlements much further into the North American mainland than was believed before. (See Kensington Runestone.)

U.S. postage stamp honoring the hundredth anniversary of the Restauration.
U.S. postage stamp honoring the hundredth anniversary of the Restauration.

There was a Norwegian presence in New Amsterdam (New York after 1664) in the early part of 17th century. Approximately 60 persons had settled in the Manhattan area before the British take-over in 1664. How many Norwegians that settled in New Netherlands (the area up the Hudson River to Fort Oranje - now Albany) is not known. Holland (and especially Amsterdam and Hoorn) had strong commercial ties with coastal Norway during the 17th century (the lumber trade) and many Norwegians emigrated to Amsterdam. Some of them settled in Dutch colonies, but never in large numbers. (For further reading, see f.e J.H. Innes - "New Amsterdam and its people".) There were also Norwegian settlers in Pennsylvania in the first half of the 18th century, and in upstate New York in the latter half of the same century.

Cleng Peerson
Cleng Peerson

Organized Norwegian immigration to America began in 1825, when several dozen Norwegians left Stavanger bound for America on the sloop Restauration (often called the "Norwegian Mayflower") under the leadership of Cleng Peerson. The emigrants were primarily Quakers, though personal and economic motivations may have played a role. The ship landed in New York City, where it was at first impounded for exceeding its passenger limit. After intervention from President John Quincy Adams, the passengers moved on to settle in Kendall, New York with the help of Andreas Stangeland, witnessing the opening of the Erie Canal en route. Most of these immigrants moved on from Kendall, settling in Illinois and Wisconsin. Cleng Peerson became a traveling emissary for Norwegian immigrants and died in a Norse Settlement near Cranfills Gap, Texas, in 1865.

While there were about 65 Norwegian individuals who emigrated via ports in Sweden and elsewhere in the intervening years, the next emigrant ship did not leave Norway for the New World until 1836, when the ships Den Norske Klippe and Norden departed. In 1837, a group of immigrants from Tinn emigrated via Gothenburg to the Fox River Settlement, near present-day Sheridan, Illinois. But it was the writings of Ole Rynning, who traveled to the US on the Ægir in 1837 that energized Norwegian immigration.

To a great extent, early emigration from Norway was borne out of religious persecution, especially for Quakers and a local religious group, haugianere.

Norwegian immigration through the years was predominantly motivated by economic concerns. Compounded by crop failures, Norwegian agricultural resources were unable to keep up with population growth, and the Homestead Act promised fertile, flat land. As a result, settlement trended westward with each passing year. Early Norwegian settlements were in Pennsylvania and Illinois, but moved westward into Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas.

Additionally, craftsmen also emigrated to a larger, more diverse market. Until recently, there was a Norwegian area in Sunset Park, Brooklyn originally populated by Norwegian craftsmen.

Between 1825 and 1925, more than 800,000 Norwegians immigrated to America—about one-third of Norway's population. With the exception of Ireland, no single country contributed a larger percentage of its population to America than Norway.

[edit] Today

  • There are more than 4.5 million people of Norwegian ancestry in the U.S. today.[1] Of these, approximately 3 million claim 'Norwegian' as their sole or primary ancestry.
  • Norwegian Americans actively celebrate and maintain their heritage in many ways. Much of it centers on the Lutheran-Evangelical churches they were born into, but also culinary customs (e.g., lutefisk and lefse), costumes (bunad), and Norwegian holidays (Syttende Mai, May 17) are popular. Certain towns in the United States, particularly in the Upper Midwest, have very strong Norwegian influences.
  • The Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn once had a significant Norwegian population. At one time, Bay Ridge was home to a larger population of Norwegians than Oslo, Norway[citation needed].
  • Although the Norwegians were the most numerous of all the Scandinavian immigrant groups, other Scandinavians also immigrated to America during the same time period. Today, there are 11-12 million Americans of Scandinavian ancestry. Scandinavian descendants represent about 6% of the white population in the USA as a whole, and more than 25% of the white population of the Upper Midwest.
  • Norwegian Americans tend to be Lutheran, although a large minority are Catholic or belong to other Protestant denominations.


[edit] Norwegian Americans by state

Distribution of Norwegian Americans according to the 2000 census
Distribution of Norwegian Americans according to the 2000 census

The 10 states with the most Norwegians:

  1. Minnesota – 850,742
  2. Wisconsin – 454,831
  3. California – 436,128
  4. Washington – 367,508
  5. North Dakota – 193,158
  6. Illinois – 178,923
  7. Iowa – 166,667
  8. Oregon – 147,262
  9. Texas – 118,968
  10. South Dakota – 115,292

The 10 states with the top percentages of Norwegians:

  1. North Dakota – 30.1% of the state's white population is of Norwegian ancestry
  2. Minnesota – 17.3%
  3. South Dakota – 15.3%
  4. Montana – 10.6%
  5. Wisconsin – 8.5%
  6. Washington – 6.2%
  7. Iowa – 5.7%
  8. Oregon – 4.3%
  9. Wyoming – 4.3%
  10. Alaska – 4.2%

[edit] Use of Norwegian language in the United States

Use of the Norwegian language in the United States was at its peak between 1900 and World War I, then:

  • Over one million Americans spoke Norwegian as their primary language.
  • There were dozens of Norwegian-language newspapers across the Upper Midwest.
    • Decorah Posten was one such newspaper.
    • The Northfield Independent was another notable newspaper. The Editor Was Andrew Roberg, who collected massive amounts of Norwegian births and deaths in US. The file he created is now known as The Rowberg File (Maintained at St. Olaf College, and is commonly used in family research across the USA and Norway.
    • Over 600,000 homes received at least one Norwegian newspaper in 1910.
  • More than 3,000 Lutheran churches in the Upper Midwest used Norwegian as their sole language.

Use of the Norwegian language declined in the 1920s and 1930s due in large part to the rise of nationalism among the American population during and after World War I. During this period, readership of Norwegian-language publications fell, Norwegian Lutheran churches began to hold their services in English, and the younger generation of Norwegian-Americans was encouraged to speak English rather than Norwegian. When Norway itself was liberated from the Nazis in 1945, relatively few Norwegian-Americans under the age of 40 still spoke Norwegian as their primary language (although many still understood the language). As such, they were not passing the language on to their children, the next generation of Norwegian-Americans.

Today there are 81,000 Americans who speak Norwegian as their primary language.

Many Lutheran colleges that were established by immigrants and people of Norwegian background, such as Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, and St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, continue to offer Norwegian majors in their undergraduate programs. Many major American universities, such as the University of Washington, University of Oregon, University of Wisconsin, and the Indiana University offer Norwegian as a language within their Germanic language studies programs.

Literary writing in Norwegian in North America includes the works of Ole Edvart Rølvaag, whose best-known work Giants in the Earth (Verdens Grode) was published in both English and Norwegian versions. Rølvaag was a professor from 1906 to 1931 at St. Olaf College, where he was also head of the Norwegian studies department beginning in 1916.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑ a  Incidentally, the number of Americans of Norwegian descent living in the U.S. today (4.5 million) is roughly equal to the current population of Norway.

[edit] References

[edit] Secondary sources

  • Kenneth Bjork, West of the Great Divide: Norwegian Migration to the Pacific Coast, 1847-1893 (Norwegian-American Historical Association, Northfield, Minn., 1958)
  • Theodore C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to the United States (2 vols., Norwegian-American Historical Association, Northfield, Minn., 1931-40), standard history
  • Theodore C. Blegen, "Cleng Peerson and Norwegian Immigration", Mississippi Valley Historical Review 7 (March 1921): 303-21, story of a leading promoter and his American careerl in JSTOR
  • Gjerde, Jon. The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917 (1997)
  • Gjerde, Jon. From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West (1985)
  • Jacobs, Henry Eyster. A History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States (1893),
  • Munch, Peter A. "Authority and Freedom: Controversy in Norwegian-American Congregations", Norwegian-American Studies 28 (1979)
  • Nelson, E. Clifford and Eugene L. Fevold, The Lutheran Church among Norwegian Americans: A History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2 vols. (1960)
  • Qualey, Carlton C. Norwegian Settlement in the United States (Northfield, Minn.: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1938).

[edit] Primary sources

  • Theodore C. Blegen, ed., Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads (Minneapolis, 1936)
  • Gulliksen, Øyvind T. "Letters to Immigrants in the Midwest from the Telemark Region of Norway", Norwegian-American Studies 32 [1989]
  • Nilsson, Svein. A Chronicler of Immigrant Life: Svein Nilsson's Articles in Billed-Magazin, 1868-1870, trans. and ed. C. A. Clausen [Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1982]
  • Ræder, Ole Munch. America in the Forties: The Letters of Ole Munch Ræder, ed. and trans. Gunnar J. Malmin (Minneapolis: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1929)

[edit] External links


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