Norwegian American Weekly

The Norwegian American Weekly (NAW) is a newspaper that publishes material contributed by writers from Norway and the Norwegian American community. NAW is distributed on a weekly basis by mail to thousands of subscribers in the USA, Canada and other parts of the world. The paper was formerly The Western Viking (Seattle) and was renamed when it came under the ownership of the Norwegian American Foundation in 2006. The Norwegian American Foundation also acquired The Norway Times (New York) in 2006. The subscriber base and many of the editorial contributors can be traced to the Viking and Times. In addition, NAW can trace its origins to Decorah Posten through the acquisition of this newspaper by The Western Viking.

NAW continues what was once a very strong tradition of Norwegian American newspapers, as detailed by Pr. Odd Lovoll in his book Norwegian Newspapers in America: Connecting Norway and the New Land.[1] At their height, Norwegian American newspapers had large local circulations and most of their content was in the Norwegian language. As such, Norwegian language newspapers formed part of what was once a very important body of non-English language periodicals (see American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers).

The Western Viking was founded by two Norwegian immigrants in 1889 as the Washington Posten. Henning Boe took it over in 1959 and introduced more English-language content to the paper. He also bought the Decorah Posten, which at the time was the largest Norwegian newspaper in the United States. Alf Knudsen, a retired music teacher, bought the paper in 1990, turning the paper over to his daughter, Kathleen, in 1997.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Lovoll, Odd (2010). Norwegian Newspapers in America: Connecting Norway and the New Land. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0-87351-772-0.
  2. ↑ http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040219&slug=viking19m

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