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 4.5 million Norwegian-Americans according to the most recent U.S. census, and most live in the Upper Midwest.
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[edit] Norwegians in America
[edit] History
Norwegians are 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. 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.)
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.
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.
- A little more than 2% of whites in the US are of Norwegian descent. In the Upper Midwest, especially Minnesota, eastern Wisconsin, northern Iowa, and the Dakotas, more than 15% of whites are of Norwegian descent.
- 55% of Norwegian Americans live in the Midwest, although a large number (21%) live in the Pacific states of Washington, Oregon, and California.
- 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 17th) are popular. Certain towns in the United States, particularly in the Upper Midwest, have very strong Norwegian influences.
- 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.
[edit] Norwegian Americans by state
The 10 states with the most Norwegians:
- Minnesota – 850,742
- Wisconsin – 454,831
- California – 436,128
- Washington – 367,508
- North Dakota – 193,158
- Illinois – 178,923
- Iowa – 166,667
- Oregon – 147,262
- Texas – 118,968
- South Dakota – 115,292
The 10 states with the top percentages of Norwegians:
- North Dakota – 30.1% of the state's white population is of Norwegian ancestry
- Minnesota – 17.3%
- South Dakota – 15.3%
- Montana – 10.6%
- Wisconsin – 8.5%
- Washington – 6.2%
- Iowa – 5.7%
- Oregon – 4.3%
- Wyoming – 4.3%
- Alaska – 4.2%
[edit] Notable and famous Norwegian Americans
Listed alphabetically. Main article: List of Norwegian Americans.
- James Cagney – action movie actor (partially, on mother's side)
- Arlene Dahl – movie starlet of the 1950s.
- Babe Didriksen (Zaharias) – pro golfer and Olympic athlete
- Douglas Engelbart – a co-inventor of mouse and of many now common aspects of computer GUIs.
- Gilbert N. Haugen -- U. S. Representative from Iowa, 1899-1933, co-author of the McNary-Haugen farm relief bill
- Lance Henriksen – movie actor (on father's side)
- Conrad Hilton – founder and developer of the Hilton Hotel chain; great-grandfather of Paris Hilton (partially of Norwegian descent; also of German descent)
- Hubert Humphrey – served as Vice President under Lyndon Johnson, and was the 1968 Democratic candidate for President
- Siri Hustvedt – writer
- Garrison Keillor – media personality
- Walter Mondale – served as Vice President, ran for President in 1984
- Marilyn Monroe – actress (born Norma Jeane Mortensen)
- Eliot Ness – Prohibition-era American icon
- Ted Nelson – a co-inventor of hypertext and the leader of the Project Xanadu.
- Priscilla Presley – actress and the only wife of singer Elvis Presley
- Knut Rockne – famous football coach at University of Notre Dame
- Ole Edvart Rølvaag (spelled "Rolvaag" in the United States) – novelist
- Karl Rove – chief political advisor to George W. Bush
- Jan Stenerud – football place kicker (Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings)
- Earl Warren – governor of California, Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 – 1969
- Bernt Balchen – Norwegian-born aviator
- Gill Holland – film producer
- Renée Zellweger – actress
- Sondre Norheim – skier, called "the father of modern skiing"
- Rex J. Walheim – Astronaut, great-grandparents were from Norway
[edit] Use of Norwegian language in America
Use of the Norwegian language in America 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 Independant was another notable newspaper. The Editor Was Andrew Roberg, who collected massive amounts of Norwegian births and deaths in America. 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 University of Indiana offer Norwegian as a language within their Germanic language studies programs.
[edit] See also
- Sons of Norway
- Norge, a small town with historic district near Williamsburg in James City County, Virginia. Settled by Norwegian-American people and named for their homeland.
- Poulsbo, a city in Washington founded by a Norwegian immigrant that maintains a strong Norwegian culture.
- Petersburg, Alaska, founded by the Norwegian immigrant Peter Buschmann. Known for its strong Norwegian traditions and nicknamed "Little Norway"
- Norsk Høstfest (lit. "Norwegian Autumn Festival") is an annual festival held in October in Minot, North Dakota.
- Demographics of the United States for comparative population.
- Ole and Lena, protagonists of numerous Norwegian-American jokes
- Uff da, a typically Norwegian-American exclamation
- Starbuck, Minnesota, a small western town that produces the largest lefse in the world.
- Norwegian-Canadians - whose history is interlinked with that of Norwegian Americans.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ 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
- Norway's official website in the United States - Information about Norway and current news and events of interest to Americans (Norwegian Embassy website)
- Norwegian American Historical Association
- Norwegian population data from the U.S. Census Bureau
- Norwegian population by state
- U.S. Census data on number of language speakers, including Norwegian
- Friends of Norway Caucus - A Congressional Caucus promoting Norwegian-American relations, founded by Norwegian-American congressmen
- Norwegian-American homepage
- Sons of Norway - An organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Norwegian heritage and culture, especially in America
- Norwegian-American Foundation
- Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum
- Norwegians in the Civil War
- Nordmannsforbundet (The Norse Federation) - A non-profit organization founded in 1907 that seeks to strengthen cultural and personal ties between Norway and Norwegians abroad
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