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The Norwegian Americans are an ethnic group in the United States. They are the descendants of Norwegian immigrants who came to America 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.

Norwegians in America

History

Norwegians are credited with being the first Europeans to discover North America. The Norwegian/Icelander Leiv Eiriksson 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 having made many settlements much further into the North American mainland than was believed before. (See Kensington Runestone.)

Norwegian immigration to America in the post-Columbian era 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.

Today

  • There are more than 4.5 million people of Norwegian ancestry in the U.S. today. 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 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. Scandinavians 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 by state

The 10 states with the most Norwegians:

  1. Minnesota – 851,000
  2. Wisconsin – 456,000
  3. California – 436,000
  4. Washington – 368,000
  5. North Dakota – 193,000
  6. Illinois – 179,000
  7. Iowa – 167,000
  8. Oregon – 147,000
  9. Texas – 119,000
  10. South Dakota – 115,000

The 10 states with the top percentages of Norwegians:

  1. North Dakota – 33% of the state's white population is of Norwegian ancestry
  2. Minnesota – 20%
  3. South Dakota – 17%
  4. Montana – 12%
  5. Wisconsin – 10%
  6. Washington – 8%
  7. Iowa – 6%
  8. Alaska – 6%
  9. Oregon – 5%
  10. Wyoming – 5%

Notable and famous Norwegian Americans

Listed alphabetically. Main article: List of Norwegian Americans.

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.
    • 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, and the University of Wisconsin offer Norwegian as a language within their Germanic language studies programs.

See also

Notes

  1. 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.

References

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).

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 *
  • Nilsson, Svein. A Chronicler of Immigrant Life: Svein Nilsson's Articles in Billed-Magazin, 1868-1870, trans. and ed. C. A. Clausen 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)

External links

Norwegian-Americans | Ethnic groups in the United States

Norsk-amerikanere

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Norwegian American".

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