George T. Flom

“ Norway is a land of mountains, these making up in the fact fifty-nine per cent of its total area, while forty-four per cent of the soil of Sweden is unproductive. The winters are long and severe, the cold weather frequently sets in too early for the crops to ripen; with crop failure comes lack of work for the laboring classes, and, burdened by heavy taxation, as was the Norwegian farmer only too often in the middle of the last century, debt and impoverishment for the holders of the numerous encumbered smaller estates. ”

“ These three considerations, especially perhaps the first, will make clear to us the reason why the Norwegian so readily learns to use the English language, and if he learns it in youth, even to the point of mastery. This is of the greatest importance, for language is in modern times the real badge of nationality. A correct use of the English language is the first and chief stamp of American nationality, the key without which the foreigner cannot enter into the spirit of American life and institutions. ”

“ Thus the Scandinavian farmer’s son, with his love of personal independence and his strong inherent desire to own a home, finding himself so circumstanced in his native country that there was little hope of his being able to realize this ambition except in the distant uncertain future, listens, with a willing ear to descriptions of America, with its quick returns and its great opportunities. ”

“ Norway has lost by American emigration a comparatively larger portion of her population than any other country in Europe, with the exception of Ireland. The great majority of the emigrants have gone to the northwestern states and found there their future homes. In Northern Illinois, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, in Northern and Western Iowa, in North and South Dakota, they form a very large proportion of the population. Emigration to European countries has been directed chiefly to Sweden and Denmark, though not few have settled in England and Germany and some in Holland. ”

“ While the nobility was abolished in Norway in 1814, the lines between the upper and lower classes, the wealthy and the poor, were tightly drawn and social classes were well defined. And while Norway is today the most democratic country in Europe, and Sweden and Denmark are also thoroughly liberal (in part through the influence of America and American-Scandinavians) , a titled aristocracy still exists in these countries. ”

“ Of tangible motives, one that has everywhere been a fundamental factor in promoting emigration from European countries in modern times has been the prospect of material betterment. Where no barriers have been put against the emigration of the poor or the ambitious, unless special causes have arisen to create discontent with one’s condition, the extent to which European countries have contributed to our immigrant population may be measured fairly closely by the economic conditions at home. ”

“ After Johannesen’s death it was Heg upon whom the settlers in the early days of the colony leaned for advice and it was Even Heg to whom every new arrival from Norway to the colony came for help and counsel. His hospitality and his resourcefulness in the aid of his compatriots was boundless. Heg’s barn, where large parties of immigrants were received every summer, and in which they were permitted freely to make their home during the first weeks after the long and arduous journey, is famed throughout many an early settlement in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. ”

“ In New England the Norwegian factor is unimportant. There has been a high ratio of growth in New York and New Jersey since 1880, but the total number is not large. In the rest of the Atlantic seaboard states, as in the gulf states, the Norwegian population has remained almost stationary at a very low figure. Such is also the case with the inland states of the South, as in the Southwest. The effort to direct Norwegian immigration to Texas, which goes back to the forties, has been productive of only meagre results. Even Kansas is too far south for the Norwegian. ”

“ The Norwegians are the pioneers in the emigration movement from the North in the nineteenth century; the Danes were the last to come in considerable numbers. Statistics, however, show that one hundred eighty-nine Danes had emigrated to this country before 1830, while there were only ninety-four from Norway and Sweden. The Norwegian foreign-born population had in 1850 reached 12,678; while that from Sweden was 3,559; and Denmark had furnished a little over eighteen hundred. The Danish immigration was not over five thousand a year until 1880 and has never reached twelve thousand. ”

“ The growth of the emigration movement in Norway and the course of settlements here have been indicated. The names of the promoters of emigration in each district and province and of the founders of settlements have in all cases been given. In most cases we have succeeded in giving a fairly complete list of names of the settlers in any community during the first four to eight years of its history, that is its period of growth, the years during which it assumed the character of a Norwegian settlement. ”

“ Proselyting of some non-Lutheran churches in Scandinavia has been the means of bringing many Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes to this country. In the fifties Mormon missionaries were especially active in Denmark and Norway. Their efforts did not seem to be attended by much success in Norway, though not a few converts were made among the Norwegians in the early settlements in Illinois and Iowa, as in the Fox River Settlement. [53] In Denmark, however, Mormon proselyting was more successful than in Norway. All those who accepted Mormonism emigrated to America of course, and most of them to Utah. ”

“ Navigation engages six per cent of the population of Norway. In this connection I note that our warships in the Spanish-American war were many of them manned almost exclusively by Norwegian sailors; [6] and there were Norwegians in the American marine service as early as the War of Independence, as again in no small proportion in the Civil War in the sixties.
Perhaps about five per cent of Norway’s population is engaged in intellectual work. Here, too, the contribution of Norway to our population in America has been considerable, especially during the last twenty years. ”

“ The fact that the influx of the immigrants from Norway coincided with the opening up of the middle western states resulted in the settlement of those states by Norwegian immigrants. Land could be had for almost nothing in the West. Land-seekers from New England, New York and Pennsylvania were in those days flocking to the West. [17] About ninety per cent of the Norwegian immigrants at that time were land-seekers. As a rule long before he emigrated the Norseman had made up his mind to settle in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, or Minnesota. ”

“ The total emigration from the Scandinavian countries to America between 1820 and 1903 was 1,617,111. This remarkable figure becomes doubly remarkable when we stop to consider that the population of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden is only two and one-half per cent of the total population of Europe; yet they have contributed nearly ten per cent of our immigrant population. There are in this country nearly one-third as many Scandinavians (counting those of foreign birth and foreign parentage both) as in the Scandinavian countries ”

“ This little book of thirty-nine pages had not a little to do with the emigration that followed to La Salle County, Illinois, and elsewhere. In it the author gives an intelligent discussion of thirteen questions regarding America which he set himself to answer. Among them were: What is the nature of the country? What is the reason that so many people go there? Is it not to be feared that the land will soon be overpopulated? In what parts are the Norwegian settlements? Which is the most convenient and the cheapest route to them? What is the price of land? ”

“ The latter he brands as false, adding, “yet it is true that many who have not been able to pay their passage, have come upon such terms that they have sold themselves, or their service, for a certain number of years to some man here in the country. Many are thereby said to have come into bad hands, and have not had it better than slaves. No Norwegian, as far as I know, has fared in this way, nor is it to be feared, if one crosses by a Norwegian ship, and with one’s own countrymen.” ”

“ Norway: Population, Resources, Pursuits of her People, Social Conditions, Laws and Institutions.
Norway is, as we know, a long and narrow strip of country in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula, stretching through thirteen degrees of latitude, and in the north, extending almost three hundred miles into the arctic zone. Nearly a third of the entire country [1] is the domain of the midnight sun, where summer is the season of daylight and winter is one long unbroken night. Even in Southern Norway total darkness is unknown in summer, the night being merely a period of twilight. ”

“ They were told that the Fox River Valley was a very unhealthy place, the settlers were dying of ague and fever, and it was a misfortune that they had ever been induced to locate there. (Knut Langeland also records the fact that the fever raged in the whole of the Fox River Valley from Muskego, in Wisconsin, to the Mississippi River in Illinois, that summer, but that the condition in La Salle was no worse than elsewhere) . So the intending settlers deputed three men to explore the country for a site for a new colony. ”

“ Just when the Societies Scandinaviensis ceased to exist, the Historian cannot say. On February twentieth, 1868, eighteen gentlemen, all of Scandinavian birth and residents of Philadelphia, met together for the purpose of forming a society, and The Scandinavian Society of Philadelphia was founded, an organization which regards itself a continuation of the original society. The chief object of the Society is benevolence.
The name of at least one Norwegian who fell in the early wars against the Indians has come down to us. ”

“ It may be said, I believe, that no people has a higher sense of right and wrong and a stronger moral incentive to right. Frauds in elections and graft in official life are yet unheard-of among our Norwegian-American citizens.
Norway is, next to Finland, the most temperate of European countries. The sale of liquor is permitted only in incorporated cities and towns, and only by an association that is organized under government supervision. It is the so-called Gothenburg system that is in use. ”

“ Being accustomed to a high degree of freedom, he has been trained to a high conception of the responsibilities that that freedom entails. He has long been accustomed to representation and sharing in the rights of franchise, and he exercises that right as a privilege and a solemn duty. ”

“ Their wealth lay also in their thrift, in their ideals, and the moral fiber of their race. Many of those who have succeeded best in their adopted country came here well-nigh penniless. To them poverty was no longer a curse when the path of opportunity lay before them. But the above considerations will also have indicated that Norwegian immigrants of that early period were not always of the poor classes even though they came here with little or nothing. Later Norwegian immigration has, it is true, generally been from among the impecunious. ”

“ The first Norwegian settlers at Heart Prairie were Ole A. Sögal and wife Kari, who, with their four children Anne, Andrea, Karen, and Johanne, came in 1842 and located four miles and a half southeast of the city of Whitewater. They lived there only a few years, however, then moved to Wautoma, Waushara County, in Central Wisconsin. The next settler was Ole’s brother, Hans A. Milebon, who with his wife Kari came in 1843, and settled about a mile north of his brother’s place; they had one daughter, Mary Ann, who was about three years old when they came, and who is still living near Whitewater. ”

“ It was the desire for material betterment that prompted a very large proportion of Norwegian emigrants to leave the land of their fathers. The first five decades of Norwegian emigration was a period in which the battle for existence among the Norwegian peasant and the common man was none too easy. Unfavorable economic conditions, the oppressive methods of the larger land owners, frequent crop failure, often reduced the lesser farmers into a condition of impoverishment. Even wealthy families found themselves burdened by debts from which the future seemed to offer little hope of relief. ”

“ We may compare again with Denmark, where seventy-six per cent of the land is cultivated, while in all Europe the ratio is forty per cent.
Norway’s climate is noted for its healthfulness, [5] and its inhabitants attain a higher degree of longevity than those of most other European countries. Nearly seven per cent of its people reach the age of sixty to seventy, while one per cent attain to the age of from ninety to one hundred years. That is, reckoned as a whole, about twelve per cent attain to the age of sixty years or more. ”

“ Down to 1839 the immigration movement in Norway had not really gone beyond the provinces of Stavanger and South Bergenhus in southwestern and western Norway. Indeed, nearly all of the emigrants had come from these sections. In fact, before 1836 the movement was almost confined to Stavanger and Ryfylke. In that year it reaches Hardanger, and in 1837, Bergen. It does not reach Voss properly before 1838, although Nils Röthe and wife had emigrated from there in 1836. In 1837, as we have seen, the first emigrant ship, the Aegir, left Bergen with eighty-four passengers. ”

“ What has been said here applies to the founders of the settlements of Northern Illinois, of Racine, Rock, Dane and other counties in Southern Wisconsin, and many of those who some years later established the settlements in Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota. On the other hand also some of those who later became most substantial members of these settlements were men whose transportation to America was paid for by others that they might come and get a start in life. ”

“ Here in America, the Norwegian immigrant has taken a prominent part in legislation looking toward the restriction of the sale of intoxicating liquors, [8] and the Prohibition party finds its strongest support among the Norwegians, as it finds a relatively large number of its candidates for state and county offices from among them.
Crime conditions in Norway are similarly significant. Comparative statistics are difficult of access, but Norway’s proportion of serious offences is very low. ”

“ Before reciting further the fortunes of this group of immigrants, the first to enter the State of Wisconsin, let us turn for a moment to a consideration of the larger movement. With the year 1839, emigration from Norway begins to assume larger proportions, and certain districts, which hitherto had sent very few, now begin to contribute the larger share of the number of emigrants to America. This year may very properly be said to have inaugurated the second period in Norwegian immigration history. ”