Anna Peterson, Luther College, “Norwegian Immigrants and Native Americans”
This talk will explore what we know about Norwegian immigrants and Native Americans. It will look at the perceptions and attitudes toward American Indians present in Norway at the time of mass emigration as well as what Norwegian immigrants had to say about Native Americans in the letters they wrote back home. The focus will be on three cases of Norwegian American/Native American interactions, including: Norwegians and the US-Dakota War of 1862; Norwegians on the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota; and the Norwegian-American run Bethany Indian Mission outside Wittenberg, Wisconsin.
Erik Moe, University of Washington, “The 1925 Norse-American Centennial and the Performativity of Whiteness”
This talk explores the impacts of the 1925 Norse-American Centennial with respect to the commemoration of the Bicentennial in 2025, with a focus on the assimilation of Norwegian-American identity into American “whiteness” and the displacement of Indigenous peoples. I connect primary sources from the 1925 celebration to the myths of Nordic whiteness highlighted in the 2021 book Nordic Whiteness and Migration to the USA and other sources. I consider what can be gained from discussing the events of the 1925 Centennial through the lens of the sixth myths featured in Nordic Whiteness and how it connects to the Bicentennial in 2025.
Ingrid Urberg, University of Alberta, Augustana Campus, “Norwegian Migration to Canada: A Story of Intracontinental Connections and Comparisons”
This talk will provide an overview of Norwegian migration to Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on how the intracontinental movement of people, ideas, and institutions have defined this migration and shaped the scholarship surrounding it. Many people are unaware that between 1850 and the late 1860s, 94% of Norwegian immigrants to the United States entered through Canadian port cities, a period deftly discussed in Odd Lovoll’s Across the Deep Blue Sea: The Saga of Early Norwegian Immigrants from Norway to America through the Canadian Gateway (2015). In later years, the trend was reversed, with many Norwegians first emigrating to the Midwestern United States, and then moving on to the Canadian Prairie Provinces. In this session, participants will be introduced to both primary and secondary source materials, including oral histories and memoirs. The lives and accounts of individuals and specific organizations will be used to illustrate migration trends. This talk aims to highlight an often overlooked aspect of Norwegian migration to North America and to raise awareness of primary source materials and themes for further study.
L. DeAne Lagerquist, St. Olaf College (Retired), “Dividing and Connecting: Religion in Norwegian-American Life”
This talk provides an overview of the shifting role of religion in the lives of Norwegian-Americans and their communities over the last two centuries with attention to the Lutheran tradition immigrants brought with them, the American religious landscape they encountered, and the dynamic relationship between ethnicity and religion in this changing context. It both considers individuals’ experience of religion and traces institutional developments. While noting other groups, the primary focus is upon Lutheran churches, their leaders, and their members.
Laurann Gilbertson, Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, “From T-Shirts to the Texas Bunad: Expressing Norwegian and American Identities through Dress”
Many Norwegian-Americans create and express an ethnic identity by observing family traditions, joining cultural organizations, attending festivals, or by their choice of clothing. Clothing choices might include an “Uff Da!” t-shirt, a Norwegian sweater, a red vest, or a complete costume. Folk dress died out in many parts of rural Norway in the 19th century and so the outfits we see today and call bunad (plural bunader) have been revived, reconstructed, and created in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This presentation will explore the choices that Americans have made since the centennial of Norwegian emigration in 1925, showing a clear shift from first expressing a national identity and then a regional Norwegian identity, to sharing a much more personalized, Norwegian-American identity.
Per Ivar Engevold, “Atlantic Crossings: Changes in Conditions on Norwegian Immigrant Ships, 1825-1925”
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, waves of Norwegian immigrants embarked on the perilous journey across the Atlantic to seek new beginnings in America. This plenary talk delves into the Atlantic crossing and examines the constantly evolving conditions on board the ships that carried the Norwegian immigrants. It will also highlight significant maritime disasters, including the tragic fate of the immigrant ship “SS Norge” in 1904, the biggest civilian maritime disaster in the Atlantic Ocean until the sinking of Titanic eight years later. Through personal accounts and historical records, the talk aims to shed light on the courage and determination that marked this significant chapter in Norwegian-American history.
Ralph Meier, Volda University College, Norway, “From Diversity to Unity: Norwegian American Lutheran Church foundings in the USA, 1847-1917”
In this plenary talk, I give an overview of the several foundings of Norwegian (American) Lutheran Churches in the USA from the first church founding in 1847 (the so-called “Eielsen Synod” with Haugeans) to the founding of “The Norwegian Lutheran Church of America” in 1917. When emigrants left Norway, they left not only their home and family, but also the Lutheran state church, which was an important part of Norwegian identity. This talk will show how Norwegian immigrants adapted their Lutheran identity to the new situation in the U.S. with free churches, and how that identity was both preserved and changed in the new country.
Svein-Halvard Jørgensen, Nord University, “Complex Mosaics of Identities: The Case of the Northern Norwegian Immigrants in Minnesota”
The construction of a regional northern Norwegian identity among immigrants connected to the magazine Nord Norge in Minneapolis offers an interesting example of the complexities of immigrant identities. Via the magazine, a tiny group of enthusiasts put forward a surprisingly elaborate picture of a superior Northern Norwegian regional identity, as those best suited to life in the United States. With the Nord Norge magazine as its point of departure, this talk examines a range of Norwegian-American positions and intra-community conflicts with regard to questions of language and cultural preservation and the ostensible “superiority” of Norwegians as an immigrant group.
Sarah Clement Reed, Brigham Young University,