By Elisabet, Emily, Matt, and Garrett
A large aspect of our course, The Journey North, has been studying the migration of Norwegians to the United States and the discourse surrounding it. This role play allowed us to immerse ourselves and learn more about the different perspectives of those migrating to the United States. At the end of a town hall meeting, we had to vote whether to stay in Norway or go to the United States. The four of us each had unique experiences with the game and were divided into the Stay and Go factions via the characters Ragnilda Josten and Tormod Hersdal in two separate rounds.
Emily and Elisabet: Between the two of us, we played the character Ragnilda Josten, a merchant’s wife with five children. Our character had traveled to many cities in Norway due to our husband’s job. However, since our husband is away, it was up to us to convince the people of Sørbø to stay in Norway to keep the community for our husband’s return.
Elisabet: It was an interesting experience trying to convince the community to stay in Norway as a woman who was not allowed to vote or participate in town meetings. In order to try and influence the town’s decision, we had to find other means to make our voice heard, such as influencing other women in the town to talk to their husbands and convince them that they should be voting to stay. Influencing others was difficult as many families already had opinions on leaving or staying.
Emily: Similar to the first round, our character, Ragnilda, didn’t really have a voice. It was also hard to convince others to do something when you didn’t have a vote, and since our husband was away, we didn’t have much influence. Also, due to our husband’s absence, few people tried to sway our decision due to our lack of a vote. Overall, playing Ragnilda was challenging and gave a different perspective on the struggles of women from the early 1800s.
Garrett and Matt: Our character, Tormod Hersdal, is the leader of the Haugian movement in the local area. Tormod’s goal is to seek religious freedom in the United States for his community without the overbearing control of the Lutheran Church of Norway. However, Tormod must act discreetly without being detected by Church officials. Through secret conversations about the importance of religious freedom, secret notes being passed during the town hall meeting, and religious handouts displaying the merits of life in the United States, Tormod quietly urges the townsfolk to look towards a future in the United States.
Garrett: I found that playing this character required strategy in who I spoke to and to whom I disclosed my religious influence. In order to fly under the radar, I appealed to other reasons to move to the United States, such as cheap farmland and the safety of steamship transportation. I found the times between speeches, where characters mingled with intention, to be an exciting aspect of the roleplay and arguably the most critical moments of this decision.
Matt: I got to be a part of the second round and had a similar but different experience from Garrett. Due to the nature of our secret objective, instead of individually handing out our flyers, I handed some to my fellow Haugianers to distribute to people in the stay group. In doing so, I could avoid attracting attention from the church. For the secret notes, I handed those out individually and never ended up getting caught. However, I’m unsure how much influence our handouts and secret notes actually had on the final vote.
In the first round of the game, the vote was very close, with a single vote breaking the tie and leading to the community’s decision to leave Norway. At the end of the second round, the Go faction won with a shocking final count of 7 to 2.
