From America to Norway I

Norwegian–American Immigrant Letters 1838-1914, Volume I: 1838-1870

2013

Orm Øverland, Editor

The experience of early Norwegian–American immigrants, told in their letters home

Seeking economic improvement or a fresh start, following family or news of a land of opportunity, Norwegians left their homeland for America in great numbers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—and they wrote home about it. In this volume, covering 1838 to 1870, Norwegian immigrants relate the successes, challenges, and sorrows of their new life to the communities they left behind.

Øverland’s careful attention to detail and useful contextualization make this volume a welcome addition to the canon.

Journal of American Ethnic History

Seeking economic improvement or a fresh start, following family or news of a land of opportunity, Norwegians left their homeland for America in great numbers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They settled in Pennsylvania and Illinois and moved on to Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas, finding in the preire or prærie a promising and hospitable landscape—and they wrote home about it.

From these letters—some published in newspapers or newsletters, most found on family farms and in homes held for generation after generation—comes a polyphonic history of Norwegian immigration. Sent from towns and cities and rural outposts, from Chicago and Minneapolis (the Norwegian-American “capital”), from Four Mile Prairie, Texas, and Coon Prairie, Wisconsin, from Hot Creek, Nevada, and Rock Creek, Iowa, and from Christiana, Wisconsin, to Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, these letters were concerned with matters from the price of postage to the question of picking up stakes and moving halfway around the world and afford an intimate view of the vast and varied experience of Norwegian immigrants settling in this country.

In this volume, edited and translated by Orm Øverland and covering the period from 1838 to 1870, Norwegian immigrants relate the successes, challenges, and sorrows of their new life to the communities they left behind.

Orm Øverland is professor emeritus of American literature at the University of Bergen in Norway. Among his books are The Western Home: A Literary History of Norwegian America and Immigrant Minds, American Identities: Making the United States Home, 1870-1930.

Øverland’s careful attention to detail and useful contextualization make this volume a welcome addition to the canon.

Journal of American Ethnic History

This book’s greatest strength is that it brings together a large group of letters. The vernacular language and varied experiences in the letters depict both the individual and collective immigrant experience.

Pacific Northwest Quarterly