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Browse Items (14 total)
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Foreign Language Information Service (Norwegian Bureau) reports, 1925-1931
Reports to Norwegian immigrants concerning United States immigration laws, naturalization process, suffrage, legal and property rights, labor laws, agriculture, education, and languages. Includes: Letters, 1925 December 22-1931 June 23 Letters, no. 2132-no. 2191, 1925-1931 Letters, no. 1950-no. 2127, 1925-1931 Letters, no. 1234-no. 1949, 1925-1931 Reports, creamery and tobacco pool, 1906-1933 -
Batalden family papers, 1893-1920
Includes:
- Letters from Christian Batalden Meyer Batalden, 1893-1896
- Christian immigrated to the US from Norway in 1871. Meyer was born in Minnesota in 1873. While Meyer attended business school in Wilder, MN in 1893, Christian wrote to him (24 letters). All in Norwegian.
- Includes transcriptions.
- Highwater Lutheran Church, circa 1899
- Letters from the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America regarding synod business, notes which may be church council minutes, lists of members, and more. All in Norwegian.
- Includes transcriptions.
- Cassette tape, circa 1990
- A Norwegian friend translated the letters by reading them onto the tape.
- A 1900 catalog which was likely used to order furnishings and architectural items for the new church building.
- Letters from Christian Batalden Meyer Batalden, 1893-1896
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Jim Hanson collection, 2019
"About Florence," by Jim Hanson, 2019.
Jim Hanson’s "About Florence" is an extraordinary story, about redemption and abandonment, about lives cut short and lives lived to their fullest, and about the things that are told and the things that were not.. Set against the backdrop of Chicago, from the late nineteenth century till now, it tells of a widow’s migration from Norway with her three daughters and the family they were able to create. Charming vintage photographs help this narrative poem sketch the lives of these working women who did not count for much in their world, and the lives of their children and grandchildren. It’s a journey of discovery that sheds light on how we live today, and how women and immigrants continue to struggle, against all odds, to make a place in America. From the back cover: “To want to tell a story, when the lines of a story aren’t even visible. To use what you know about your family to provide something, anything, to flesh it out. To make some lucky discoveries that move the story forward. And then to see your forebears plainly. To grasp who they were, and how they reacted to what happened in their lives. To stand with them, face to face.” -
Lee family history, 1869-1980
"Lee family history: The descendants of Thorvald J. and Mathilda Lee (the history of North Dakota Homesteaders") by H. Minerva Hogstad Norman and Alvin T.M. Lee. -
Ole E. Rølvaag papers, 1896-2020
Biography/History:
Ole Edvart Rølvaag was born in a fishing village on Dønna, Norway, on April 22, 1876. He immigrated to the United States in 1896 and worked as a farmhand in South Dakota from 1896–98. After graduating from Augustana Academy in Canton, South Dakota, in 1901, Rølvaag earned a B.A. from St. Olaf College in 1905 and returned to the college to earn a M.A. in 1910. Between his B.A. and M.A., he studied at the University of Christiania.
From 1906 to 1931, he served as a professor of Norwegian language and literature at St. Olaf. During his career he authored Norwegian language textbooks and novels, essays, and poems about the Norwegian-American immigrant experience. Two of his novels, Giants in the Earth (1927) and Peder Victorious (1929), received international acclaim as accounts of immigrant pioneer life on the Dakota prairies in the 1870s.
Rølvaag worked to preserve and enrich Norwegian-American culture during his lifetime. He helped found the Society for Norwegian Language and Culture in 1910 and the Norwegian-American Historical Association in 1925. In 1926, Rølvaag was knighted (Order of St. Olav) by King Haakon VII of Norway.
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Gulbrand Loken clipping, 1980-1982
A review of Loken's "From Fjord to Frontier, A History of Norwegians in Canada." Loken, the son of immigrants to Canada from Eidsvoll, Norway, became professor of Educational Administration at Calgary University in 1971.
His book is the first comprehensive account of Norwegian migration to Canada. It centers on the western provinces that have the greatest concentration of Norwegians.
Also includes a copy of the publication within folder. -
June Kompas papers, 1887-1977
Biographical information about a Norwegian-American woman who grew up in the home of her immigrant grandparents, Peter (1848-1936) and Martha Petersen (1854-1951), at Manistee, Michigan. Includes notes, clippings, and photographs. -
John Storseth papers, 1929-1944
Manuscripts of a Norwegian-born farmer, lumberman, and self-taught student of literature and religion: "Old Homes and New" and its Norwegian counterpart, "Fra gammel og ny tid i Norge og Amerika," is an autobiography, depicting the problems of adjustments between Norwegian and American cultures; "The Ancients" and "The Mysteries of Space," are sketches on science and astrology; "Djævelskab" is an assortment of sketches. Excerpts from the autobiography were published in "Studies and Records," volume 13, 1943. NB: See Storseth's "Stemninger og minner" in Trønderlagets aarbok 1940-41," pp. 7-20. -
Lars Nielssen Nesseim (Nesheim) papers, 1838-1961
Biography/History:
Lars Nielsen Nesheim, a farmer in Øvre Lemme in Voss, Norway, was responsible for copying all of these letters. A man by the name of Ivar Davidson Hustvedt (who donated one copy to NAHA) knew the man personally, and described Nesheim as a self-taught man, and as an "original.” Hustvedt said Nesheim had "bookshelves that reach from the floor up to the ceiling filling two walls" and “he spared no effort, often traveling great distances in order to get hold of these letters, as a loan or by other means, so he could copy them. He bound these copies into books” These letters were sent from America, and often helped convince or deter a person from emigrating. All of them are carefully copied in gothic script using different colors of ink.Scope and Content:
The Lars Nielseen Nesseim papers consist of two volumes of copied immigrant letters. One volume was donated by Ivar Davidson Hustvedt, and the other by Rev. Sven Tverberg. The two volumes of America letters were written during the 1840s to friends and relatives in Voss and copied into books by Nesseim. Sophie Boe made typed transcriptions and translations of the Tverberg volume. Among the letters are some by Elling Eielsen, Sjur Jørgensen Haaeim, and John Haldorsen Quileqval, uncle of Knut Nelson.Correspondence between Sophie Boe, O.E. Rølvaag, and Theordore Blegen about the Tverberg volume, and between Blegen and the Chicago Historical Society (now Chicago History Museum) about the Ekse volume. Note, the volume donated by Ida S. Ekse to the Chicago Historical Society may be the Lars Davidsen Reque volume. Two other volumes are at the Voss Folk Museum.
Volume 1 and volume 2 of the copied immigrant letters is available online. -
Knut Halverson diary, 1872-1879
A kept by an immigrant from Telemark who came to Wisconsin in 1865. The file includes an edited translation with an introduction by Malcolm Rosholt, who published it in the "Iola Herald," Iola, Wisconsin (date unknown).
Two volumes of a journal or diary kept by a 1865 emigrant from Telemark who settled in the "Indian Land [Native American]" in central Wisconsin, Portage County. The first volume covers May 1872-April 1878. The second volume covers 1890-1896, with occasional entries (not always chronological) through 1934 A letter (May 9, 1955) from a niece, Hannah Halvorson Teslow, gives information about the family. Malcolm Rosholt, who knew Halverson and gave the diaries, translated the first volume. Two versions of the translation, with introductions and notes, are included (55,56 p.).
Most of the translation was published in the "Iola Herald" in spring 1970. Rosholt published an article, "A pioneer diary from Wisconsin," in "Norwegian-American Studies," volume 21 (1962), pp. 198-211. He says the diary "may be the most significant early document relating to Portage County, Wisconsin, in the Norwegian language" for the period, giving a "fairly comprehensive picture of pioneer farm life on the Wisconsin frontier." The second volume, which was discovered later, has not been translated except for a few pages. The surname is spelling variously; this is the one used in Rosholt's article.