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Various editions of the Bible and psalm books collected from various Norwegian-American families, listed by owners when possible, city of publication, and date of publication.
Papers of a native of Urland parish, Leon township, Goodhue county, Minn., who graduated from St. Olaf college and received a PH. D. from the University of Wisconsin for his dissertation on Rasmus B. Anderson, which was published by the NAHA in 1966. He taught Norwegian at St. Olaf from 1954 until retirement, and served as executive secretary of the Association from 1959 to 1999.
Brief, heavily illustrated articles on many aspects of the history and current situation of the Chippewa Valley region. Of particular interest are "Editor Ager: A Norwegian Advocate" by Clarence Kilde and "Norwegian folk culture being kept alive" by Donald Gilbertson.
Also includes the book Our Story, 1776-1976: The Chippewa Valley and Beyond, edited by Arnie Hoffman.
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.