DIGITAL COLLECTIONS UPDATE
We are working to upload thousands of newly digitized materials to the digital collections. We appreciate your patience during this process! Please contact the NAHA archivist if you have any questions.
Browse Collections (58 total)
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Mons H. Fladager Correspondence (P0092)
Letters received by Fladager at Spring Grove, Minnesota, from his brother, Ole H. in Christiania and Rome, from an unidentified correspondent at Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, and from a son, Henry. Ole H. was a sculptor. Also, photocopy of letter written July 26, 1905 by his son, Henry (who had a clothing store in Srping Grove, MN) to "soskende barn Henrik."
View the items in Mons H. Fladager Correspondence (P0092)
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Berges J. Bergeson Papers (P0037)
Select materials from the Berges Julius Bergeson papers (P0037) housed at the NAHA Archives. Bergson was the founder of the Mid-west Livestock Commission Company, Sioux City, Iowa. Portions of "Rambles 'Round the Range of the Sunshine, Sandhill and Treasure States" was digitized because it includes a description of their visit to the Norse-American Centennial in June 1925.
View the items in Berges J. Bergeson Papers (P0037)
The Berges Bergeson papers are available here. -
Norse American Centennial Daughters of St. Paul Papers (P0275)
Select materials from the Norse American Centennial Daughters of St. Paul papers (P0275) housed at the NAHA Archives. The society organized in 1925 following the Norse American Centennial celebration in Minneapolis of that year. It has supported the Minnesota Leif Erikson Monument Association, entertained visiting royalty from Norway, and promoted library, music, museum, and welfare projects.
Funding to digitize was provided to the Norwegian-American Historical Association through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, a component of the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, ratified by Minnesota voters in 2008.View the items in Norse American Centennial Daughters of St. Paul Papers (P0275) -
Carl O. Pedersen Papers (P0303)
Select materials from the Carl O. Pedersen papers (P0303) housed in the NAHA Archives. Pedersen served as pastor of congregations and rector of the Lutheran Medical Center (Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses' Home and Hospital (1919-1949) in the New York City metropolitan area. In 1933 he was named Knight, First Class, and in 1948, Commander of the Order of St. Olav. He received the St. Olav Medal in 1939.
View the items in Carl O. Pedersen Papers (P0303)
The digitized manuscript deals with the observance of the Norse-American Centennial in the United States and in Norway.
The Carl O. Pedersen papers are available online here. -
Gustav M. Bruce Papers (P0463)
Select materials digitized from the Gustav Marius Bruce papers (P0463) housed at the NAHA Archives. Bruce was a Norwegian-born Lutheran clergyman, theological professor, author, editor, and lecturer. Bruce immigrated to Yankton County, Dakota Territory, in 1884; attended Fremont College, Red Wing Seminary, University of South Dakota, Temple University (Ph.D.), and Hartford Seminary (D.D.). He was a minister in South Dakota, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska parishes; teacher in the public schools of Yankton County, Jewell College, and Red Wing Seminary; professor at Luther Theological Seminary (1917-1949); vice-president of the NELCA; and held a number of offices in the church.
View the items in Gustav M. Bruce Papers (P0463)
He was publicity chairman of the Norse-American Centennial, president of Østfoldlaget for 16 years, and of Bygdelagenes Fellesraad for 5 years. He was editor of several religious periodicals, a contributor to newspapers and magazines, and the author of several books on social and educational subjects. Correspondence and reports in this collection deal with Knut Gjerset's proposed encyclopedia on Norwegian Americans, Bruce's work as publicity director of the Norse-American Centennial, Norwegian pioneers in Canada, and bilingualism in the church.
The Gustav Bruce papers are available here. -
Olaf M. Norlie Papers (P0561)
Select digitized materials from the Olaf M. Norlie papers (P0561) housed in the NAHA Archives. Olaf Norlie was an author, editor, educator, and clergyman.
View the items in Olaf M. Norlie Papers (P0561) -
Josephine Brack Papers (P0921)
Materials from the Josephine Brack papers (P0921) housed at the NAHA Archives. Brack was a St. Paul woman who was a leader in Norwegian-American organizations, especially in the Norse-American Centennial Celebration in 1925, the Norse-American Centennial Daughters of St. Paul, and the Minnesota Leif Erickson Monument Association. She held offices in all of these organizations and continued to sponsor an annual Leif Erickson celebration after the monument had been erected in 1949. She was also an officer in the group which administered Lyngblomsten Home for the Aged in St. Paul.
Funding to digitize was provided to the Norwegian-American Historical Association through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, a component of the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, ratified by Minnesota voters in 2008.View the items in Josephine Brack Papers (P0921) -
Irvin B. Anderson Papers (P1724)
Norse-American Games Program from the Irvin B. Anderson papers (P1724) housed in the NAHA Archives. Irvin B. Anderson was a St. Olaf College student, a WWII Navy Veteran, Swift County, (Minnesota)Treasurer, and son of Norwegian Immigrants.
Funding to digitize was provided to the Norwegian-American Historical Association through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, a component of the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, ratified by Minnesota voters in 2008.View the items in Irvin B. Anderson Papers (P1724) -
O.E. Rølvaag Papers (P0584)
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.
Scope and Content:
The O.E. Rølvaag papers include correspondence; notebooks; manuscripts of novels, articles, book reviews, lectures and poems; clippings, scrapbooks, essays; and general commentary on Rølvaag as author, educator, and cultural leader.
Rølvaag carried on a voluminous correspondence in both English and Norwegian on subjects such as guidance to students and aspiring writers, assistance to teachers planning courses in Norwegian, the place of Norwegian culture in American life, defense of realism in his novels, the arts of writing and translating, church affairs, immigration history, problems of publication and distribution, state and national politics, and promotion of organizations. His correspondents (approximately 1300) included land prospectors, farmers, students, teachers, editors, artists, historians, theologians, poets, novelists, diplomats, publication houses, and lecture bureaus.
Complete and/or fragments of Rølvaag's published works, including manuscripts of translations of Rølvaag novels done by others are included in the collection. Other complete or fragments of unpublished manuscripts such as articles, poems, stories, and lectures (public and classroom) include "Individualiteten," "Kildahl ved St. Olaf," "Hvis det er sandt," "When a Novelist Is in a Hurry," "Our Racial Heritage," "On Writing," "On Books," "Books and Folks," "Thoughts of Thinking People," "Nils og Astri," "Tois," and "The Romance of a Life."
The collection includes manuscripts by other authors forwarded to Rølvaag: "The Peer Strømme I Knew," by Helen Egilsrud; "My Visit to St. Olaf in 1878" by Susie C. Ellsworth; "Pioneer Life in Brown County, Minnesota" by Einar Hoidale; "Rølvaag, nordmann og amerikaner" by Gudrun Hovde Gvåle.
Because the preservation of Norwegian culture and its inculcation into American life was Rølvaag's major interest, his papers also relate to the many organizations he supported: Nordlandslag; For Fædrearven; Norsk Luthersk Landungdomsforbund; Det Litterære Samfund; Det Norske Selskap; the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study; and the Norwegian-American Historical Association, which he helped found in 1925, and was its first secretary and archivist. The seven volumes of scrapbooks consist mainly of clippings, most of them classified according to topic: reviews of separate Rølvaag novels, reviews in European papers, articles by Rølvaag, clippings about Rølvaag, memorials and tributes. "Bjarne Blehr and Norwegian-American Authors," are clippings of extended debate in "Duluth Skandinav."
Funding:
Funding to digitize a portion of the O.E. Rølvaag papers provided to the Norwegian-American Historical Association through the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, a component of the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, ratified by Minnesota voters in 2008.