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M. NOR ,E " co1 [ECTIO VT'ny Celebrate the lforwekictn-A::neri can Centennial in 19�5 '? A. In troduc ti on: The.. 1�orwet;ian-A.:nerican Centennial in 19��5. In 1925 there will be held a lforwegia.n-A:1erica.n Centennial. No doubt the lforwegians of P..:.1erica will ha.ve co.aue.norative celebrations here and tnere throu.ghout the 1 ength and ·bread th of the United States and Canada, but the Centennial proper will be neld at t.ae ,,:innesota State Fair Grounds, at Harnline, -Hnnesota, on Sunday, s,fonday and Tuesda.y, June 7th, 8th and 9th. The purpose of the Centennial is, in the first place�cmrunemorate the coming of the sloop 11 Restaurationen i which set sail fro..,1 Stavancer, :rrorvray, July 4, 18�5, ancl arrived at :i.:ew York, Oct. 9, with a car6o of :iforwegian i.rrnigra.nts,11:lm �m:a,1 the beginning of an uninterrupted stream of rnigration from 'Ihe l)Urpose ofACentennial is, in the rfecond place, 1:orway to America. to pay a fitting tribute to the lforwee;ian pioneers in A".1erica.i, the 750,000 w:i10 came across from Horway, besides th eir children bbrn here, who have for a, whole century toiled fai t?1fully in mam� 2..nd done their share the :naking of A.11erica. 1. Tne Sloo-pers. The bloopers were the 53 people, i:nen , women and c11ildren, that c1:tme over in the sloop 0 Restaurationen11 , an old, crnzy bark of tons, so :poor tha.t the captain was arrested only 400 when he landed in i;ew York for 11.aving attempted to sail across the sea with so many souls on board Tne story of these Sloopers is full of realism a nd romanticism,sure to instruct a,nd inspire all who hear it and read it. The 53 who landed in -Tew York §19 years ago are all dead and resting from trieir labors, but a number of the children of the first generation are still alive, besides children of the second , third and fourth generations, I some host, scattered from coast to coast. nigration and Pioneer Work. �. A Century ot.Iui::. I ci, �1/1' .l!'rom Norway as a Land. Norway has been the home\and of the Norwegians for 2000 years and more. It is a wonderful little land, beautiful and beloved, illustrious in story and song. The land is small, approximately 1/450 of the earth's land area. Siberia and Sahara are much larger, but count for less; Palestine and Greece are much smaller 1 � b11t antric'r more. No,rway h as great resources ancl marvello11s _ scenery. It has a place in history that cannot be exactly measured in sqaare miles. :Norway occupies a larger place in history than on the map. It has bred a healthy � strong1 -and intellectual, moral, , religeous1� industrious, thrifty, independent and democratic people. �•Hardy lsfor.semen''.Y Edna LyJiicalls them. ''As fine a race, both physically and intellectually ,as is found in any country", ,, says Samu.el J.Becket. \le join with Bjornson in singing of this land: "There lies a fair land 1 neath the old glacial snow, the�ing- life we find but in the narrow cleft low; The ocean rolls on with its saga-roar,-- Than this lan� no mother can loved be more ( /. 2. From the Norwegians as a People. The population of Norway is small-only 1/650 of the population N� of the earth. Just a handful. The� are not multitudinous as are their coUBins, the Uermans and the �nglish. The immigration to Norway has always been small; the emmigration has always been great. EthnographicallyJthe Norvrregia �s ar of the same family as the �nglish and the Uermans, namely1Teutons. Ph ysically,1they are a hardy and vigorous race. Intellectually they are like the other / �Teutons, highly endowed,with a boundless capacity for civilization. MorallY.,they are a clean, chaste race, with the highest moral standards, the most tender conscience. They do not laugh at vice, but obey the law of the land. urime is almost unknown in 1\forway and less liquor is consumed in Norway than any other country, except Finland. Heligiously1they are God-fearing--in �der days,according to their Norse �ythology, the highest type of natural religion recorded; and in our day 1according to the �utheran faith, the purest type of�hristianity ever formulated. �ocially they are a 1 friendly, hospitable, thrifty, home-loving race, reverencing wt:raanhoom and respecting conjugal ties. They arefraithful unto death, as in J1jall' s �aga. )ajall was besieged by his enemies1who threatened to burn him up in his hou.se. 'J:h informed. him that his 1 wife cotJ_ld come out of the house and be�afe, but she said no, she had stayed by him throughout a long life and therefore she would' stay by him to the end, so they both laid dov;m on their werEfconsumed in the flames. ,. bed and Industrially they love to work at any 1 honest calling, anc1, as R. 1. Stevenson says, nThey ki1ov1 what pleasnre is1for they have clone good work'1• Politically they are 1 extremely independent and democratic, anxious to make their own laws and willing to abide by them, loyal to their chosen rulers1 patriotically living for their country in times of peace and lying for it in times of war. Lingt1istically1they are Teutons of the purest type, and their written language 1 as well as its dialects, is clear, strong, beatJ_tiful, very simple,ya fully· adequate to ex­ press the widest range of thought Bnd feeling. Culturally1they have from the dawn of their history been far advanced in civilization �and have com:ributed lavishly to art, science and literature, affecting the spiritual uplift and the material progress of the vrorld. 3. From their Place in History. The history of the Nor�egians really begins with the Viking Age. This lasted approximately from 800 to 1100 A.D. During this time NorITay was the most conspicuous land in �urope. It eetabliru1ed colonies to the East, South and �le st, in Finland, Russia, Greece,T->al-est,'-ne, Italy, France, Spain, Scotland, Dngland, Ireland, Wales, the Shetlands, Orkneys, Hebrides, Faroes, Iceland, Greenland and Vinland. It did not keep these colonies as a colonial empiro, but gave them to the races of Europejand wherever these Norvregian colonists got rli� soi· 1 a new and vigorous • • • 1 1za • tion c1v1 • a foo t•in� we.sprang up 011 � 1 in which individual freedom, democratic government, protection of fundamental institutions,Aloyal obediance to constitutions were conspicuous. Says Boy0so1 of these early Vikings: 11 It is those conquering Vikings who have demonstrated the historical� Uorway, and indemnifiec1. the world for the misery brought upon it. The ability to endure discipline without loss of self-respect, voluntary subordination for mutunl benefit, ana. the pov10r of or­ derly organization b8sed upon these questions. These are the contributions of the Norse Vikings to the political life of Europe. The breath of new life which the Vikings infused into history· lives toda� in Norway, ln .i;.;nglano./and in America. II. That ,le May Better Appreciate Our Pioneer Fathers. We live in the day of the steam boat, the rai:road train, the auto, and airplane, tho telegraph, telephone, radio and a thousand other conveniences at our door. Our pioneer fathers had �feYv, if any, of these/conveniences and comforts •. They d.id. not;.:v,� know the language of the land, came as strangers to a strange country, and set out as a rule, far into the wilderness to make their home. Yet they made @Ood, and their story reads like a fairy tale, so wonderful is it, in heroic sacrifice and marvellous achievements. 1. Their Struggles to Conquer the Wilderness. The c;ossing�he ocean in small sail boats often lasted three and four months, k)uffeted by wave and storm,Ashort of food and �&-1 \,V4A,L-- �·- water, with sickness and pestilence on board and without a doctor. Sometimes whole families would be wiped out before reaching American soil. Unfamilia:r with the English language, and without any friends to meet them, their sitLrntion irif'l.merica at the very start �s iii.s:t seemed anytLing but favorable. They headed for the far ',:gorthwest, for Illinois, disconsin, Iowa ana. Minnesota, and still further west, .J.e�ades befor�ere was any railroad to take , b'l!---C1 i /4, tt,CCi them there. Yet they e�t-3.jr rtfade their way to the west, obtained possession of a homestead, built themselves sod cellars and log huts, tilled the soi'J_, defencied themselves agains JG the Indians� wild beasts, suffered from pestilence and prairie fires, established churches and schools, founded cities and markets, helping to make the laws of the land and obey� them, learned the langnaee of the land/ana. took on its customs, furnished the country with soldiers in times of war and a hard. working, thrifty citizenry in times of peace. In the days of the first pionears some of the best land could be hadror five cents an acre, land which now sells for $500 and more. In those days farm products could not be marketed unless they were brought to some little town, perhaps 100 miles away, withou t �any real roads by which to get there. Now the land is dotted with cities and netted with railroads and,macad.amized highways�3nstead of �� carts.A }&!ch man now can afford his Ford. These are suggestive of a thoL1sand changes which have taken place during the century, largely duf. to the struggles of the pioneer fathers �conque�e wild0rness. 2. Their Labor in Preserving Their Heritage for th· hildren • ....,____ --- The Norwegian heritage, as already stated, was considerable. More precious than gold. The piOn8er fathers considered their re­ ligion as the most precious part of their otherwise precious heritage. 11 God's Wordfs our great heritage our children shall inherit" was their motto and their daily song. In those days every Norwegian who set sail for America had placedin his strongbox or traveling bag a Bible, a hym n book, a catechism, a Church Postil and perhaps other religious books.· He diet not want to go into the wilderness without taking the Lord and His Word along with him. It is not strange to find then that on the first boat that came over here, namely the sloop"Restaurationen", even though there was no Pastor on board, one of the men was chosen to preach the Word of God. This was Ole Olson Hetlevedt, who spe nt ·_is days in America chiefly in teaching the Worc1 ofGod, preachingi t as a lay preacher and acting as an agent for the American Bi1)1e Society. In the tj:pical Norwegian home the reading of the Bible and the saying of grace before and after meat is daily practiced. Long before the Norv10gian settlements coulcl sectu·e Norwegian Lutheran pastors of their own they began to have devotional meetings in which some lay man would expound the Word. Early in the '4O's they began to secure �pastors and to organize congregations and in the period since that humble beginning over 7000 Norllegian Lutheran congregations have been organized, besides a number of congregations belonging to other denominations, and nearly 2500 men have devo&ed their lives to preaching the Gospel to these Norwegians, In order to establish their church and to preserve the heritage �£ these pioneer fathers soon realized that they wo uld have to establish schools, presses, missions, charitable institutions, associations, and other institutions to carry on this great work and this they have done with remarkable vision and fidelity. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norse-American Centennial Papers (P0562) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context P0562 Description An account of the resource <p><span>Correspondence, minutes, financial records, reports, programs, clippings, pictures, pamphlets, and scrapbooks of an association incorporated in 1925 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to supervise the observance of the arrival of the first group of Norwegian immigrants in America. The collection describes in detail the management of the celebration and gives data on observances in Chicago, Canada, Boston, and Brooklyn. Letters and essays reveal the loyalty of Norwegian Americans to their cultural heritage and the rivalry among area groups of Norwegians in America. The celebration was initiated by the bygdelags. The chief officials were Gisle Bothne, S. H. Holstad, J. A. Holvik, Elisa P. Farseth, and Mrs. Wm. O. Storlie. Correspondents include Juul Dieserud, Knut Gjerset, Hanna Astrup Larsen, and O. M. Norlie. The centennial received nationwide press coverage.</span></p> <b>Funding:</b><span><br /></span><span>Funding to digitize the Norse-American Centennial 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.</span> Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context p0562_03230 p0562_03231 p0562_03232 p0562_03233 p0562_03234 p0562_03235 p0562_03236 p0562_exh_025 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. p0562 Norse-American Centennial Papers (P0562: Exhibition Materials and Memorabilia) Title A name given to the resource Essay on "Why Celebrate the Norwegian-American Centennial in 1925?," 1925 Description An account of the resource Essay submitted to the Norse-American Centennial. Language A language of the resource Norwegian Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1925 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright Undetermined http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/ The copyright and related rights status of this Item has been reviewed by the organization that has made the Item available, but the organization was unable to make a conclusive determination as to the copyright status of the Item. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Documents (other) Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. [Indicate the cited item here]. Norse-American Centennial Papers. Norwegian American Historical Association, Northfield, Minnesota. Text