Prelude

^{by Inger-Kristine Riber and Reidun Horvei}

It began with a sense of unease. A restless pull in the air, a hollow ache in the stomach that could not be quieted. Norway was a beautiful land, but for many, it was also a narrow one. Fjords and mountains that held people in place, soil that gave too little, winters that lasted too long.

So they turned westward. America. A land that was as much a myth as it was a reality. Some had heard of it from letters, others from sailors—whispers of something different waiting across the ocean. Perhaps not only riches, but space to breathe, a life to shape on their own.

The first ship was small, but the dream was vast. Restauration set sail from Stavanger in 1825, carrying with it the hopes of an entire people. It began there—with 52 souls aboard a vessel far too small. And then, more came. Hundreds, thousands. From mountain villages, fjord arms, barren farmlands in the west, deep forests in the east, and fishing settlements in the north. They left the old world behind, but they carried it with them—the language, the songs, the memory of those who stayed behind.

They found something new, though not always what they had dreamed of. America was vast, yes, but it was also harsh. The land needed clearing, the winters were biting, not all grew wealthy, not all found happiness. Some sent letters home about soil so black you could dig gold with your hands—others never wrote again.

A hundred years passed. From those first ones to cross the ocean on ships that had no business braving the sea, to the last who arrived with steamship tickets in hand. A hundred years of hope, toil, loss, and new roots stretching deep into foreign soil. In the end, America was no longer just a place they traveled to—it became a place they belonged. They were no longer just Norwegians. They were Norwegian-Americans.

And one day, their children looked out over the lakes of Minnesota or the plains of Dakota and thought—home is here.

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A Journey Begins

I. 1825-1865

It was a night in early July 1825. A veil of mist hung low over the fjord, and the waves lapped softly against the worn wooden planks of the Stavanger dock. A small ship, no larger than a fishing boat but carrying bold dreams, was ready to cast off. They called her Restauration, and onboard were 52 souls, prepared to break ties with old life—the mountains, the churches, the neighbors, and everything they had ever known. Some had never seen the sea before; others were sailors with rough hands and hardened resolve. But they all shared the same hope: that beyond the horizon, across the great ocean, something better awaited.

Cleng Peerson was not among them. He had gone ahead, walking mile after mile on American soil, imagining—sometimes with conviction, sometimes with doubt—a new homeland for his people. Now he stood in New York, sweat dampening his shirt, as he pleaded his case to the American Quakers:
"They are coming soon, I swear! They come with dreams larger than their ship, larger than the ocean itself!"

Between Dream and Reality

When Restauration sailed into New York Harbor on October 9, the city seemed to stare at them in disbelief. They had arrived on the wrong ship, at the wrong time, without the right papers—and with far more people on board than the law allowed. The Coast Guard detained them, the ship was confiscated, and an American in a large hat looked at the weary Norwegians and sighed,
"Are you serious? Was this really your plan?"

It took time to untangle their troubles, but Cleng Peerson worked his magic. President John Quincy Adams himself was called in, documents were signed, and in the end, the Norwegians stood as free men and women, facing a single question: What now?

Kendall, a tangle of wilderness in upstate New York, became their first settlement. There, they found the land they had longed for—but also problems they had never imagined. The forests stretched endlessly in every direction, ancient trees towering over them like silent witnesses in the fog. They had planned to be farmers from day one, but now they faced a world that needed to be cleared before it could be cultivated. Still, the dream burned bright. And what was a determined Norwegian if not a soul stubborn enough to push forward, even in the face of impossible odds?

Letters from the New World

The first years were hard. People fell ill, some died. They missed herring barrels and porridge, church bells and the cold winds of Sunnmøre. Some stood silent, staring at the horizon, whispering, "I knew it." But most of them wrote letters. And these letters were not filled with complaints. No, they were tiny miracles, written in shaky handwriting with trembling excitement. "The soil is dark and rich," wrote Gjert Hovland. "The grain grows faster than one can believe, and I have a field that will yield enough to feed an entire village!"

These letters became sparks in a dry forest. When they arrived in Norway, they were read over and over until the paper softened at the edges. They passed from hand to hand, from farmhouse to farmhouse. "He writes it himself," a farmer in Rogaland said, holding the letter up to the dim candlelight. "He has land, he has grain, and he begs us to follow."

And they came!

Fox River: The First Snowflakes

In 1833, Cleng Peerson set out again, this time heading west—an untamed migratory bird, restless as ever. He walked, as he preferred, eyes scanning the sky and the land. Eventually, he found a valley deep in Illinois, where the soil was soft, the earth fertile, and the prairie grass swayed high in the wind. "Here," he told himself, "they will build their homes." And in the years that followed, they came. From Kendall, from Norway, from all corners of the old world. They cut down trees, built houses, planted grain. And then, one day, the first snow fell.

That was when they knew. They had found a place to stay. In America. On land they could call their own.

A New Lineage

They were not yet Americans. They carried Norway in their hearts, in the songs they sang, in the way they held a knife in their right hand and a fork in their left. But their children grew up on the prairie, ran barefoot through the tall grass, spoke English. More letters arrived home, more Norwegians crossed the sea. And slowly, imperceptibly, Norway became just a song they sang on dark winter nights, when the prairie wind howled outside their cabins.

A hundred years later, their descendants no longer called themselves Norwegians but Norwegian-Americans. Another hundred years after that, they would simply be Americans. But they would still remember. Because their story didn’t begin in America. It began here. It began in Stavanger, on a July night in 1825, when 52 souls stepped aboard Restauration and sailed into the unknown—not knowing what awaited them, only that it had to be better than what they left behind.

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The Great Leap

II. 1865-1900

The steamships docked with a tremor that made the harbor shudder. Thick smoke lingered over New York as one emigrant ship after another unloaded its passengers. By 1866, the old sailing ships had received their final salute—now, steam ruled the waves. America itself seemed to be simmering, boiling over with dreams, while the valleys of Norway slowly drained, as if someone had opened a sluice gate toward the West.

It was no longer just the hardy western Norwegians who dared to embark on the great journey. Now they came from the east, from Trøndelag, from the far north—every stretch of Norway’s long coastline had heard the stories of fertile land and endless skies in the Midwest. On the docks in Chicago, people arrived from all directions, and between the cries of horse-drawn carriages and the wailing steam whistles in the evening air, one could hear languages from all across Europe.

In a dimly lit basement in Chicago, Knud Langeland sat hunched over a sheet of paper, as if carrying an entire world on his back. He was the editor of Skandinaven, the new newspaper that would soon find its way into thousands of Norwegian homes across this vast country. He knew his people needed news, reassurance, and a taste of home. With ink-stained fingers, he wrote about everything: about the soil in Minnesota, about the high wages in Wisconsin, about the first deaths among Norwegians who never found their footing and longed themselves into an early grave. He knew the truth had to be told—because America did not only hold dreams.

A New Home in Texas

The heat in Texas was different. It hung over the plains like a thick blanket, and the Norwegians who had settled in Brownsboro and Four Mile Prairie sweated more than they ever had in the mountain farms back home. They planted corn and cotton, but they never quite felt at home. And some did not only battle the weather, but something far more terrifying.

One day in 1867, Ole T. Nystel disappeared. Fourteen years old, barely old enough to be called a man, he was taken by Comanche warriors in Bosque County. His family searched for him for months, and when he finally returned, his eyes had seen more than any Norwegian boy should. He spoke little, but his brother said that Ole never wore his shoes the same way again. "He walked differently," he said, "as if he never truly found the ground he had once known."

Words and Songs

That same year, far to the north in Wisconsin, the first illustrated Norwegian magazine was published. Billed-Magazin spread stories and drawings among the Norwegian settlements, and people read every page as if it were gold. Here, they could read Svein Nilsson’s accounts of new settlements, see images of women in bunads they had long since packed away, and hear echoes of something they had lost.

In Chicago, they sang. At the Norwegian Dramatic Association, plays were staged, and poetry was recited, but it was the singing that filled the room. A wave of male voices in perfect harmony, forged from longing and expectation. They called themselves Normanna Sangerkor, and in 1869, they became the first organized Norwegian choir in America. They sang as the snow melted in La Crosse, Wisconsin. They sang as the railroads stretched further and further westward. They sang to remember—and to keep from forgetting who they were.

Almost Home

By the 1870s, Scandinavians were the largest ethnic group in Minnesota. The Norwegians, always the most numerous, had found their plots of land, built their churches, and begun to see this land as their own. But some always longed for home. On the walls of their cabins hung pictures of fjords and mountains, of farms they no longer owned. On the table lay letters from relatives writing about life back home. "They’ve built a new road," one might say. "The priest died. It was a beautiful spring." And someone, somewhere, would sit by the window, staring out, thinking: "Maybe one day. Maybe one day, I’ll go back."

But most never did. They kept building, kept singing, kept writing new letters. And slowly, the dream of Norway melted into the reality of America.

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A New Era

III. 1900-1925

It began as a breeze and grew into a storm. At the turn of the 20th century, Norwegian immigration to America reached its peak, and every ship leaving Kristiania Harbor was filled with hope, fear, and worn trunks packed with memories from home. Some left for a better future, others to escape what lay behind.

1902 – The Bygdelag Movement Begins

The first bygdelag, Valdres Samband, was founded as a gathering place for emigrants who needed something familiar in the unknown. On the weary shoulders of newcomers lay the longing for the mountains and villages they had left behind. Year after year, the bygdelag grew, bringing with them music, dance, and storytelling that carried the Norwegian heritage forward.

Agnes Mathilde Wergeland, a woman with academic dreams greater than the mountains she had left, became a professor of history and French at the University of Wyoming. She was not the first, but she paved the way.

1903 – A Community on the Rise

In Minneapolis, Det Norske Selskab (The Norwegian Society) was founded. Waldemar Ager, with a pen as sharp as a winter wind, fought to keep Norwegian culture alive. Newspapers, choirs, and associations sprang up like aspen leaves in the breeze, and Sons of Norway, edited by Laurits Stavnheim, began spreading its message—a Norwegian bond in a foreign land.

1905 – The Dissolution of the Union and a Surge of Nationalism

When Norway broke away from Sweden in 1905, nationalism surged like wildfire through the Norwegian settlements in America. Norwegian flags waved in the streets of Chicago and Minneapolis. The Norwegian Student Choir sang its way through the Midwest, and in Decorah, Iowa, Symra was founded—another effort to preserve the Norwegian language.

1913 – New Pathways Across the Ocean

With the establishment of Den Norske Amerikalinje (The Norwegian America Line), Norwegians could now sail directly from Norway. While the old wooden sailing ships had carried emigrants across the waves for forty long days, the journey was now shorter and safer. Norwegians in America could return home for summer visits—but home did not always look the way they remembered.

1914 – Centennial Celebrations and Patriotism

Commemorations, grand gatherings, powerful speeches. In 1914, a hundred years had passed since Eidsvoll. A pavilion was built in Frogner Park for Det utflyttede Norge—"Norway Abroad." Newspapers in the Midwest reported on jubilant celebrations where presidents and governors praised Norwegian immigrants as pioneers. Yet, the language was already beginning to fade. The children spoke English, and those returning from Norway realized that their homeland was no longer their home.

1917 – The Church Unites

The Norwegian church in America had always been divided into sects, but in 1917, three major branches merged into The Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. Faith and traditions were preserved, but the language began to change. Services gradually shifted to English, and for the first time, a Norwegian pastor stood before his congregation and said, "Our Father, who art in heaven..."

1924 – Rølvaag and the Pioneers’ Struggles

Ole E. Rølvaag published his first novel about pioneer life on the prairie, I de dage (In Those Days). He captured the fate of those who had left everything familiar behind and cast themselves into the unknown. He described the cold, the hardships, and the longing for something that would never return. Within a few decades, he became the foremost interpreter of the Norwegian immigrant experience.

1925 – The Peak and the End of an Era

The centennial of Norwegian emigration was celebrated with a grand exhibition in Minneapolis/St. Paul. President Calvin Coolidge spoke warmly of the Norwegian pioneers who had helped build America. In New York, 10,000 Norwegians marched with banners along 4th Avenue. But at the same time, a new realization began to set in: perhaps they were no longer just Norwegians? Had they become Americans?

The Norwegian dream had not disappeared. It had simply become something else.

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Postlude

Time stretches back to the first ship that crossed the Atlantic—to those who made the great choice, who tore themselves away from the mountains and fjords and set their course westward, where their dreams were greater than the lives they had left behind.

Now, two hundred years later, America is no longer an unfamiliar land to us. It is family, roots, stories we have heard from grandparents and old letters. The villages they left have changed, and the settlements they built have grown into towns, roads, communities. Their names are found on street signs, gravestones, and in phone books. Those who left became something new, yet they never truly forgot where they came from.

This is how it was then, and how it will always be. People move, carrying history within them, letting it grow, break free, become something else. But two hundred years after Restauration set sail from Stavanger, we stand here and look back. We know that to leave is not just to depart—it is to create something new.

And as we honor this history, we also know that it is not over. People are still on the move—some seeking safety, others chasing a dream. But every single one of them carries something from the place they left behind. And one day, at another anniversary, someone will look back at us, at our time, and ask: What did they take with them? What did they leave behind?

This is a story that will be told again and again.

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_{Header image: Vågen in Stavanger, ca. 1860. Unknown photographer, unknown owner.}