– “It was an adventurous life. Spring and fall in Chicago, winter in Florida, summer in Europe […]. After years of travel, luxury, and a daily life that seemed lifted straight from a novel, there came a day when Severine felt it in her body: now she had to go home.” The quote offers a glimpse into Severine’s life as a lady companion in America and is taken from the book Remember the Ladies! (2025) by Inger-Kristine Riber and Reidun Horvei (2025, p. 29). The book portrays a previously overlooked part of Norwegian emigration history during the period 1825–1925.
Severine Seljestad was one of more than 750,000 Norwegians who emigrated to America between 1836 and 1915 (Store norske leksikon). She was also among those who returned home, and she is one of the ten women whose lives and voices come alive in Remember the Ladies!
In the days leading up to Christmas, we meet one of the book’s ten Norwegian women each day. They represent a large and diverse group of female voices that are only now, at the 200th anniversary of Norwegian emigration to America, beginning to be heard.
The book Remember the Ladies is now available
The book "Remember the Ladies: Sown in the Past, Harvested in the Future" gives voice to some of the Norwegian women who emigrated to America between 1825 and 1925. Through vivid retellings, you encounter lives that stretch from fjords and mountains to open plains and great cities—and that still move us today.
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In Norwegian emigration history, women were long given little space—but they carried just as much as men: children, language, hope, work, everyday life, and community. Remember the Ladies! is a part ofVågespel– an initiative that brings forward the voices of a selected group of Norwegian emigrant women from Western Norway.
Paperback · 116 pages
Authors: Inger-Kristine Riber and Reidun Horvei
Original language: Norwegian (Nynorsk)
Translation: Katherine Jane Hanson
Publisher: Onen Studio
Year of publication: 2025
The English version is only available in the United States.