In honor of the 200th anniversary of the start of Norwegian migration to America, this presentation will connect the Norwegian immigration story to the migration stories of all of the Nordic countries.

2025, the 200th anniversary of the beginning of Norwegian migration to America, is also the 200th anniversary of Modern Migration from all the Nordic countries. What started in 1825 set in motion a migration stream that expanded, by the 1870’s, to include Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, and Finns. In honor of this 200-year anniversary, this presentation looks closely at Norwegian America, using it as a window through which to examine Nordic America in general and consider what Nordic European immigrants have contributed to American life and culture.

Starting in 1638, Swedes and Finns had settled in a colony called New Sweden, present-day Wilmington, Delaware. Sailors and other adventurers, Danes, Finns, Norwegians, and Swedes continued to come in small numbers. Why did Norwegians start leaving their country in 1825? What was happening in this corner of northern Europe to push Norwegians out of their traditional homeland and set them on the path to far away America?

Nordic Europeans had been part of similar political and religious worlds. Before they emigrated, they all had been living in similar kinds of communities. Not surprisingly, as Nordic American communities sprang up across the American geography, most often, in the same locations where they lived alongside each other, they aspired to similar kinds of goals and formed similar kinds of community institutions to address the problems they encountered. Migration largely ended when World War I began. Cut off from their origin countries, the Nordic Americans became more visibly part of American life, even while remaining strongly Nordic in their viewpoints.

PRESENTER

K. Marianne Wargelin researches, lectures, and writes about Finnish America and Nordic America. She co-authored Women Who Dared: The History of Finnish American Women. She published four encyclopedia essays, and has written articles on Finnish and Finnish American history, folklore, popular culture, and the high arts. She served as an Honorary Consul of Finland, 1999-2019. She was first elected the President of FinnFestUSA in 2004.