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| Norwegian Immigration in the Nineteenth Century |
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Background:
For most Norwegians in the nineteenth century, America
remained a remote and exotic place until the first immigrants
began to write home. These "American letters,"
which traveled from the immigrants back to former neighbors,
friends, and family in the old country and which were
freely shared with others, had a great influence on the
extent and nature of nineteenth century migration from
Europe, and especially from Norway, to the United States.
Once these early Norwegian immigrant letters reached Norway,
quite a few of them were transformed into pamphlets and
used as emigrant guides for the rural class. Many of the
letters were read aloud, copied by hand, or printed in
newspapers, where they entered the public debate on immigration.
Ole Rynning's letters were made into a booklet -- True
Account of America for the Information and Help of Peasant
and Commoner Written by a Norwegian Who Arrived there
in the Month of June, 1837.
During the winter of 1837, only eight months after Rynning
had landed in New York, he wrote his thoughts on America
from his sickbed in Beaver Creek, Illinois. (For a detailed
look at Ole Rynning see http://nabo.nb.no/trip?_b=EMITEKST&_f=www_sub&r=635&delnr=2).
In the spring of 1838, Ansten Nattestad, a friend of Ole
Rynning, made a trip back to Norway to visit friends and
relatives taking with him Rynning's writings, as well
as letters from nearly all the earlier Norwegian emigrants
whom he had met. This trip was instrumental in disseminating
information about America in Norway. Among the Norwegian
lower classes in the 1830s little was known of America,
so there was great eagerness to get definite information
on the whole emigration process, and especially on the
opportunities in the new land.
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