In the 1860s, commerce shifted in the Great Lakes. Railroads had penetrated the West and cut into the profitable freight businesses. The most dramatic and far-reaching consequence of the lean years of the late 1850s and early 1860s was the introduction of the "consort system," and the development of specialized bulk freight carriers. Enormous quantities of […]
So you are a proud Norwegian. You may have traced your family back 2-3 generations back to the family farm in Norway . But where did your family live before that- when half or Europe was covered in ice.? Where did you come from? Our speaker, Craig Gjerde, will lead us back about two million […]
Norwegians were the earliest and most numerous of the Scandinavian peoples to settle in Wisconsin. In 1840, there were already two sizable communities, Rock Prairie and Jefferson Prairie, in Rock County. About the same time, 40 Norwegian families from Upper Telemarken district settled near Lake Muskego in Waukesha County, and the following year, the largest […]
First released on March 3, 1948 this film tells the story of the Hanson family who were Norwegian immigrants, living in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th century. Mama Marta Hanson (Irene Dunne) keeps a firm but loving hand on her household of four children, a devoted husband (Philip Dorn) and a […]
The origins of bunad tradition in Norway are many. Some bunad designs have historical affiliations to what kind of fabrics and materials that were available at the time, while others are composed based on findings from ancient textiles. But before the bunad came the" folkdrakt" or folk dress worn by the people in the rural […]